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Top 10 Evolutionary Adaptations
oneill40 writes "The New Scientist has an interesting article up listing the Top 10 most amazing things to have evolved, including sex, death, the eye, language and parasites!" From the article:"Sponges are a key example of multicellular life, an innovation that transformed living things from solitary cells into fantastically complex bodies. It was such a great move, it evolved at least 16 different times. Animals, land plants, fungi and algae all joined in." J adds: Number four, Language, got a careful look from Carl Zimmer a while back. It's Pinker vs. Chomsky, winner take all, pass the popcorn!
AS FAR as humans are concerned, language has got to be the ultimate evolutionary innovation.
:)
really? by reading slashdot, it feels more like devolution to me!
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
How about DNA? It's contains all genetic information that determines how cells are formed and how they behave. It's what allows cells to copy the essence of themselves from one generation to the next, and allows them to continue on the platform from where the last generation left off. If our cells weren't packing around little mini protein 'storage devices', not a whole lot would be happening.
And talk about missing options sheesh! Best evolutionary adaptation? I vote breasts!
"It's true that many species, including insects, lizards and plants, do fine without sex, at least for a while." ... don't forget about Slashdot readers... ZING!
Weird. I would have expected to see an opposable thumb on that list. I mean, isn't that kind of important for us? Or maybe I'm just being too human-centric.
Creationists.
*ducks*
Didn't that happen in the 60's?
"However useful sex may be now that we've got it, that doesn't tell us anything about how it got started"
Are they kidding? I'm sure it was a 'double dog dare' on a Tuesday afternoon in the garden of eden.
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Photosynthesis is definitely the top for me. It changed the chemistry of the entire planet. Of course the human brain has done the same, but we will soon be extinct and out impact rather small compared to photosynthesis.
"Asleep at the switch? I wasn't asleep, I was drunk!" -- Homer
Death is what allows evolution to occur in the first place. Without death, organisms couldn't be replaced by ever improving versions of themselves.
Somewhat along the same lines, Carl Zimmer also talked about "resurrecting the genome" of a mammalian ancestor from about 80 million years ago. Snippets of the genome are present in all mammals today. By comparing the genomes of various mammals, they were able to come up with a pretty good approximate of the genome. This chart shows how much of the original genome different mammals have. Surprisingly, humans have lost only 25% of the original genome, whereas rats and mice have lost more than twice that. I would have thought otherwise since the earliest mammals were shrewlike... but I'm not a biologist/geneticist/whoever studies these things.
He also wrote this article some time ago that talked about Resurrecting the Genome. Here is another article (by him) on the same topic, that appeared on NY Times.
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My four favorite things produced by evolution: yeast, barley, hops, and monks.
The capacity to develop and understand evolution is something biological. Otherwise, every animal could learn a language just as complex.
Popular presentation of evoltuion, including what I was taugt in high-school biology, are so dumbed down as to be incorrect. The creationists have an easy time attacking what's commonly presented as "evolution". I don't think evolution is really that hard to teach (aside from the controversy), and the actual beliefs of scientists about evolution are far, far more credible. How did we go so wrong here?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
It's what allows cells to copy the essence of themselves from one generation to the next, and allows them to continue on the platform from where the last generation left off.
And if you don't have DNA, you don't have imperfectly-replicating life forms, which means that you don't have evolution. As such, you cannot use evolution to go from the stage where there is no DNA to where there is, because it involves at least one step where you don't have reproducing life forms.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
I'm not accusing the people who anthropromorphize as being bad scientists - I'm sure that they have the proper understanding of evolution and natural selection and similar concepts within their mind. However, what you have to realize is that your audience may not. Making consistent use of words like innovation and discovery, and general verbs associated with multicellular life makes the article sound more like journalism than science.
I realize that it's probably convenient to not have to worry about portraying modern evolutionary theory in the right manner, but it's also responsible. I wouldn't be bringing this up if I didn't run into it every single day - we anthropromorphize to such a degree that eventually we ourselves begin to believe that evolution really is a deliberate mechanism that acts towards creating the "perfect" life form.
The solution? Likely not to happen while Christian Conservatives still hold popular sway in politics, nor until science figures out how to convey its teachings to the lowest common denominator.
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I find it amusing that profanity is apparantly universal. Chimps/gorillas are never taught sign language for any profanity, but they regularly invent a sign for "shit" and use it as profanity. This is usually translated as "dirty" in scientific publication. ;)
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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Language requires very specific parts of the brain to work correctly. This has been seen in brain damaged people and children with certain birth defects. It may be very difficult if not impossible for them to learn a language, understand or speak it. This indicates that we have language-specific hardware built in. The abilities of the chimps is no surprise here - in fact, it supports the idea that we are evolved to use language, considering chimps are our closest genetic relatives. Other animals can learn human language to some degree too, and do in fact communicate amongst themselves. But really, it's a huge advantage for a group to be able to communicate within its ranks. From the altruistic warning cry to, oh I don't know, mating songs, language has had very good reasons to evolve.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
Why not? Many organisms already survive long enough to compete with their offspring. If the descendants of an organism are "better" than the ancestor, then they will outcompete the ancestor regardless of whether or not the ancestor is genetically programmed to die.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Immortality, now that would be a nice adaptation!
In the short and narrow terms, death seems like a failure but globally and long term, death is necessary for the survival of the species.
On a microscopic level death is vital to keep the whole organism healthy. The article specifically mentions cellular programmed suicide. Most of the time, cells in multicelluar bodies like ourselves commit suicide when they detect abnormalities in themselves. So far researchers have identified the gene (p53) in humans that directs this behavior. Cancer is the result when p53 fails to work correctly.
Macroscopically, death and evolution are mutually intertwined. The creatures with the most desirable traits can direct the path of the species with survival. Less desirable genes are removed from the population by death. In addition to gene and trait selection, death keeps populations healthy by keeping populations in check. Death ensures that limited resources are not depleted.
Imagine if every human that ever died of simple old age was still around today. I don't think the Earth could support that many humans. Because we at the top of the food chain, there are few if any predators that keep our population in check. We could easily deplete all the food, space, water, etc.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
1. tonsils - create more problems than they're worth. F*cking swelling, soreness and sleep apnea.
2. appendix - that's a winner.
3. coccyx - I had to look this up to spell this useless thing right.
4. funny bone - this has never made me laugh. It has helped with new curse words though.
5. needing sleep - 8 hours-c'mon, can't we evolve down to 2 or so.
6. the knee - there has got to be a better way- stretched ligaments, torn ACL's etc.
7. religion - nuff said.
8. ingrown toenails - trim trim trim
9. ingrown hair - great fun digging them out
10. balding - (or hair migration to the back) what is the point of this "evolutionary advance"?
I'm sure I missed many
The "lowest common denominator" of course being the likes of Michael Faraday, Isaac Newton, Blaise Pascal, etc. Yeah... what a bunch of dolts! You tell 'em!
Dishonest creationist tactic #874: list, as support for creationism, the names of "creationist Scientists" whose work was not in any field related to biology, whose work did not support any actual creationist claims and most of whom were dead before Charles Darwin was even born, much less published Origin (though Faraday didn't die until 1867, but that's hardly time for a non-biologist to fully examine the evidence for evolution and draw conclusions).
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
With regards to the first three items on the list, these are best described as "vestigial" stuctures. That is, they're body parts that evolution forgot--they once served a useful purpose, but no longer have any value or function.
The same thing can be said of wisdom teeth, for example. Or paralell ports.
Presumably, as these structures continue to cause problems for some members of the species, while providing no advantages, evolutionary processes would eventually eliminate them.
Sponges are very cool -- you can put one through a sieve so fine that it's broken down into individual cells, and it will then reassemble itself into a complete sponge, but with every cell rearranged into a new position! Apparently the scientist who first did this (ca. 1900) then tried doing it with two separate sponges of different species at once, and was disappointed when they didn't reassemble into a hyrbid. Shows how little they knew about the microscopic basis of genetics at that time.
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- What is [life's] purpose? - To successfully reproduce before you are eaten.
- What is *our* purpose? - See #1.
That's it. That's all there is. Reproduction. Everything else is just strategies to help us reproduce or control reproduction. However, you have a massive brain that bestows upon you language and consciousness. This gives you the ability to do more with your life than simply have kids.The purpose of your life is whatever you decide it will be. If you want a grand purpose then give yourself one. If all you want to do is watch TV until you fall over dead one day, go for it. There is no grand purpose. The universe doesn't give a wet slap what you do or if you live or die.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Who believes that their neighbour's sins affect them?
A huge number of people, otherwise homosexuality wouldn't be descriminated against by law, nor would drugs, gambling, prostitution, buying cars on Sunday, and all sorts of other things be prohibited in at least a few places in the US.
If my sins don't affect you, then why are you (generic, not personal) telling me what I can do in my own home with consenting adults behind locked doors?
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Anybody else ever considered regigions as some kind of parasistic idea, living and propagating on the human mind, and subjected to the same kind of natural selection as living beings ?
Imagine that : religions appear and mutate randomly, and only the liveliest branches, the ones most able to hold out against reality and other religions gain followers and thus multiply...
Images formed upside down
Why does it matter where the photo-receptors are physically if they can be logically connected in any way?
Not forgetting
4. Lost the ability to see in ultra-violet.
From a study of 'opsins', the chemical molecules that convert light into electrons, and enable vision to work, many small animals and insects have the ability see these wavelengths. Humans seem to have lost this ability, due to the increased refraction at short wavelengths caused by larger eyes.
5. To be able to visualize magnetic field lines.
Magnetically sensitive molecules have been found in avian retinas. The theory is that these could appear as some sort of overhead display in the bird's mind (although, nothing more than lines running across the field of view, or maybe a pair of light/dark spots).
6. To be able to visualize polarised light (as used by the octopus). Underwater, light is polarized by the reflection of light reflected off fish scales. Many fish try and camouflage themselves by trying to match the optical intensity of their surroundings. For simple predators this works, but more complex creatures
such as the octopus are not fooled.
Also, polarized light can be used to signal to other members of the species without attracting undue attention.
7. Or having 16 visual pigments like the Stomatopod, which is also known to use polarised light to signal to others of the same species (And which also has stereo vision using one eye).
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