The actual start of the course (and the end of classes at Wellesley) kept me from finishing this off. But Anthropology 207x (Introduction to Human Evolution) is off to a fantastic start and you can continue to enroll at any point, so without further ado….
Previous entries:
#10 Origin stories are captivating. Scientific origin stories can be unifying.
#9 It’s open and free!
#8 Our evolutionary past informs how we understand human difference today
#7 You will be sharing the experience with 1000s of others
#6 Human evolution encompasses a fascinating set of questions, bringing together many different disciplines
#5 Human health lies at the intersection of our evolutionary past and contemporary present
#4 207x meets on your time
#3 Understanding evolution connects our past with the present/
#2 It is worth your time (and not just because it is free)
Reason 1 – Understanding how evolution operates, even a little, is important
As I have already mentioned, knowing how evolution works provides us with a valuable perspective for understanding human difference today and for how human health works. But here’s the thing. Understanding how evolution works is actually important for lots of things. First of all, many systems, not just biological ones, operate with some kind of evolutionary dynamics. By that I mean, systems that are based on replication with modification are pretty widespread. And that is evolution…descent with modification. Machine learning…that’s evolutionary. How your kid learns to use language…that’s evolutionary.
On top of that, it is not just that many important things have evolutionary dynamics, it is also that some very important things are fundamentally grounded in how evolution works. The relationship between population size, health, the environment, and technology…that’s evolution. The co-evolution between humans and bacteria that necessitates newer and more effective anti-biotics, that’s evolution. Understanding what “natural” means in the context of genetically-modified organisms, that’s evolution.
We value certain subjects because of their assumed universal necessity. You need to know how to communicate and understand others when they communicate, so you learn to read and write. You need to be able to work with numbers and quantifiable things, so you learn math. We are evolved organisms. Our way of life is a product of our evolutionary past. We live in an evolving world. Evolution is grounded in the interaction of a few basic principles and processes that operate even outside the biological world. It is a good, and important, thing to know how evolution works.
The course is live, but you are always welcome to join.
