Angelique's Evolution Blog

Myths and Misconceptions - "The Linearity of Evolution" A common misconception of evolution is that it is a linear process, meaning evolution is progressive and insinuating that there is an "end goal" (or predetermined destiny) surrounding evolution. However, there is no true goal or even intention of evolution, it is better to think of this process as a means of trials and errors, causes and effects, or experimentations and adaptations.  My interest in this misconception of evolution is its direct usage in the history of entomology. Theodor Eimer, a German zoologist, published a paper in the Oxford Press in 1897 disapproving of the Darwin's theory (which theorizes  that variation occurs randomly among populations/species and that individual traits could be inherited by its offspring) in favor of orthogenesis. The term "orthogenesis" states that  variations in evolution follow a linear direction and are not randomized. In this paper, Eimer argues for ...

 The Big Issues - Why are some clades very diverse and some unusually sparse? Clade is a term used to describe a group of organisms that evolved from a shared ancestor, such as the human and gorilla species. Clades are potentially created by a myriad of factors, most notably of which being the following: 1.  Opportunity knockouts which could be due to limited reproduction due to limited wildlife mobility, environmentally-favored specialization adaptation, and/or niche population expansion due to lack of environmental species competition 2. Adaptive radiation: the ability of a single species to quickly diversify into many new forms. Note that human evolution is not considered to be an adaptive radiation process, because our evolution was not a quick process but rather a slowed, timely process. A good example of this ability are the Hawaiian honeycreepers who colonized the Hawaiian Islands and evolved into approximately 50 subspecies due to a lack of environmental species c...

  My name is Angélique and I am student studying Biology, Psychology, and Entomology (Insect Biology and Ecology).  I hope to receive both my D.V.M. and Ph.D. and become a veterinary dermatologist and study its intersection with livestock entomology.  I have four pets: one cat (named Priscilla Dolly Parton), one ball python (Yermolai Lululemon Shania Twain), and two White's tree frogs (Yaroslav Zach Bryan and Yekaterina Cheddar Bay Biscuit Miranda Lambert). You can find images, in order, of them below: Something about this week's materials that I did not know prior to starting this course is 1) how to create a blog and 2) just how integral the study of evolution is to my field in entomology! I look forward to taking this course with you all!