Week 3: History of Life

In this week, I learn about the history of life. Before going into the topic, I thought the topic is about how human started to live on the earth but it is about how cell prokaryotes and eukaryotes can exist on the earth surface from inorganic substances. At first I can’t relate but after learning and listening the explanation from my lecturer I think it is quite logical and with evidence from Miller-Urey Experiments that inorganic compounds can form organic compound with some encouragement of heat and energy from natural disaster.

Miller-Urey Experiment

The issue that interest me a lot is how living thing exist from something smaller and after many years they become bigger and more complex. The event is very systematic. But I don’t believe the issue because of my religion. For me the logic stops when the organic compounds form polymer.

For this topic, I have learned the best when I  and my group mates are doing the SCL activities. It is due to before the SCL activities I think I have understand the topic but when I need to do the flow chart, I feel confused with the event that need to happen first. Then I try my best to flashback what I have learned and write what I think as the best answer. When we are discussing the answer it turned out that my group is the closest one to the answer. There are just some minor mistakes that we have to focus on. I am happy with that because that mean I understand most of the topic and just need to revise a little bit more for me to master the topic.

The flow chart 

In the nutshell, the topic is very interesting because this is the first time that I learn about it and I can digest the information clearly as the topic is very related with my course that is Cell and Molecular Biology.       

Week 2: Evolution

            This week my lecturer asked my class to watch a lecture video titled ‘Selection in Action’. I watched the video but I don’t really understand the content. So I decided to understand the content when my lecturer explains it in the class. What I know is the evolution of teosinte to corn plants by artificial selection which were breed by humans. Another example is for dogs, that vary in all sorts of interesting traits, colours, hair textures, sizes and behaviours that are useful to humans. Unfortunately, in this week, the haze was so thick. I fall sick because of the environment so, I could not go to the class. I just watched the video again and tried to understand the contents by asking my friends. For this topic, I learned it more from the internet than in my class because I didn’t get the opportunity to learn with my friends because of my health. Maybe you are wondering why I didn’t just ask my lecturer. The reason is I will not ask my lecturer or teacher if I still can find the answer on the internet or from my friends. I just want to try to think and solve the problem by myself.

My medical leave

The haze in my campus area

           

 Even I was not in the class, I still did the group assignment with my friends. The assignment was about natural selection. We need to be a cartoonist this time as we need to draw a comic on the topic. We selected tortoise as our main character.  I think it was a very fun assignment because I get to draw tortoises. I also experienced how to create funny dialogue for the tortoises. I need to put myself in the tortoises’ situation and think what they maybe thought during the natural selection process. In the meantime, I also get to know my friends better because during our discussion about the assignment, all of us just show our true self and get to know each other. At that time I also learned how to cooperate with other people and try to consider everybody’s opinion when making a decision.

Our comic

           

 If I were given the opportunity to turn back the time, firstly, I would like to take care of my health better during the haze so I can enter the class and learned with my friends. I also would like to join SCL activities with my group mates and have a clear idea about the topic. If that happen, I can write better in this entry and can tell more about my opinion.

Week 1: Evolution

            For the first week that I entered the class, I was feeling excited because that is the first time that I will meet my new lecturer and friends after more than 5 months break. I am very curious about what was the subject about. “Cellular and Development Biology”. That is the title. So for the first class my lecturer was introducing the topic that we will learn for the whole semester and happened that the first topic is EVOLUTION! I know that is a very controversial topic in biology. When I heard ‘evolution’ it reminds me straight away to Darwin and monkey turned into human. It is also opposite to my religion’s thought. So I decided to just learn it without believing in the theory. My lecturer also shared the same thought.

Charles Darwin

            Then, my lecturer asked us to watch a lecture video titled “Endless Forms Most Beautiful”. The video told me about the history of Charles Darwin’s life and his contributions. The video opened my mind that Darwin did not only propose his theory of evolution on human but includes animals and plants. His first observation was about the formation of coral reef. His idea was when a volcanic island was tossed up out of the ocean and the corals would grow around the shallow waters surrounding that island. That would form what would be called a fringing reef. And then as the land mass started to sink, a lagoon would form between the outside reef and the land and that outside reef would be a barrier reef and then as the land sank completely out of sight, that's when atolls formed. This made my perception towards Darwin change.

The formation of coral reefs

           In the 5 years of his voyage, he actually found a lot of new things that challenge his thought because the animals that he found in Galapagos island were same as in England but with different characteristics. So, when he returned to England he joined the dots together and came up with the theory of natural selection. This theory came up with the thought that maybe mutation happened and the environment favoured the mutated trait. With this theory my confusion was cleared up and I can think his theory in a logical way.

Galapagos tortoise shell evolution

Bird's beak evolution

            But the video did not explain about the theory how monkey can evolve to human. I still cannot relate the theory of natural selection with human evolution because if monkey had evolved to human, why monkey still existed nowadays as monkey evolved because of maybe the environment did not favour their characteristics. Monkeys still exist today so that means they are favourable to the environment. Why would they evolve if they didn’t involve in circumstances that they need to? That is the reason why I don’t believe Darwinism. I can accept natural selection theory but not in human situation because I believed human was created by God perfectly without any flaws.

Evolution of human from monkey

            The video had taught me a lot of new impression on Darwin and helped me to understand better when my lecturer was discussing the subject in the class. In the end of the day, I really enjoy my learning with my friends because they were very cheeky and that made the class lively. The stereotype tells that Biology class is very boring and sleepy but with my friends, we proved that Biology class is fun.