Improbable+Destinies+Science+Cafe

On December 14th, I attended the Science Cafe: Improbable Destinies event. During the event, Harvard professor and evolutionary biologist Jonathan Losos gave a lecture on the patterns of evolution and the various possibilities in which our world could have ended up today using different scenarios. One such example was if the dinosaurs never became extinct; we were presented with multiple points of view on how humans could have evolved with the continued prevalence of reptiles. He tied these situations to concepts such as convergent and divergent evolution, and he used those patterns to predict what life could potentially be like on other earth-like planets.

This lecture is related to AP Environmental Science because it went over concepts discussed in the class, such as convergent and divergent evolution. It talked about how minor changes in the environment and isolationism could have drastic effects on natural selection. The lecture built upon these concepts with various examples, such as potential alternate timelines and other life-supporting planets in the galaxy.