How is the science of Charles Darwin different then the science of today?
Darwin and people since him, up until DNA was available, looked at structural homologies of animals. That means they made phylogenies, evolutionary “tree’s of life”, looking at similar anatomies in animals. They didn’t look & compare how the structures were used. They looked & compared the structures themselves. For example, flight didn’t group a bird and a bat together. Birds fly with their arms. Bats fly with their fingers. Therefore, birds and bats are not homologous. Them came along Mendel who introduced genetics and alleles. He didn’t have access to DNA sequencing though, he only made observations from various seeds and plants he grew. Now…DNA is pretty easy to obtain, to sequence, and then to compare, I’ve done it four quarters in a row. Science is moving to cladograms. I had my first crack at this last quarter in botany. They are similar to the old school tree’s of life, however they offer more information and it is based on DNA sequences (genetics), rather than just observati
