What Darwin Didn’t Know
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September 4, 2015
Chris Hunter
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Before we started the movie “What Darwin Didn’t Know†I had a very minimal understanding of how evolution and natural selection actually worked and changed the formation of life as we know it. I also had a minimal understanding of the basics of genetics and DNA. From watching this movie I learned a number of things about evolution and genetics. I learned how mutation in a single gene can cause variations that single species and in turn that can help that species survive and thrive in that environment. Also the human genome project was a gigantic project that sparked the study of genes, but many people were shocked to find out that the entire human genome was only about 23,000 genes. This was a surprising fact to find out because humans are one of the most complex organisms and the most dominant organism on this planet. We thought that to create such a complicated organism you would need a lot more genes than just 23,000! A human genome consist of many different types of genes that are built in many different ways. There are three types of genes, the stuff gene which is the code used to create everything, the switch that tells this gene to turn on or off, and finally the boss gene that tells the switch to turn and off. I found it very interesting how one little change in the genetic sequence can cause such a dramatic change in the organism’s features. I am wondering how far people will take the science of genetics.