Soap Box

I am taking an evolutionary biology class and lab as part of my biology major requirements at BYU. It has been one of the most interesting biology classes I've taken- it's like everything has been building up to this one class. The theory of evolution really is the "all-encompassing" theory in biology- it includes genetics, molecular biology, ecology, anatomy- everything having to do with biology. The theory of evolution and LDS doctrine are not incompatible. Though we don't know for sure how the Lord created the world and man, I think He used evolution.

The BYU College of Life Sciences is not allowed to advertise campus-wide guest lecturers or seminars dealing with evolution. It kind of irritates me that anything having to do with evolution is "stashed away" in the biology building. This means that when really big and important guest lecturers in the field come, they get stuck in some dinky little room because we're not allowed to use one of the big auditoriums on campus for discussions on evolution. BYU will, however, advertise all over campus when creation "scientists" come; creation science is not science and I think it's dumb that BYU gives it more attention than an actual scientific theory. Don't get me wrong, I do believe that we were created by God, I just don't think science can be used to prove it. Science and religion offer two very different ways for knowing things.

I'm ready to step off my soap box now.

In my evolutionary biology lab, we studied behavioral traits and evolution with betta fish (males are very aggressive and will kill each other if put in the same bowl). Don't worry, we didn't pull a Michael Vick, the fish were treated very humanely. They stayed in separate containers the whole time.

In what other class would you get to take a fish home as a "handout"? All I get in my stupid archaeology class are some lame papers I'll never look at again.

This is Trixie (it's a male but I like the name Trixie).

After class, I carried him all over school (instead of crazy cat lady, I was crazy fish lady)...

... and then transferred him to his new home when I got to my house.

I think Trixie is more purple now than when I first got him.

This here is a female betta fish:

Ladies: have you ever woken up in the morning, looked at yourself in the mirror and thought, Damn. Men don't have to mess with their hair or put on a ton of makeup to look decent.

What I'm getting at, is that males are really the fairer sex, not females. Look at the majority of species in nature- males are more flashy and beautiful- peacocks, ducks (females are the ugly brown ones), betta fish, and humans (I would argue). I finally found out why this is- it's called sexual dimorphism.

Females devote a lot of energy, resources and time to producing offspring. They have to gestate (or lay eggs instead), give birth, and then raise the offspring- a lot of times in nature males will do their thing and then run off. Males do not typically devote as much energy or resources when they reproduce. Females are really choosy when it comes to mating- they put all this work into producing offspring so they don't want any old male.

The male has to attract the female- get her to choose him... males evolved to be more beautiful for this reason. The male needs bright colors, feathers, big horns, display behaviors or whatever, to get the female to choose him. What's interesting, is that if you find a species where the male puts more energy into reproducing, the female will be more attractive than the male because she has to get him to choose her.