An evolutionary question

[loser]

I'm sure that I don't understand the TOE in all of its nuances so perhaps someone can answer this question for me.

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.

I was thinking about just how much of an advantage it is to have thick fur. My dog is able to withstand cold outside that would kill me. 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.

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? That really doesn't make much sense to me. If we had more hair in the past, why did we lose it? For aesthetic purposes? Why couldn't we just evolve body fur with zippers for easy removal? Or, like other animals, the ability to molt or shed?

It's hard to accept evolution when so much of it goes against reason. Of course, there may be answers that I can't see that others can. Hence, the question.

[Kuldeep]

Very true ! Your is question quite reasonable and genuine. Survival of the fittest is understanable but, what about "gene mutation businees" why does it takes place and what is the root cause for that ???

I put the question in thread of Human Evolution" as to why exactly gene mutation takes place and wondered in future, whether humans would be evolved to super-man specie or what !!!

[scofield]

Hi Loser.

This is my first post, so let me know how I do!

Evolution is by now a very old theory, but is still itself evolving. We learn more all the time, and assumptions that we make today are often disproved tomorrow.

For example, it was a natural conclusion that Human evolution had slowed down, but it was recently announced that in fact there is now much greater genetic diversity in the worlds population than expected - evolution is happening about 100 times faster than we thought it was!

As for hair-loss, this is still a largly unanswered question. Actually, that's probably not an accurate statement; in truth there are many answers, just nothing definitive.

For a long time the reigning theory was that we lost our fur to aid heat loss in warmer climates, but this would be at least balanced by the disadvantage of having our skin exposed to direct sun.

A more recent theory (Link posted in next post) is that we lost our hair to help fight bugs. Lice and other biting insects can be a major problem, which is why our still-hairy primate cousins place so much importance on social grooming. Indeed, it was reported this week that some monkeys actually trade grooming for sex!!

I think evolution is a very solid idea that's not likely to ever go away, but I also think we have a long way to go before we fully understand it. On its own, it just doesn't fully enough answer all of the questions.

[scofield]

Here's that link:

Early humans lost hair to beat bugs - human-evolution - 08 June 2003 - New Scientist

It wouldn't let me post a link in my first post in case I was a spambot!

[rez]

Quote by: loser I'm sure that I don't understand the TOE in all of its nuances so perhaps someone can answer this question for me.

LOL..yeah, you are right you don't understand ToE one bit.

Quote by: loser Evolution? I am a scientist and I can absolutely state with the utmost confidence that the theory of evolution has utterly failed.

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.

Mendel genetics would help you realize this.

I was thinking about just how much of an advantage it is to have thick fur.

Arm chair thinking...

My dog is able to withstand cold outside that would kill me. 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.

Humans did not evolve in the cold though. Don't you know that?

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?

Ok first thing is first.

Humans did not decide on which way to evolve. The fur gene over millions of years simply became obsolete. Genes are not controlled by the brain. They are controlled by quantum physics and reproduction.

That really doesn't make much sense to me. If we had more hair in the past, why did we lose it?

Genetics is a rather complicated topic. You think humans controll the way genes get past on from person to person through their minds. I don't know if its possible to communicate this information with you without you obtaining a basic education in biology first

For aesthetic purposes?

For biological purposes

Why couldn't we just evolve body fur with zippers for easy removal?

Because zippers are a human invention that have nothing to do with genes let alone biology. Didn't you know that?

Or, like other animals, the ability to molt or shed?

Again, do you know what you are talking about?

It's hard to accept evolution when so much of it goes against reason.

Thats the problem, you don't have reason to begin with. You think zippers can evolve on body fur and humans can control evolution with their own minds. You see, when you read about evolution and you have no understanding of it and compare it to your illogical questions, then yes it does contradict things in your mind.

Of course, there may be answers that I can't see that others can. Hence, the question.

Yep, and hence me telling you to go back and re-read the first chapter in your Biology book.

Questions are a very good tool to use when obtaining an education, but when the questions are in left field that have nothing to do with the subject, then there is no way of learning the content at hand...Sorry. Go back and re-read what you read and ask questions that have something to do with the subject.

[Nemiroff]

An advantagous gene only increases the CHANCE of survival, if a the first human with claws happened to get hit by a rock and died before reproduction, there goes a wasted good gene. Many useful traits may have not made it, and many not so useful traits may have managed to survive.

What if a human developes a very useful trait and a bad trait at the same time? If the good one is good enough, the bad one might get a free ride into our gene pool.

Also, we developed from monkeys supposedly in Africa, so it would be very helpful to get rid off all that hair, and I'm pretty sure bugs are also a big problem around there.

Btw, hair, claws, fangs, etc all take energy to make, wether it means staying longer in the womb or eating more a day, nothing is free. Our minds take a shitload of energy to make and use. Its pretty much our only asset and we're already the species that takes the longest in the womb, and it takes us several years after that to finish developing outside the womb (hey all you ladies, carrying a kid for 9 months is hard, but if we worked like other animals, it would take 5 or so years and a lot of stretching to get a human baby out).
Perhaps evolution did away with many benefital traits so that we could develope the brain in a relatively moderate time, and not have to eat an elephant a day.

[Jack]

How about humans with tails. Where does that fit into the creation story?

[Kuldeep]

A wild guess, though !! Since, the tail exists with human fetus during the first 8 weeks of pregnancy, might be having a specific function unknown presently, which medical experts can findout somtime in future !! It definitely must have some purpose.

Look, people wondered why un-necessary items like tonsil and apenix exist in human body, but these acts as indicators of initial infection of throat and intestines respectively.so that early corrective action taken to check deepening of infection

[loser]

scofield asks:

This is my first post, so let me know how I do!

I think you did quite well. Welcome to the 'jungle'.

A more recent theory (Link posted in next post) is that we lost our hair to help fight bugs. Lice and other biting insects can be a major problem, which is why our still-hairy primate cousins place so much importance on social grooming. Indeed, it was reported this week that some monkeys actually trade grooming for sex!!

That's never worked for me. I've offered to bite a lot of women's toe nails for them for some sex but, so far, none of them has taken me up on it.

rez: I'm beginning to see a pattern in your posts. It appears that you never have anything (either original or borrowed) to add to a thread. All I ever see you do is ad hominem attacks against character or cheerleader-type encouragement of others. Don't you have anything of substance to ever add?

Your post consisted primarily of argument ad hominem and straw person fallacy. You threw out two words, "Mendel genetics", which any pea-brain could mention and one totally ridiculous statement, "Genes...are controlled by quantum physics and reproduction". Other than one other eye-opening revelation (read that as sarcasm), " Genetics is a rather complicated topic", your post is strawman, strawman, strawman. Your advice to me to obtain "a basic education in biology first" bounces off of me and sticks all over you like glue.

It's okay, though...maybe you can do better next time.

Also, we developed from monkeys supposedly in Africa, so it would be very helpful to get rid off all that hair, and I'm pretty sure bugs are also a big problem around there.

Does this mean that monkeys are becoming less haity, then? If not, why not?

Perhaps evolution did away with many benefital traits so that we could develope the brain in a relatively moderate time, and not have to eat an elephant a day.

Or perhaps modern man has changed very little from the very first man. The basic laws governing all life on our planet suggests that our brain capacity is diminishing and the evidence tends to support this.

On a personal level, I felt smarter yesterday than I do today. In fact, my cognitive abilities seem to be in an inexorable decline...what were we talking about?

[rez]

Quote by: loser Your post consisted primarily of argument ad hominem and straw person fallacy. You threw out two words, "Mendel genetics", which any pea-brain could mention

I mentioned Mendel genetics because it is very important in forming a very basic understanding of how evolution works.

and one totally ridiculous statement, "Genes...are controlled by quantum physics and reproduction".

quantum physics plays a key roll in studying Chemistry, in which chemistry plays a key roll in the way genes are structured. These two subjects would explain random mutation within genes.

Reproduction also plays a key role in understanding how chromosomes pair with each other which is how traits are passed on from generation to generation.

Other than one other eye-opening revelation (read that as sarcasm), " Genetics is a rather complicated topic", your post is strawman, strawman, strawman. Your advice to me to obtain "a basic education in biology first" bounces off of me and sticks all over you like glue.

And yet I am not the one that says things like...

Quote by: loser 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?

"We" didn't do anything and saying it in the first place shows your lack of education...so please, re-read Chapter 1.

Quote by: loser Why couldn't we just evolve body fur with zippers for easy removal?

Again more complete nonsense. We did not evolve body fur with zippers because zippers are a human invention that has nothing to do with the genome let alone biology.

If you think zippers have anything to do with biology, then you need to re-read from Chapter 1 again and work your way in the book.

Or perhaps modern man has changed very little from the very first man.

Or perhaps that would go against all the evidence that has been found in the fossil record.

The basic laws governing all life on our planet

Please list these "basic laws"..

suggests that our brain capacity is diminishing and the evidence tends to support this.

Yeah, well then support it...

On a personal level, I felt smarter yesterday than I do today.

Did you re-read Chapter 1 in your Biology book? Did you learn how a cell works and reproduces?


There are no ad hom attacks here. I attacked all your arguments. Since you were asking a question I suspected you wanted to learn. The only way to learn is to read about the subject. Obviously the only recommendation I have for you is to read about the subject.

[sevendogs]

The point is our evolution took place in the warm climate in Africa. This is when we loose our fur, not 100% of it, though. Evolutionary achievements can be very diverse, but the final result is always adaptation and survival. Humans developed good brains, which helped to compensate looses in muscular strength, fur, claws, etc.. Making tools and skills to use them helped us to tame animals and exploit all ecological niches simultaneously. The advantage was so overwhelming so now we can worry, if it would bring us to self destruction so prolific and greedy we are getting.

[Jubloz]

Quote by: scofield Evolution is by now a very old theory, but is still itself evolving.

Yes, it's about a century and a half old at this point, but to say that the theory itself is still evolving is, perhaps, a bit misleading. The details surrounding and supporting the ToE are certainly changing and growing as we learn more, but the theory that Darwin managed to piece together is still fully intact.

Quote by: scofield For example, it was a natural conclusion that Human evolution had slowed down, but it was recently announced that in fact there is now much greater genetic diversity in the worlds population than expected - evolution is happening about 100 times faster than we thought it was!

This may also be a bit misleading. Because there are significantly more people than in the past, there's likely quite a bit more random mutations occurring as a whole, but it's not as if the percentage of mutations is necessarily growing.

To illustrate what I'm saying, let's say we have 100 of organism X in a jar, and a random mutation will occur in 2% of them. Under this scenario, we'd find that there were 2 mutated X organisms. Now, let's say we've got 10,000,000 of organism X in a jar, with the same potential for mutation. We'd find that a whopping 200,000 of the organisms had mutated, but not because their "evolution was sped up", but simply because there were more of them.

Of course, things are far more complex than this simple example, but I felt it necessary to demonstrate how scale can add quite a bit of confusion. Another factor in what you said, of course, would be that many people who had been isolated for geographic reasons can, due to technology, now come together and have children, which allows for quite a bit of genetic change.

Quote by: scofield As for hair-loss, this is still a largly unanswered question. Actually, that's probably not an accurate statement; in truth there are many answers, just nothing definitive.

I'd say that your second sentence is probably more accurate than your first. The savanna hypothesis is extremely popular, although it has its flaws. I tend to buy into the aquatic hypothesis quite a bit more, although it, too, is in need of fine-tuning.

Quote by: scofield For a long time the reigning theory was that we lost our fur to aid heat loss in warmer climates, but this would be at least balanced by the disadvantage of having our skin exposed to direct sun.

Right. This is the savanna hypothesis. The problem with it is that most mammals in warmer climates retain their fur, whereas it's extremely common for aquatic animals to be more hairless. Adapting to a semi-aquatic life would have had a lot of perks for our ancestors, including access to otherwise unattainable resources (like fish), an escape from the heat and from predators, significantly less stress on the joints and therefore a promotion of bipedalism, and even drastically reduced stress during childbirth. The development of a dark pigmentation would have been a somewhat simple adaptation to solar radiation in compensation for bare skin.

Quote by: scofield A more recent theory (Link posted in next post) is that we lost our hair to help fight bugs. Lice and other biting insects can be a major problem, which is why our still-hairy primate cousins place so much importance on social grooming. Indeed, it was reported this week that some monkeys actually trade grooming for sex!!

An idea which is not without problems. I can understand how being hairless could be protective against insects in some circumstances, but hair can also provide quite a bit of protection against biters and blood-suckers. Whether or not hair is advantageous or disadvantageous depends quite a bit on the type of insect, the particular group's social and grooming habits, and the context of the given situation.

Quote by: scofield I think evolution is a very solid idea that's not likely to ever go away, but I also think we have a long way to go before we fully understand it. On its own, it just doesn't fully enough answer all of the questions.

I fully agree that the ToE is here to stay, and that we've just begun to understand it; after all, the human genome was mapped only recently. On it's own, the theory of evolution answers quite a bit, but there is still much yet to be learned. Our purely molecular and chemical predecessors ending with abiogensis, and perhaps beginning with some sort of big bang, still requires much explaination, and I imagine that none of us will be fortunate enough to have our questions answered within this lifetime. That being said, there is far too much evidence supporting evolution to ignore the theory's implications.

[Jubloz]

Quote by: Nemiroff An advantagous gene only increases the CHANCE of survival, if a the first human with claws happened to get hit by a rock and died before reproduction, there goes a wasted good gene. Many useful traits may have not made it, and many not so useful traits may have managed to survive.

Very true.

Quote by: Nemiroff What if a human developes a very useful trait and a bad trait at the same time? If the good one is good enough, the bad one might get a free ride into our gene pool.

I fully agree. If a "bad trait" isn't enough to kill an individual before reproduction, there's a good chance that characteristic will be able to continue. Although, keep in mind, many genetic mutations are neither beneficial or harmful, and, furthermore, many traits we're quick to label as detremental actually have advantages in extreme circumstances, such as the abundance of cases of sickle cell enema, a lethal genetically inherited disease, that also protects against malaria by preventing the malaria virus from attaching to the person's sickle-shaped blood cells.

Quote by: Nemiroff Also, we developed from monkeys supposedly in Africa, so it would be very helpful to get rid off all that hair, and I'm pretty sure bugs are also a big problem around there.

I already gave a short response to the hair issue, although I'd be willing to elaborate if anyone's confused. Also, just to nitpick, no evolutionary biologist is claiming that we evolved from monkeys, but we do share a distant common ancestor with them. It is important to realize there's a distinction between monkeys and great apes (pongidae ). We have a far more recent common ancestors with gorillas, chimps, and bonobos, but none of these three animals are "monkeys", they're "apes". The distinction is vital because, on a smaller scale, it's sort of like calling your sister your great-grandma , implying that your sister gave birth to your mom's mom, which is obviously misleading and inaccurate.

[Jubloz]

Quote by: rez quantum physics plays a key roll in studying Chemistry, in which chemistry plays a key roll in the way genes are structured. These two subjects would explain random mutation within genes. Reproduction also plays a key role in understanding how chromosomes pair with each other which is how traits are passed on from generation to generation.

Yep. Biology aside, external physical factors play a huge role in genetic mutation, and can vary according to exposure to radiation or chemicals. As if reproduction didn't complicate things enough, all other environmental factors may come into play.

"loser", you do seem to have a common misunderstanding of evolution. Scientists will often say, "we evolved to...", or "we adapted to..." as a short way of saying that a particular trait was selected for, whereas those who lacked that trait were killed off. It's easy to be confused by this sort of linguistic problem if you're not already familiar with evolution, as it seems to imply that our ancestors needed a certain characteristic and then gained it simply because they needed it. This Lamarckian misconception would imply that if I needed to fly in order to survive, I, or perhaps my children's children, would develop wings. As enjoyable as this would be, evolution does not function by the means of willing a characteristic into existence. It would be, perhaps, more accurate to say that evolution is spawned by "chance".

[rez]

Since loser is not back I would assume that he is studying Chapter 1 of his Biology book.

[Matt W]

rez, drop the attitude.

DO NOT RESPOND IN THIS THREAD TO THE PRECEDING MESSAGE. Please contact a member of the staff privately if you have any questions.

[Kuldeep]

Quote by: rez Since loser is not back I would assume that he is studying Chapter 1 of his Biology book.

Chapter 1 of Biology must be dealing with word LIFE, which no biologist to date must have absolutely/primarily undrstood... I am confident of that. What makes a cell alive to begin with. Everybody speaks of how it lives or is produced !! for pointing out !!

[Jack]

It goes back to the fact that there are some things about the origins of life we don't know. We who appreciate science are willing to accept that while considering that someday we may know or perhaps we'll never know.

But the lack of a scientific answer does not automatically suppose a theistic answer. In other words, when science says, "we don't know", that does not mean that god did it.

[Kuldeep]

Quote by: Isherwood But the lack of a scientific answer does not automatically suppose a theistic answer. In other words, when science says, "we don't know", that does not mean that god did it.

I would never mean that but, continue wondering !!!

However, presently I am satisfied with my conception of feeling of existence as something(Ego or Consciousness) is the origin of Life. I might be expecting such type of feeling even in non-living things or sub-atomic structure...but can I prove??...NO !!

[ZNFYRH]

Quote by: Isherwood But the lack of a scientific answer does not automatically suppose a theistic answer.

And the lack of a theistic answer does not automatically suppose a scientific answer.

Ad ignorantium, Isherwood. You know better.