Posted: Oct 11, 2012 12:55 pm
Spearthrower wrote:
It's started - anyone want to open a thread on it? I'd say it should be kept in Education, and any Creationist bollockery should be kept out of it.
At your service.
I signed up for this course as the subject of evolution fascinates me to no end. Unfortunately, I used to be a lazy student who was good at languages and not at science. That resulted in me ditching all sciences classes and taking languages and economics. In the past ten years, I've read so much about evolution through forums like RatSkep, that I took up a highschool biology course, since I knew absolutely nothing about the subject and, to my shame, about basic biology.
Fast forward to now: haven't finished my home course yet (am halfway), but thankfully covered enough ground to understand what professor Noor is talking about. Also purchased Jerry Coyne's book - a great read. I watched the first four video's last night and plan on watching the Jerry Coyne interview tonight. From the top of my head, some things I learnt through these first few video's are:
[*] The difference between evolution and natural selection - the distinction is much more clear to me now.
[*] The existence of non-functional olfactory receptor genes in humans (I had to google olfactory receptors as I'd never heard the term before).
[*] The evolution of the laryngeal nerve bit was interesting, as were the parts about the peppered moth and evolution of anti-biotic resistance.
That's my noob perspective. What are others' experiences?
EDIT: There's already a thread about it HERE.