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.