For your discussion this week:
What is one misconception that you think people in general have regarding any topic that we have covered in this class? Are there any broader consequences of this misconception?
Topics Discussed: race, species, paleoanthropology, evolution, early civilizations, etc.
As usual, please comment on two of your peers posts.

Reply to classmate 1:
I think for me, I had a complete misconception about the many different types of “species” and evolutionary changes it took to make the modern day humans as we are. When I think about evolution, I always only thought of some kind of monkey that warped in to a human in just a short amount of time. The consequences of this misconception I feel are a lack of respect for what our ancestors had to go through to bring us to this current day and time. A lot of the tools and concepts we have came from them and their struggles. I look at the knife cutting my steak now and think of it as a tool created such a long time ago by someone as a means to survive. Not just created by a scientist in a lab who was trying to think of a way to cut meat. So a lack of understanding and respect come with the misconception.

Reply to Classmate 2:
I think my own biggest misconception were regarding race. I remember during class assignment 2 how we had to listen to an hour-long audio about race and genetic makeup, and I learned about how race is truly just a social construct. How the instructor, who was white, made an example of one black male student being more genetically similar to another white female student than she and that white female student were. That was kind of surprising, because although I knew we all have majority of the same genetic makeup, I didn’t think of how it could intersect that way. This just goes to show how race itself isnt real, but the consequences of race have always been very real. I do believe there are broader consequences of this misconception, it kind of speaks for itself at this point. Racism is such a big problem in our country today, when in reality, race itself is only a social construct. I feel like if many people knew and understood that, then there probably wouldn’t be that many race-centered issues today.