Final Reflection

     I don't think overall my perspective of evolution has changed from this class, but most certainly my understanding of the mechanisms of evolution have grown considerably. Especially in understanding those mechanisms in an empirical and mathematical way e.g. how different starting frequencies affect fixation of alleles, visualizing mutation-selection balance, looking at genetic drift over generations, etc. Although I never saw evolution as an aimed track of nature, I now more better see how statistical probabilities play into how evolution unfolds. Sexual selection has been especially influential in helping see this more accidental, purely competitive side of evolution. I've grown into that idea that evolution serves to benefit individual after individual, not necessarily populations and definitely not necessarily communities. I still do not discount mutualism in nature, however. Even if evolution generally is a very selfish process, I still think there is an integrity in the way natural systems evolve together and generate a mostly self-sustaining balance.

    Most importantly from this course I have bettered my skill of data pondering and interpreting. In the past data has felt at times esoteric or otherwise confusing but working with R and seeing "raw" data that we then processed ourselves to generate communicative models...this helped develop the ability to see data as numerical realizations of hypotheses rather than just numbers collected. I've gotten a better sense at taking a question and brainstorming what data is needed to provide support/critique of that question. As a future wildlife biologist I feel that I can much more confidently walk out into a natural community and go through the process of developing answerable, mathematical hypotheses and addressing them accordingly. I do however need to learn how to not overthink data that I'm confronted with interpreting: in many of my self-assessments this was a common theme. I think this could be helped by seeking to fully understand the study before trying to understand the data, which I often neglected to do because of rushing through assignments. With R, I feel like I've just begun to understand it and to continue growing that skill I need to be more resourceful and practice varying tasks.

    I started off my blogs by giving a scientific and poetic definition to evolution, which I now would like to revise. With the technical side of the coin, I now see that evolution is more about the change of genetics of populations over generations through the survival and reproductive success of well-adapted individuals, rather than just species changing to fill the space of available niches (though I certainly would say this plays an important role, still). Poetically, I still see evolution as "Life" seeking to express itself in as many ways as possible, but within that ideology I'd like to add the notion of chance success and capitalizing upon it, rather than natural communities "working together" to develop that sustainable web of interconnectedness. I still think the beauty of that interconnectedness is a beautiful ~chance~ result of all those lucky breaks, of course.