(I do not own Buffy or X-Ment)
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Chapter 2: Natural Selection
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"That's the lunch room, but we normally just eat lunch outside in the Quad." Buffy was taking Kitty all over the school between periods, so far they had most of there classes together, including Intermediate Biology which was beginning in about five minutes.
"It's such a big school for such a small town." remarked Kitty ponderously.
"Yeah Sunnydale's like that." chimed in Xander walking up behind them with Willow in toe looking very excited. "It's sort of like a bio-dome, you can find anything you might need in five square miles. They even have a slaughter-house out near the Highway on the south end."
"Really?" Kitty looked a little disturbed. "But I didn't see any farms when we..." She cut herself short receiving an odd look from Buffy Willow and Xander, but before they could ask what she was going to say the bell rang and the four filed themselves into the Biology classroom.
It was a small classroom with plaster walls and a low cieling, not quite as impressive as the chemistry classroom, the walls were lined with black and white pictures of various animal parts, or diagrams of molecules that Buffy couldn't even begin to name.
The students jossled in sporadically over the next five minutes, the usual groups, three jocks, a couple nerds, an emo or two and Cordelia.
Everyone began talking quietly waiting for the teacher to show up, since there was nothing more interesting to talk about they began gossiping about him.
"His name is Dr. Henry McCoy," said Willow in a low voice. Her eyes kept darting to the door, a mix of anxiety and giddiness dancing across her face resulting in a manic sort of grimace. "He's one of the worlds top geneticists, his research group won a Nobel prize working on something called the legacy molecule."
Nobody noticed, but Kitty seemed to be sinking into her chair.
"Why would someone like that be teaching High-School biology in Sunnydale?" whispered Buffy.
"Maybe he had too much fun in high-school and wanted to relive the gory daze." Xander quipped.
"That's what I was wondering." Willow replied to Buffy, her face finally settling on concerned. "I read his book and he's absolutely brilliant. You don't think?..." Willow looked around making sure no one else was listening.
"Mouth of hello-Sunnydale?" Buffy finished.
Willow nodded and Xander looked between the two of them.
Kitty rose a couple of subtle inches in her seat.
"Looks like we might have to pay attention in class today." said Buffy miserably but quietly.
Willow just glared as if insulted by the implication that she didn't normally pay very close attention in Biology including a system of color coded notes which she backed up on her laptop after writing notes on her notes in the margins of her notes, but Xander just said "Darn, I'm gunna miss my regular 45 minutes of sleep."
Willow glared at him. "Xander." she said motheringly.
"Yeah your right, there's always Trig." Xander pointed to the door as he spoke.
The door swung open and in walked an extremely muscular High-School Biology Teacher in a white lab coat and glasses. His long black hair was pulled back into a pony-tail and there was just the slightest five-o'clock shadow on his face which looked slightly blue in the harsh fluorescent-lighting of the cheaply maintained high-school classroom.
"Hello everyone, I trust you aren't too sorry I'm late as it's given you all much needed time to speculate." The man walked to the white board and wrote his name in very calligraphic-cursive. "My name is Dr. Henry McCoy, but for my duration at Sunnydale High you may call me Mr. McCoy, Teacher, Sir or Doctor."
Everyone looked around, the dread of the boring teacher arising on most faces.
"I will be introducing your class to The Theory of Evolution." stated Mr. McCoy opening a text book and a folder with some notes and standing behind his desk.
One of the girls in the front row with blond hair wearing a crucifix scoffed loudly but Dr. McCoy ignored her. "Would all of the most popular students in the class please stand." He said.
That got their attention. Cordelia stood up without blinking as did the Jocks making funny faces at each-other and attempting some bad physical humor while posturing. Most everyone else sort of half stood then sat, then looked at each-other as if they couldn't decide. Willow stayed seated and Kitty just sat there with a blank expression on her face but for a slight upturn of the side of her lip.
It took about two minutes but eventually half the class was standing tentatively looking around at eachother, while half the class was sitting looking confused or defiant.
"Good. What did we just demonstrate here." No one spoke, they just looked around at each-other questioningly. Willow eventually raised her hand.
"Yes Miss... " Mr. McCoy looked down at his notebook for a moment and thumbed through a couple pages ".... Rossenburgh?"
"Was it, Natural selection?" Willow asked hesitantly.
Dr. McCoy smiled "Right you are... or more precisely this was Artificial Selection but it will do for our purposes."
Putting down his book the teacher continued. "Natural selection is a process by which some members of a group are chosen over others to survive or mate. Now natural selection can seem rather harsh and ultimately eliminating. For example... Will all of the students currently standing who do not have blond hair please sit."
Cordelia made a face but sat, as did most of the brunette class, leaving only about five people, few of which she considered to be popular.
"You see, it works like sive, eliminating more and more individuals from the population each time it exerts it's power. It's inhumane, unfeeling and ruthless, hundreds of thousands of species, more than 90% of all species that have ever existed have fallen prey to it and are now extinct."
"In our little scenario, Natural selection chose the popular people to survive, then only the blonds, we could select for people with large noses, heavy eyebrows and soon we would probably be left without anyone and the class would be 'extinct'."
The blond with the crucifix (who was still standing) raised her hand.
"Yes miss... Dublauch?" Acknowledged Dr. McCoy.
"Then how can Evolution create new species? Doesn't that mean that no new species can come into existence?" she asked looking rather proud of herself.
"Excellent question. You see Evolution has many mechanisms and Natural selection is one of the most powerful, however one of the other primary mechanisms is it's offset without which life would never have existed... Would everyone with red hair please stand?" Dr. McCoy continued.
Only Willow stood up.
"Can anyone tell me what just occurred?"
No one answered so Willow rose her hand again. "Mutation?"
Dr. McCoy put one index finger on his nose and pointed the other at Willow. "Right again, the greatest balance against Natural Selection is Mutation, red hair was originally a mutation that arose in western Europe. Now will all of the blonds sit."
Now only Willow was standing, and she looked none-too-happy about it, neither did Cordelia.
Mr. McCoy continued "It is through mutation that species create diversity. Diversity is the power that fights Natural Selection and ensures a species survival. Without it all species would be doomed to extinction because just one selection pressure could wipe us out. Remember it is our great diversity that will give us our future, it is our differences that make us powerful. As you can see in this demonstration (though admittedly not perfect) had it not been for a mutant strain of DNA that resulted in red hair, the entire class would be extinct."
Willow went about as red as her hair.
"You may sit miss Rosenburgh." Smiled Mr. McCoy. "For your homework tonight I want you to do some research on the Internet and see if you can identify a mutant trait about yourself that has occurred in the last thirty-thousand years of your heritage, and I will point out that everyone in this class has at least one."
Buffy rose an eyebrow at Willow and Willow just pointed to her pale face which Buffy interpreted as meaning cheeks but decided to wait till after class to ask how cheeks were mutant traits.
"For now please open your books to Chapter 4, Selection Pressure and rates of Mutation..."
The class opened the books without much noise, all of them (except Willow and Kitty) wondering what their mutant strain of DNA was.