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This topic in Science & Technology is about An evolutionary question.

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Old Jan 12, 2008, 08:54 am   #41 (permalink) (top)
ZNFYRH
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Jubloz

Or maybe you're being a prick?

DROP IT ALREADY.


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Old Jan 12, 2008, 09:40 am   #42 (permalink) (top)
Matt W
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How about you both back off and stay on topic or this thread gets closed, hmm?

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Old Jan 12, 2008, 12:27 pm   #43 (permalink) (top)
Athena
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Can we begin with the question of what caused humans to evolve? This requires knowledge of earth's history and dramatic land and climate changes. Specific to human evolution is the Pliocene period.

Quote:
NASA GISS: Research Features: Pliocene Global Warming: Page 2

The Pliocene epoch covers the period from approximately 5 to 1.8 million years ago and, as such, spanned the period of time during which the Earth transitioned from relatively warm climates to the generally cooler climates of the Pleistocene. This transition included the emergence of the direct ancestors of humankind and contains the beginnings of cyclic Northern Hemisphere glaciation. The Pliocene epoch itself contains episodic climate fluctuations prior to the late Pliocene cooling, and our focus for study is a warm period in the middle Pliocene between 3.15 and 2.85 million years before present.
I think we need to go with the global warming during the Pliocene and the Aquatic Hyptheses. This means hairy primates got into the water to survive a heat wave. This pressured dramatic changes in the creatures that survived this period. We get naked apes, and the female naked apes have relatively large breast, ideal for a baby to suckle from when the mother and baby are in water. These naked apes are not completely naked, but have hair on their heads that grows longer than any other primate hair. This is great for a baby to grasp while parents and babies are in water.

Humans not only have less hair than other primates, but it is water streamlined, and these creatures have superior swimming ability, and their babies can swim when only a few weeks old. Like whales they have an insulating layer of fat, and unlike other animals they have sweat glands, and cry salty tears. Besides walking up right and having better use of their hands than any other primate.

In short humans evolved as they did, because of the period of time they spent in the water. The ones that survived and reproduced, were they ones that adopted to aquadic living best.
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Old Jan 12, 2008, 12:51 pm   #44 (permalink) (top)
Jubloz
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Athena, I agree that the aquatic ape hypothesis is extremely persuasive, but I'd never thought about a possible benefit of having long hair to grab onto. That's interesting. How would sweat glands and salty tears be relevant to an aquatic ape, though? I can see how glands would have some use outside of the water, but not within.

Another example of supportive evidence for the aquatic ape hypothesis is that women typically give birth more easily in water. With increasing cranial capacity, it would have been very difficult for proto-humans to give birth, but water birthing may have prevented, or at least alleviated, natural selection working against them. Also, it's extremely strange that newborns don't take their first breath until they're exposed to air and that they will actually do just fine in water until then. Water birthing also allows for complications to be more easily dealt with, such as the newborn being caught up in the umbilical cord, or preventing the child from inhaling excrement, which apparently is an extremely common danger in most births.

I also find it extremely interesting that many early religions worshiped feminine water deities. This is a connection that I'm actually trying to investigate at the moment.


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Old Jan 12, 2008, 10:56 pm   #45 (permalink) (top)
Athena
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This site is so compelling, it was hard to copy only part of it, and not the whole thing. I want to stress here, the evolutionary pressures would have been intense heat driving animals into water. This includes elephants, hippos, pigs- these almost hairless animals, lived in water, or wallow in water. If we include the geological and climate changes with the theory of evolution, it all makes sense.

Quote:
The Aquatic Ape Theory--Elaine Morgan

For example, we have a different way of sweating from other mammals, using different skin glands. It is very wasteful of the body's essential resources of water and salt. It is therefore unlikely that we acquired it on the savannah, where water and salt are both in short supply.

We weep tears of emotion, controlled by different nerves from the ones that cause our eyes to water in response to smoke or dust. No other land animal does this. There are marine birds, marine reptiles and marine mammals which shed water through their eyes, or through special nasal glands, when they have swallowed too much seawater. This process may also be triggered in them by an emotional excitement caused by feeding or fighting or frustration. Weeping animals, apart from ourselves, include the walrus, the seal and the sea otter.

We have millions of sebaceous glands which exude oil over head, face and torso, and in young adults often causes acne. The chimpanzee's sebaceous glands are described as "vestigial" whereas ours are described as "enormous". Their purpose is obscure. In other animals the only known function of sebum is that of waterproofing the skin or the fur.

The most widely discussed contrast between ourselves and the apes is that we have bigger brains. A bigger brain may well have been an advantage to early man, but it would have been equally of advantage to a chimpanzee: the question is why one of them acquired it.

One factor may have been nutritional. The building of brain tissue, unlike other body tissues, is dependent on an adequate supply of Omega-3 fatty acids, which are abundant in the marine food chain but relatively scarce in the land food chain.
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Old Jan 13, 2008, 02:16 am   #46 (permalink) (top)
gallo
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So, back to the original topic.
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I'm sure that I don't understand the TOE in all of its nuances so perhaps someone can answer this question for me.
If you are sure that you don't understand it, then why on earth would you offer the opinion that it is hard to accept in the last paragraph? If you understand it, then it is actually quite easy to understand on a broad, high school level. If you don't understand it, then how on earth can you say that it goes against reason? That's unreasonable.

Moreover, you received two quite reasonable answers and you took exception to both. In fact, your response to rez was ad hominem without a single response to any matter on which he instructed you. That seems very strange, since you admit that you don't understand evolutionary theory and he, quite obviously, does. And yet, good old Matt warns rez rather than you.

So I wonder. Are you really trolling? Obviously, you reject evolutionary theory, whether you actually know what it is or not. Why ask what you seem to think is an unanswerable question and pretend that you want an answer?

Nevertheless, I shall attempt to answer.
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It's my (mis?)understanding that evolution is triggered as a survival of the fittest phenomenon; that adaptations which give a species a clear advantage (a better chance of survival) are the ones that are passed on.
Yes. It is your misunderstanding. "Survival of the fittest" is a phrase coined by Herbert Spencer, a social economist. Spencer was talking about business in a capitalist society, i.e., businesses that offer products and services that the public demands succeed, while those that do not fail. No biggie. Still a valid theory in economics today. But it misses the mark in biology.

Darwin didn't like the phrase "survival of the fittest" applied to his theory (only one of at least 5 in "On The Origin Of Species"), and didn't actually use it until the 5th edition after the public use had become so common. It was Alfred Russel Wallace co-discoverer of the theory who actually accept the term. Even at that, he always (without exception) clearly stated that he was talking about "natural selection" whenever he used the term.

Further, natural selection is not a matter of "clear advantage." Clear to whom? The simplest way to state natural selection is differential reproductive success. It is statistical. Those individuals that posses genetic characteristics that give them a better chance to reproduce more offspring will tend to pass those beneficial characteristics on to a relatively larger portion of the population.
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I was thinking about just how much of an advantage it is to have thick fur.
Where do you live?
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My dog is able to withstand cold outside that would kill me.
And you are probably able to withstand cold that would kill your dog. Even the ancestor of your dog, the wolf, has heavy fur in the north (Canada and northern Europe and Asia), and much lighter fur in the south (for example, the red wolves of Texas - no grey wolves here). Of course, there are other cold adaptions (genetic) - northern wolves and foxes, besides having heavier fur, they are larger, with smaller ears, and shorter legs.

I once saw several Alaskan husky sled dogs nearly die from heat in Montana in June. With the temperature in the 70's, just how beneficial was that thick fur? On the other hand, I've seen Greenland Eskimo sled dogs that were perfectly comfortable and active in below freezing temperatures. They were, of course, in Greenland and not in equatorial forests or savannas. Hopefully, you are aware that humankind evolved in equatorial Africa.
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Some arctic animals swim in frigid arctic waters that will kill us in seconds. How much better it would be for humans to have such fur in order to live in the many hostile and extreme conditions.
It's not seconds. I notice that you tend to exaggerate a bit. So how well do you think that these arctic animals would do in waters around the equator. Why do you think that we don't find them there?
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Did we evolve away from having body fur so that we would have to kill animals and then make coats from their fur in order to survive in these conditions?
The simple answer is that we evolved in an environment where we didn't need fur. How is that against reason?
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That really doesn't make much sense to me.
Of course it doesn't. Not to you. But it does make sense to anyone who has actually made an effort to educated himself about biology, ecology, evolution, and science in general.
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If we had more hair in the past, why did we lose it?
Because less hair offered a differential reproductive in that environment.
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For aesthetic purposes?
Not likely.
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[Why couldn't we just evolve body fur with zippers for easy removal?
I'm sure that you realize that your question is ignorant to the extreme.
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Or, like other animals, the ability to molt or shed?
Because we didn't evolve in an environment with extremes. We evolved in tropical Africa.
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It's hard to accept evolution when so much of it goes against reason.
But you haven't used reason. First of all, you haven't bothered to educate yourself. Second, you haven't stated why a theory that you don't understand (by your own admission) is unreasonable.
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Of course, there may be answers that I can't see that others can. Hence, the question.
How disingenuous can you be?


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Old Jan 13, 2008, 02:34 am   #47 (permalink) (top)
gallo
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I think we need to go with the global warming during the Pliocene and the Aquatic Hypotheses.
Why on earth would we want to "go with" a 35 year old hypothesis, proposed by a TV scriptwriter and English grad student who had no supporting evidence at the time, has not developed any supporting evidence since, has never made any testable predictions, and has never been tested? Of course, such nonsense seems to be "persuasive" to those who don't understand what science is or how it works. If I can imagine it, then it must be persuasive - never mind if a simple consideration of reality makes it laughable.


As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion;...
--From Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli passed unanimously by the Senate 1797
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Old Jan 13, 2008, 02:33 pm   #48 (permalink) (top)
Jubloz
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Actually, the AAH was proposed by marine biologist Sir Alister Hardy. I know that a playwright wrote several books on the subject, but is this sufficient to discredit it as a possibility? The popular alternative, the savannah hypothesis, has a number of flaws that make the idea questionable or, in the least, in need of refinement.


"Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation... even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind. " - Da Vinci
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Old Jan 14, 2008, 10:00 am   #49 (permalink) (top)
Athena
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http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/americanhairlessterrier.htm

Of course when we want truth, we need to follow many leads and see where they get us. Here is information about hairless dogs and cats.
List of Hairless Breeds, Dogs with no hair/fur

It is interesting the American Hairless Terrier, also breaks out in a sweat when hot of frightened, because dogs do not sweat.

PBS is showing shows about the evolution of dogs, and evidently, all the qualities we see in dogs, were in the original dog. The variation is the result of breeding qualities out.

The same would be true of humans, with the first humans having all the qualities we now see in our diversity.

The evolutionary theory says we share an ancestor with apes and monkeys, and that all mammals share an ancestor, which shared and ancestor with reptiles, which shared an ancestor with fish. Back to all dog qualities being the first dog. We are learning some surprising things, such as when a wild black wolf is selectively breed for tolerance of being close to humans, not only does the behavior in the next generation dramatically change, but so does the color of the dog!

For darn sure, we are learning more through science than we expected, and we are learning a lot more about how things are as they are, then we could learn if we restrict ourselves to studying holy books. Knowledge leads to enlightenment, and enlightenment resolves conflict and other troubles. Chardin, a Catholic priest, wrote that evolution is Gods plan, and we are God's consciousness. The new cosmology, using quantum physics, gives us an idea of how this evolves to the heaven of immortal life.
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Old Jan 15, 2008, 12:23 am   #50 (permalink) (top)
gallo
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Quote by: Athena View Post
Of course when we want truth, we need to follow many leads and see where they get us. Here is information about hairless dogs and cats.
List of Hairless Breeds, Dogs with no hair/fur

It is interesting the American Hairless Terrier, also breaks out in a sweat when hot of frightened, because dogs do not sweat.
I'm not sure why, in your search for truth, this is relevant to the topic. I guess you are claiming that hairless breeds of dogs passed through an aquatic phase. It doesn't make sense otherwise.
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PBS is showing shows about the evolution of dogs, and evidently, all the qualities we see in dogs, were in the original dog. The variation is the result of breeding qualities out.
What does that mean? There are lots of dog breeds that have characteristics that are the result of known mutations, i.e., the genetic allele does not exist in the wolf genome.
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The same would be true of humans, with the first humans having all the qualities we now see in our diversity.
Nonsense. There are several mutations for skin color that, according to evidence, arose around the end of the last ice age. They are all lighter than the original black that still exists in the populations in Africa that have also descended from the "first humans". As we have been able to decode the human genome, we have found that there is an average of 14 alleles for every gene in the human genome (a single individual can have only two). For some highly variable characteristics, there are hundreds - for other less variable traits, there are only a few.
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The evolutionary theory says we share an ancestor with apes and monkeys, and that all mammals share an ancestor, which shared and ancestor with reptiles, which shared an ancestor with fish.
Right. What is your point? Are you saying that fish bear their young live and nurse them with milk from mammary glands?
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Back to all dog qualities being the first dog.
What's a "dog quality?"
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We are learning some surprising things, such as when a wild black wolf is selectively breed for tolerance of being close to humans, not only does the behavior in the next generation dramatically change, but so does the color of the dog!
Really? Where did you find that out? When was such breeding ever done?
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For darn sure, we are learning more through science than we expected, and we are learning a lot more about how things are as they are, then we could learn if we restrict ourselves to studying holy books.
That's probably true. But in your case, I feel that you are misunderstanding more about science than you could learn from holy books.
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Knowledge leads to enlightenment, and enlightenment resolves conflict and other troubles.
But misunderstanding leads to erroneous pontification.
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Chardin, a Catholic priest, wrote that evolution is Gods plan, and we are God's consciousness.
How relevant?
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The new cosmology, using quantum physics, gives us an idea of how this evolves to the heaven of immortal life.
Does that actually have meaning?


As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion;...
--From Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli passed unanimously by the Senate 1797
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Old Jan 15, 2008, 12:55 am   #51 (permalink) (top)
gallo
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Actually, the AAH was proposed by marine biologist Sir Alister Hardy.
Indeed. But Sir Alister presented only a very simple hypothesis in a talk to a SCUBA club and then later reiterated the same in an article published in science news magazine. The idea was never "published". By that I mean that it was never presented to the scientific community for review, i.e., it was never clearly stated, the evidence was never investigated, no predictions were ever made, and it was never tested, and no results of testing were ever published in peer reviewed scientific journals.
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I know that a playwright wrote several books on the subject, but is this sufficient to discredit it as a possibility?
That's a TV scriptwriter who was at the time a graduate student in English. If she later actually wrote plays I don't know and I don't care. The point is she had no scientific qualifications, not even as an amateur.

But is that enough to discredit the fantasy as a possibility? No. But we can discredit it as science since no science has been done about the supposed "hypothesis." Please, state the evidence, offer an hypothesis, make a prediction, design and execute your experiment, and then publish your results in a peer reviewed journal.
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The popular alternative, the savannah hypothesis, has a number of flaws that make the idea questionable or, in the least, in need of refinement.
I don't doubt that. Please detail them for us and cite specific articles insupport of the "savannah hypothesis" to which you object with your reasons for objection.

Did you get this stuff from Wikipedia? It states that Morgan got her idea by reading popularizations of something called the "savannah hypothesis." Notice, she didn't actually read science.

It just doesn't have any scientific support that would cause anyone to 'go with' it.


As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion;...
--From Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli passed unanimously by the Senate 1797
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Old Jan 15, 2008, 01:14 am   #52 (permalink) (top)
Jubloz
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I've got to appologize, I'm going to have to make this response short due to a lack of time, but I'll try to remember to give a full response to your post as soon as I can.

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Did you get this stuff from Wikipedia? It states that Morgan got her idea by reading popularizations of something called the "savannah hypothesis." Notice, she didn't actually read science.
I didn't realize that the savannah hypothesis was an influence on AAH, no. Actually, I imagined them as being more conflicting. I believe the Savannah Hypothesis is actually a rudimentary concept; I think I first encountered it in my introductory anthropology text books. It's one of several attempts to formulate a possibility as to what environmental pressures forced evolutionary adaptations such as bipedalism and larger cranial capacity. I'm curious, since it seems that you may disagree with both of these perspectives, as to what your opinion is on what forced these fairly extreme biological changes?


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Old Jan 15, 2008, 02:35 am   #53 (permalink) (top)
gallo
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I believe the Savannah Hypothesis is actually a rudimentary concept; I think I first encountered it in my introductory anthropology text books.
It certainly is, since this is a scientific question for which that has been no definitive answer proposed. However, no science has been done on the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, while considerable work has been done on other hypotheses.
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It's one of several attempts to formulate a possibility as to what environmental pressures forced evolutionary adaptations such as bipedalism and larger cranial capacity.
No it's not. It considers neither of those. It offers a whimsical explanation as to why humans are less hairy than apes. The problem is that there is no evidence to support any of it.
Quote:
I'm curious, since it seems that you may disagree with both of these perspectives, as to what your opinion is on what forced these fairly extreme biological changes?
Oh, let's see. It seems that I disagree with the aquatic ape hypothesis since it seems to be a fantasy for which no evidence has been proposed, and I disagree with something called the 'savannah hypothesis', which seems to be a nebulous concept that proponents of the aquatic ape hypothesis argue against. Can you please cite some scientific literature on the subject of the "savanah hypothesis." The actual scientific references that I can find on the 'savanah hypothesis' are about bipedalism rather than loss of hair. Of course, subsequent hypotheses attempt to explain the loss of hair in relation to bipedalism. On the other hand, the aquatic ape hypothesis seems to me to lead off on a blind tangent. Why would such an ape become bipedal? "It's hot, so let's jump in the water," just isn't meaningful.

I see seals and sea lions that are quite nice examples of mammals that are returning to the sea and still bear their young on land. The all have hair simply because it is insulation against the cold. And there are penguins that are examples of birds returning to the sea. They too retain feathers as insulation against the cold water, and yet they bear their young on land. And otters and beavers spend most of their life in the water, but retain thick fur as insulation against cold water, while bearing young on land. So whales have a layer of blubber (fat) that insulates them from the cold water - even the young have a layer of blubber in spite of the fact that whales calve in relatively warm waters.

So please explain why humankind should have lost our hair without developing webbed feet, webbed hands, flippers, or blubber. Why is this hypothesis based solely on the fact of reduced hair? There are so many aquatic mammals and birds that retained thick fur or feathers as insulation against water, and some that lost hair while developing thick layers of blubber as insulation. And yet, we are to believe that humans were aquatic long enough to lose hair without developing other aquatic characteristics.

I'm waiting.


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--From Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli passed unanimously by the Senate 1797
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Old Jan 15, 2008, 02:44 pm   #54 (permalink) (top)
Zhavric
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Isherwood
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You both say that, but there are plenty here on VC who confuse "low-probability" with "impossible"... or who think a lack of answer for one automatically proves the other.
The tragedy of volconvo are how many confuse "impossible" with "possible".

Getting back to the op, this site dispells some common misconceptions about evolution.

Furthermore, natural selection happens both by chance and is in many ways predictable. Consider the butterfly example.

Assume this happens before mankind becomes industrialized.

A species of butterfly is living in a valley. This species has blue wings.

An earthquake occurs and the plant the butterflies lived on dies out as a result (too many trees fall over... new predators show up... take your pick). The butterfly searches further and further away for food. Eventually, the butterfly occupies several valleys of a region.

The butterflies inbreed and interbreed and eventually mutate. They change color.

Some are now dark blue.
Some are now light blue.
Some are now blue with white spots.
Some are now a purple-blue.
And the original blue is still there.

Well, let's say a forest fire causes a species of bird to relocate into the valleys where these butterflies live. The birds have keen vision and begin to eat the brightly colored butterflies. However, the birds have a little trouble seeing the white-spotted butterflies.

So, the other four strains of butterfly disapear (predated to extinction) while the white spotted butterfly lives (or even thrives). Given that the predator can't see one of the five species, we can predict that camoflaged species will be the one to survive.

Later on, that bird might die out and then the white dots won't really be that helpful... but the butterfly will keep them until they become a detriment.

It really all depends on the enviroment.
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Old Jan 16, 2008, 06:44 am   #55 (permalink) (top)
sevendogs
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Evolutionary adaptation is always opportunistic and extremely diverse, depending on multiple factors. A thick fur is one way, another way is intensified metabolism along with voracious appetite, a thick layer of blubber works better on many occasions and hibernation is also a good solution. Humans compensated all these by using good brains, making clothing and fire. A major goal of survival and persistence as species can be achieved by many ways.


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Old Feb 7, 2008, 12:16 pm   #56 (permalink) (top)
harrythehorton
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what i've learned?

The process of evolution logically is mainly due to two causes:
Survival of the fittest:
there being differences due to gene variation, and such differences causing a larger percentage of a population to survive with a variation than without. So eventually those without such a variation would die out(due to not passing on their genes).

Genetic mutation: Mutations can come from several places, even having your nuts(Planters?) out in the sun. The only way for your to pass on a genetic mutation is for such a mutation to occur within the gamete. Otherwise you would be the only one with the mutation. [ex. if you get an extreme tan, your children wont come out darker]

Let's say there's a shark. Some of this species have a slightly more energy efficient design than the others(do to simple gene variation). There's a lack of food and many of the sharks die out. After this period of little food there are more energy efficient sharks left than the less efficient ones, because they've been able to expend less energy and need less food to survive. Eventually the less efficient variation might die out(due to not being able to pass on their genetics). The average type of shark begins to become this more energy efficient design, and a step in survival of the fittest has been taken.

To say 'we come from monkeys' is a pretty ignorant thing to say.
1. we're more closely related to chimpanzees (then other apes) than monkeys.
2. It's not stating that we come FROM monkeys, it's just saying that somewhere along the line, a LONG time ago, we shared a common ancestor. We evolved in one dirrection, and they evolved in another(to suit different means of survival) eventually we became separate species.

When someone says we share an ancestry with fish, they don't mean we come from fish. To say that fish should give live birth is another dumb thing to say. To explain why we'd have to go back far beyond the existence of fish, and humans. There was some multicellular organism somewhere with a brain, a heart, internal bones, two eyes, a mouth and similar digestive system, sexually reproduced (the list goes on)... all traits that we share with fist. At some point there were either mutations or variations that made, or kept their blood better for breathing in water, gave them scales, gave them the muscle type that lead to what they have today... and along the line, everything that makes them different than us could have mutated or... genetically variated(lol), to what fish are today.
we just went in a separate direction until we had lungs, became bipedal, gave live birth, warm blooded, and every quality that makes us human.
(nothing I've written should be taken as an order for anything, just descriptions of what eventually came about).

Our connection with all other life is sorta like a tall bush. It's got many dead ends and tough spots, but somewhere along the road everything was connected at the base. all the way back to (hypothesis here) the symbiotic relationships between chloroplasts, their symbiotic relationship with some early cell, and mitochondria and theirs.(if you don't know what I'm talking about, go look it up before claiming you know anything. If you do, then feel free to argue your opinion, because at that point... it's only opinion... currently)
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Old Feb 7, 2008, 08:35 pm   #57 (permalink) (top)
gallo
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The process of evolution logically is mainly due to two causes:
Use of the word "cause" isn't the best choice. A biologist would more likely use the word "mechanism." There are several mechanisms of evolution, but untold causes. You see, a cause might be any environmental change to which a population of organisms adapts by changes in the genetic makeup of the population. However, evolution is the result of processes that either increase or decrease genetic variation, the mechanisms of evolution. The result of these genetic changes in a population is evolution.
Quote:
Survival of the fittest:
Bad choice of words. As I explained before, the phrase "survival of the fittest" was coined by a social economist named Herbert Spencer. Spencer was talking about business in a capitalist society, i.e., businesses that offer products and services that the public demands succeed, while those that do not fail. Darwin objected to the application of the term to his theory of natural selection. Wallace, the co-discoverer of the theory, finally persuaded Darwin to use the phrase ("survival of the fittest"), since it had come into common use. However, Darwin didn't use it until the 5th edition of "On the Origin of Species" in Feb of 1869. He never used it without making it clear that he was talking about natural selection by using that term in the same paragraph, sometimes in the same sentence.

Thus, you should have said that one of the two most important mechanisms of evolution is natural selection.

By the way, Darwin didn't use the word 'evolution' until the sixth edition of Origin (1872). He was talked into it by T.H. Huxley. In Darwin's time the word meant change in a particular direction and that's not what Darwin meant by his theories. We still use the old connotation when we talk about stelar evolution, in which main line stars follow a certain pattern of changes. There is no specific direction or goal to biological evolution - only differential reproductive success.
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there being differences due to gene variation,
A biologist would say genetic diversity.
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and such differences causing a larger percentage of a population to survive with a variation than without.
You seem to have the idea but you stopped too soon. An allele that is advantageous is one that gives a statistical advantage to survive to reproduce. If an organism doesn't reproduce then is is evolutionarily meaningless.

For example, the Grants, in their studies of ground Finches in the Galapagos islands trapped tagged and released every finch on their island for over twenty years. They could recognize most birds by sight. Two individuals lived longer than any of the other finches and they mated every year. You might think that they left lots of descendants. In fact, they left none. Not one of their offspring survived to reproduce. So, even though they were the best survivors, they had no impact on the evolution of finches.
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So eventually those without such a variation would die out(due to not passing on their genes).
That's not very well stated. What matters is not genes, since all individuals of a population have the same set of genes. What matters are the alleles that cause variations in the characteristics caused by those alleles. And they don't die out. The alleles become less frequent in the genome of the population. Rarely does a gene die out.
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Genetic mutation: Mutations can come from several places, even having your nuts(Planters?) out in the sun.
But sunlight isn't meaningful as a source of genetic mutation. Cosmic radiation, maybe, or just errors of various kinds during reproduction (point mutations, crossovers, duplications, inversions, transpositions, etc.)
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The only way for your to pass on a genetic mutation is for such a mutation to occur within the gamete.
No. In the reproductive cells that produce the gametes.
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Otherwise you would be the only one with the mutation. [ex. if you get an extreme tan, your children wont come out darker]
Hopefully, you are aware that a tan is not a mutation of any kind.
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To say 'we come from monkeys' is a pretty ignorant thing to say.
1. we're more closely related to chimpanzees (then other apes) than monkeys.
Correct. We share a common ancestor with the two species of chimp. That ancestor lived somewhere between 5 to 7 million years ago.
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2. It's not stating that we come FROM monkeys, it's just saying that somewhere along the line, a LONG time ago, we shared a common ancestor. We evolved in one dirrection, and they evolved in another(to suit different means of survival) eventually we became separate species.
correct.


As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion;...
--From Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli passed unanimously by the Senate 1797
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Old Feb 7, 2008, 09:27 pm   #58 (permalink) (top)
harrythehorton
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Alright, i'm definitely not a debate specialist, nor will my major be English. so please excuse my lack of well worded statements.

I'm currently taking Bio II (had a teacher who didn't rly do anything in Bio I), so please excuse my lack of desire of going into great detail with what we've been over thus far. Though, i do believe i've gotten a better understanding than most ^.^... which doesn't say much for the general population.
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Old Feb 7, 2008, 10:11 pm   #59 (permalink) (top)
rez
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Quote by: harrythehorton View Post
Alright, i'm definitely not a debate specialist, nor will my major be English. so please excuse my lack of well worded statements.

I'm currently taking Bio II (had a teacher who didn't rly do anything in Bio I), so please excuse my lack of desire of going into great detail with what we've been over thus far. Though, i do believe i've gotten a better understanding than most ^.^... which doesn't say much for the general population.
yeah dude, gallo is a biologist so learn from what he says instead of taking it as an insult. That is not his intentions..<