sunburns

Now, I don't intend to sound racist in saying this, but isn't the existence of blacks and whites proof of evolution via environmental stresses? Given that darker skin has more resistance to sunburn than lighter skin, and that the darker skin genes come from areas of the world where there is very little shade (such as Africa), causing the risk, and severity, of sunburn to greatly increase. alternately, in areas that are dominantly lighter skinned (such as Europe), there is  a lot more all around shade, decreasing the risk of damage from the sun. Therefor, given that those with the darker pigment resist sunburn better and thus would survive such harsher environments much more effectively, it shouldn't be such a problem for us to conclude that evolution DOES work, it IS caused by the environment, and that we shouldn't be surprised by any of this.

http://www.bidmc.org/YourHealth/TherapeuticCenters/SkinCancer.aspx?ChunkID=157004---site for sunburn resistance facts.

man made dog breeds

I remember hearing somewhere, Im pretty sure it was pbs/cbs/nbc/nove/etc., that there was a breed of dog that had been MADE by man. as I recall we took specific traits that we wanted, and bred them from multiple sources. Im pretty sure that eventually we ended up with a completely new breed of dog. Im pretty sure it was the english bulldog? more on this later... probably

anti-malaria

we recently learned about how, in africa sickle cell is high in the same areas as malaria is. as well as how the sickle cell is actually good against the parasite that causes malaria. oh, and I also learned that malaria is caused by a parasite... =D. and this is an example of natural selection, those with sickle cell live, those without dont... and thus there are less without, and more with. : )

Planet age

So, according to recent discoveries, the earth is only a few billion years old, and that its not old enough for evolution to happen. this does not make sense to me because, first of all, I admit that what we have carbon dated would give us an approximate age, however I also know that we have never gotten more than a few hundred feet underground, so how can we know that there isn't proof otherwise farther down?

what I learned---week 1

this week I learned more trivia than anything. I learned that Darwin was studying finches specifically, that there MAY be evidence of the meteor that supposedly wiped out the dinos, all though I am still convinced that such an impact would have altered the earths orbit at least a little, However I have come to the realization that dinosaurs, being cold blooded, could have survived the heat if the planet was closer to the sun, in which case the impact would have moved us far enough away that mammals could thrive. I also learned about chemosynthesis, which is a form of photosynthesis that uses volcanic heat instead of light from the sun.

Prior Knowledge

Basically what I already knew about Evolution, is that it is the process by which a species changes over time in order to adapt to its surroundings. This is achieved through natural selection, the process by which specific traits survive and spread in a species. For example, if two mice were to live in an area that is extremely cold, and one of the mice had longer hair, then the mouse with the longer hair would survive the cold, breed, and produce more mice with the longer hair. I also knew that both of these theories came from Darwin, who came up with the Ideas while studying animals on the Galapagos islands.