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Today’s lectures discussed the concept of fitness. Fitness is measured by the production of offspring. The more offspring an organism has, the more fit it is. Oftentimes, when people think about fitness, they think about an organism’s physical strength or prowess. While these traits can perhaps increase an organism’s fitness, they are not the organism’s fitness. EvolutionTalk covered this topic well when they said that to be fit you just have to be “good enough” to reproduce.
In the demonstration of earth’s history on a football field, I was shocked by the short amount of time animals have been present on earth. I was aware that earth had a long history before animals came to be, but did not realize what a small percentage of earth’s history animals took up. Even more surprising was how long it took for basic multicellular organisms to develop. Another fun fact that was given was the part about T. Rex’s being closer in time to humans than the stegosaurus. I was under the impression that all dinosaur species existed at the same time!
The episode of EvolutionTalk was interesting.
I had no idea that the phrase survival of the fittest did not come from Charles
Darwin. I really enjoyed the way that fitness was described in the podcast. To
be considered fit you must successfully mate and not necessarily be the most
physically in shape. This description of fitness helped me separate the idea of
evolutionary fitness from physical fitness. I also enjoyed the part about the environment
determining what is considered fit and that this is dynamic. This idea explained
why animals within the same species still have variations.
Hi Delaney! I also had no idea that the phrase, "survival of the fittest" did not come from Darwin. I had always assumed it would of just been him. The podcast also helped me understand better what "fitness" in the science community really meant. I feel like a lot of scientific phrases are often misunderstood and sometimes skewed. I really enjoyed your blog! I hope you have a nice day!
ReplyDeleteHi Delaney, I was also shocked at the short amount of time that animals have existed compared to the full life of the Earth. The football field visual was a great portrayal of that!
ReplyDeleteI also assumed the phrase "survival of the fittest" came from Darwin. The podcast also presented a good distinction between just "fitness" and "physical fitness" which I appreciated as well.