Professor+Losos+science+cafe

Logan McCollum 3A

Professor Jonathan Losos questioned us to think about the way our world would be different if evolution didn't occur the way it did. What if dinosaurs were still alive. He talked about how our lives would be drastically different even if just one small part of evolution changed. For example, due to convergent evolution, similar environments will produce similar final products. He suggested that if dinosaurs had lived on and evolved alongside humans, they would have evolved similar features due to similar living conditions. However, some species have avoided convergent evolution and are unique. This is because distantly related species are more likely to adapt in different ways to similar tasks.

The process of convergent evolution is related to environmental science because it relates to biological patterns that we have studied. This is the same for divergent evolution. We learned that these two are based on chance events in class just like Professor Losos mentioned.