Why Study Evolution?
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Sometimes students do not see the value in learning about evolution. For some it seems to contradict their religious beliefs; for others it just seems too abstract and happened so long ago it does not seem relevant to them. So why study evolution?
First of all, evolution is one of the unifying threads in modern biology and provides a framework to guide research in areas as diverse and medicine and agricultural science. Sure much good biology can be done without using an evolutionary framework but this is true about other sciences. In astronomy, you could study astronomy as a purely descriptive science dealing with movements of these little points of light called stars but that leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Scientists want to know even at a basic level how and why things work the way they do. Mere descriptions are not very satisfying to a scientist!
Evolution guides research into many other areas of science and technology. For example, computer scientists are now using specilaized programs called genetic algorithms to do complex design work. These algorithms are built from basic models and concepts straight out of our studies of evolution. A major series of public health problems has to do with the fact that viruses and bacteria are evolving resistance to anti viral and anti bacterial medicines as fast as we can develope new ones. This resistance comes about through biological evolution. Similar mechanisms operate in the development of insect resistance to insecticides.
So evolution is not just about things that happened in the distant past. Evoution is happening now and an understanding of evolution is critical for everything from dealing with bacterial resistance to antibiotics, the response that different species might have to climate change, and to understanding our nature and fate as a species. Evolution indeed is central to modern biology!
Evolution is one of the key ideas of modern civilization. So even if you have religious objections to evolution you still ought to have some familiarity with it. After all, how can you object to an idea if you do not understand it?