WEEK 2- EVOLUTIONARY RELATIONSHIPS OF ORGANISMS AND MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT

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EVOLUTIONType equation here .

Enormous Day! The goal of this module is to enable you to demonstrate an understanding of
how organisms are related to each other. Evolution is a key unifying principle in biology. As
Theodosius Dobzhansky once said, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”.
But what exactly, are the features of biology that make more sense through the lens of evolution? To
put it another way, what are the indications or traces that show evolution has taken place in the past
and is still happening today? Evolution is the only scientific explanation for the diversity of life. It
explains the striking similarities among vastly different forms of life, the changes that occur within
populations, and the development of new life forms.
  INFERRING RELATIONSHIPS FROM PIECES OF EVIDENCE OF EVOLUTION
 Look around you and realize the enormous diversity of life you can observe. Life on earth is
amazing and over the last 3.7 billion years or so, living organisms on Earth have diversified
and adapted to almost every environment. Though life is so diverse, all living organisms do
share certain similarities.
Living things share some biomolecules which may be used to prove relationships. These
chemicals include DNA and proteins. The building blocks of these chemicals may be analyzed
to show similarities and differences among organisms. The more similarities, the closer the
relationships.
 One of these is the protein cytochrome-c, an important enzyme found in virtually all
organisms. It is a highly conserved protein that functions in the electron transport chain system of the
mitochondria which is needed for the release of energy from food. It also performs a role in apoptosis
(programmed cell death) by being released into the cytosol activating the events of cell death. The
diagram below shows the structure of cytochrome c and its location in the mitochondrial inner
membrane.
 Basic features (cells and anatomical structures) can also be used to infer relationships among
organisms. The types of cells (prokaryotic or eukaryotic), presence and number of limbs, presence of
wings or hair can be compared to show relationships that can be plotted in a cladogram. Vertebrates
possess common structures (pharyngeal gill slits, notochord, dorsal nerve cord, and post-anal
tail) which are present in the embryo stage and are lost, modified, or become vestigial in adult forms.
The presence of these structures implies descent from a common ancestor. A complex cladogram
can then be created to show the positions of the organisms in the evolutionary tree.
Generally, scientists have combined the evidence from DNA, protein structure, fossils, early
development, and body structure to determine the evolutionary relationships among species. In most
cases, DNA and protein sequences have confirmed conclusions based on earlier evidence.
Scientists use such combined evidence to construct branching trees. A branching tree is a diagram
that shows how scientists think different groups of organisms are related.
 Misconceptions of Evolution
Despite the evidence about evolution that allows relating organisms from one another, groups
of individuals still battle about the reality about evolution yielding to various myths and
misconceptions. According to Mark Twain, “the trouble with the world is not that people know too
little; it’s that they know so many things that just aren’t so”. This is a manifestation that people know
many things but without basis and pieces of evidence.
Evolution is one of the cornerstones of the life sciences. It has been demonstrated countless
times in different ways, and it is supported by multiple items of evidence. People take issue with
evolution for all sorts of non-scientific reasons and present faulty arguments against it. Advocates of
the pseudo-scientific “Intelligent Design” theory go as far as claiming that features in forms of life on
earth were designed by an intelligent being, and were created as we find them today.
Evolution is the change in genetic makeup in a population over time. Evolution favors those
that carry the traits necessary for the given environmental situations. Evolution doesn’t occur through
fitness and survival alone, it occurs through reproduction. It happens in population.

1. Evolution Is Just a Theory

Critics of the theory of evolution dismiss its importance by purposefully confounding the
everyday usage of the word “theory” with the way scientists use the word. In science, we understand
a “theory” to be a body of thoroughly tested and verified explanations for a set of observations of the
natural world. Scientists have a theory of the atom, a theory of gravity, and the theory of relativity,
each which describes understood facts about the world. In the same way, the theory of evolution
describes facts about the living world. As such, a theory in science has survived significant efforts to
discredit it by scientists. In contrast, a “theory” in the common vernacular is a word meaning a guess
or suggested explanation. This meaning is more akin to the scientific concept of “hypothesis.” When
critics of evolution say it is “just a theory,” they are implying that there is little evidence supporting it
and that it is still in the process of rigorous testing. This is a mischaracterization.
In science, “theory” is a body of thoroughly tested and verified explanations for a set of
observations of the natural world. A theory is not a hypothesis or a prediction someone has before
testing; It is a principal formed as an attempt to explain things that are already validated by
data.Therefore, it is supported by evidence.
Evolution is not a theory that should not be invalidated or even considered as not factual. A
theory holds together a series of facts that are well-tested and explains this facts reasonably.
The first part of this statement is true. Evolution is "just a theory." The only problem with this is the common meaning of the
word theory is not the same thing as a scientific theory. In everyday speech, a theory has come to mean the same as what a scientist would call
a hypothesis. Evolution is a scientific theory, which means it has been tested over and over and has been supported by a lot of evidence over
time. Scientific theories are considered a fact, for the most part. So while evolution is "just a theory," it is also regarded as fact since it has
plenty of evidence to back it up. 
2. Humans evolved from apes
          No, your great-great-great-ancestor was not a monkey. Humans have a common ancestors
with monkey and apes, we did not come from them, we are related to them. We can consider them
as cousins since they are primates and so we are. Among the 300 or more primate species, we are
more than 90% related to the chimpanzees and bonobos. We are approximately 98.7% genetically
related, between the two, the chimpanzees have strong and sturdy physics while the banobast have
longer legs, narrowing shoulders and more slender built. Chimpanzees are aggressive and male-
dominated, bonobos are graceful and female-dominated.
Evolution theory indicates that we have common ancestors with monkeys and apes – among the
existing species, they are our closest relatives. Humans and chimpanzees share more than 90% of
their genetic sequence. But this common ancestor, which roamed the earth approximately 7m years
ago was neither a monkey nor a human, but an ape-like creature
Humans do belong to the same taxonomic family as the great apes, like gorillas. It is also true that the closest known living relative to  Homo
sapiens is the chimpanzee. However, this does not mean humans "evolved from monkeys." We share a common ancestor that is ape-like with
old world monkeys and have very little connection to new world monkeys, which branched off the phylogenetic tree nearly 40 million years
ago. that recent research suggests had traits that favored the use of tools.

3. Evolution Explains the Origin of Life

Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-biology2/chapter/misconceptions-of-evolution/

The truth is the theory of evolution explains how population change over time, and how life
diversifies the origin of species. It talks about how population adapts into its environment, develop
favorable traits and pass this trait to their off springs. The discussion on the origin of life is very broad
and most of the time,controversial as there is religion aside from science people believe in. The
religion of beliefs, each religion holds the origin of life, even sciences don’t know how the world
started. According to studies of science, it is not hard to believe the supreme entity being at the help
of everything existence.
It is a common misunderstanding that evolution includes an explanation of life’s origins.
Conversely, some of the theory’s critics believe that it cannot explain the origin of life. The theory
does not try to explain the origin of life. The theory of evolution explains how populations change over
time and how life diversifies the origin of species. It does not shed light on the beginnings of life
including the origins of the first cells, which define life. Importantly, biologists believe that the
presence of life on Earth precludes the possibility that the events that led to life on Earth can repeat
themselves because the intermediate stages would immediately become food for existing living
things.

4. Evolution can’t explain complex organs

              In reality, evolution can explain complex organs. According to Darwin, organs with similar use could have been favored by
natural selection, even if they did not provide full exact function. Example, the evolution of the eyes from organs that have an eye-like
function just like the detection of light. The simplest eye-like structure is found in single-cell protist like euglena that can detect light with
light-sensitivity spots or eye-spot. Another is eye-spots of flatworms which contain a light-sensitive pigment that allows them to detect
the shadow of their predators. Nautilus has an optic cap that captures more light towards the retina thus improving vision that allows it
to search for food. From these simple visual structures, to the more complex one like the eye of an octopus which can highly focus just
like the human eye, it can be inferred that such complex organ has evolve and has been naturally selected from simple structures that
serve the same purpose. Wings of insects and birds, the vertebrate heart, and the brain.

A common argument in favor of creationism is the evolution of the eye. A half-developed eye
would serve no function, so how can natural selection slowly create a functional eye in a step-wise
manner? Darwin himself suggested that the eye could have had its origins in organs with different
functions. Organs that allow detection of light could then have been favored by natural selection,
even if they did not provide full vision. These ideas have been proven correct many years later by
researchers studying primitive light-sensing organs in animals. In mollusks like snails and segmented
worms, light-sense cells spread across the body surface can tell the difference between light and
dark.

 5. Where do new species come from?

                Source: https://davidson.weizmann.ac.il/en/online/maagarmada/life_sci/common-misconceptions-about-evolution

A biological species is a group of organisms that can reproduce with one another. As soon as
organisms from one group cannot reproduce with organisms from another group, they are defined as
two separate populations of two separate species.
Once a reproductive barrier is in place, two groups will evolve separately and are considered
two separate species with a common ancestor, preceding the earthquake.
Reproductive barriers are commonly established through migration just like what happened to
the cat family over the long-hairs that pass. Cats have a panterlike ancestor that first appeared inn
the South Asia over 10 million years ago. As environmental pressure change. These cats migrated to
different continents and develop new specie but later on, some of their lineages have returned to
Asia.
According to killer cat that caught in 1997, Warren Johnson and Stifin Win performed DNA
analysis of 37 living cat species which allow them to divide to today’s cat into 8 lineages and
discovers a series of this intercontinental migration. The great-roaring cat like lions, tigers, leopards
and jaguards were the first batch to ranch of about 1.6 million years ago. The ancestors of modern
domesticated cat was the last 2 peer about 3.4 million years ago.

Let’s say we have a population of gazelles. An earthquake creates a rift valley separating the
population into two groups that cannot meet each other anymore. As time goes by, each group
adapts to the changes in its environment. Over time, so many genetic differences have accumulated
in each of the groups that a gazelle from one group cannot reproduce with a gazelle from the other
group anymore. Once this reproductive barrier is in place, the two groups will evolve separately and
are considered two separate species with a common ancestor, preceding the earthquake.
 The theory of evolution is a difficult concept and misconceptions abound. The factual nature of
evolution is often challenged by wrongly associating the scientific meaning of a theory with the
vernacular meaning.

Are breeds considered as different species?

- no, they are breeds or varieties of a single specie which is canis lupus familiaris or
domesticated dogs. There physical aspects are different but most of there genomes are very much
alike and while they belong to one specie, some of them may have or may not have be compatible in
reproduction due to restrictions like sight. Although, there are rare high breeds produce when
different species mate like the Zonkey, a hybrid of zebra and monkey. Mule, highbreed of female
horse and a male donkey. These highbreeds have very few chances to produce the same offspring
because they don’t have a enough number of sex cells, and they do not have the same number of
chromosomes and may only produce the like of the parents.
Organisms are related to each other in many ways: biological molecules such as proteins and
anatomical structures.

GENERALIZATION
Organisms are related to each other in many ways. It can be through their biological
molecules such as proteins and anatomical structures.
Many misconceptions exist about the theory of evolution—including some perpetrated by
critics of the theory. First, evolution as a scientific theory means that it has years of observation and
accumulated data supporting it. It is not “just a theory” as a person may say in common vernacular.
Another misconception is that individuals evolve, though, in fact, it is populations that evolve
over time. Individuals simply carry mutations. Furthermore, these mutations neither arise on purpose
nor do they arise in response to environmental pressure. Instead, mutations in DNA happen
spontaneously and are already present in individuals of a population when a selective pressure
occurs. Once the environment begins to favor a particular trait, then those individuals already
carrying that mutation will have a selective advantage and are likely to survive better and outproduce
others without the adaptation.
Finally, the theory of evolution does not in fact address the origins of life on this planet.
Scientists believe that we cannot, in fact, repeat the circumstances that led to life on Earth because
at this time life already exists. The presence of life has so dramatically changed the environment that
the origins cannot be totally produced for study.
 

“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”.

- Theodosius Dobzhansky
 
“The trouble with the world is not that people know too little; it’s that
they know so many things that just aren’t so”.
-Mark Twain
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