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How Birds Lost Their Teeth
An anonymous reader writes A research team from the University of California, Riverside and Montclair State University, New Jersey, have found that the lack of teeth in all living birds can be traced back to a common ancestor who lived about 116 million years ago. From the article: "To solve this puzzle, the researchers used a recently created genome database that catalogues the genetic history of nearly all living bird orders--48 species in total. They were looking for two specific types of genes: one responsible for dentin, the substance that (mostly) makes up teeth, and another for the enamel that protects them. Upon finding these genes, researchers then located the mutations that deactivate them, and combed the fossil record to figure out when those mutations developed. They concluded that the loss of teeth and the development of the beak was a two-stage process, though the steps basically happened simultaneously. The paper states: 'In the first stage, tooth loss and partial beak development began on the anterior portion of both the upper and lower jaws. The second stage involved concurrent progression of tooth loss and beak development from the anterior portion of both jaws to the back of the rostrum.'"
Have you ever seen a bird brush and floss? I haven't.
No wonder they lost all of their teeth.
In other words beaks are superior to teeth and won out in the stages of the evolution. Where do I go to get a beak installed? I have a friend that has a beak, that looks like a large nose. But he has teeth too We still call him "big bird"
Prehistoric hockey games?
There was a book about this. It was called The Island of Doctor Moreau.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Can you imagine the genetic testing that could have been done to test this? Imagine, freaky-looking birds WITH TEETH, and they get loose!
A friend of mine has a flock of feral peach-faced lovebirds that visits her bird feeder, there are about a dozen of them and they're probably several-generations out from the pet-escapees that started the flock. BIRDS WITH TEETH could probably survive without direct human care. And it would be frightening.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Their common ancestor flew into an elevator with Ray Rice.
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
And so you remind us that there was a movie, too. You insensitive clod.
They have the loss of teeth and the development of the beak, but where did the gizzard develop? They would not have been able to loose their teeth and develop a beak without one, and birds are the only animal (That I know of) that has one.
Plus gizzards are great when fried. ;)
The first gender based, non-single cell organism would have had to been born with the ability to successfully reproduce the first time AND so would its compatible mate and have the ability to sustain that new life.
Flowers. Both sex organs on one plant, but now can exchange genetic information. But diversity wins out, so genders become a distinct genetic advantage. I assume that the same with animals would be convergent evolution, but probably the same starting path.
Nothing succeeds like a toothless budgie. Other birds flocked to the gene pool following the same example.
No hands, unable to brush teeth. Any other question?
Never saw the movie. I try to not judge books by their covers^H^H^H^H^H^Hmovies.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
6005.99999 years ago, one of them flipped God the bird and so He did Smite them and lo their teeh were no more and there was lamentaion and suffering.
Also, beaks are much lighter than teeth, which was probably a significant factor.
Also also, if you're thinking about mammal teeth, you're probably imagining it wrong. One of the unique things about mammal teeth is their complexity relative to the other branches of the vertibrates. Studying mammal evolution has been described as an exercise in studying teeth.
It's thought this advanced tooth development went hand in hand with warm blooded development during the pre-mammal period as more adavanced, inerlocking teeth were requied to mash up food better for quicker digestion which was required for a faster metabolism.
Most reptile teeth look primitive by comparison. Except that simple teeth are easily replacable and so reptiles can regrow lost teeth much more easily (later on some mammals in the ungulates developed open roots for continuous growth which was useful for grazers, whereas others hae a large stock of teeth then starve to death when they run out). The specialisation makes these much harder.
It seems likely that birds did not have the great teeth for supporting warm blooded metabolisms, but rather the simple, robust general purpose teeth of other reptiles, so in this sense there were not losing nearly as much. They also solved the grinding problem in a different way, using a gizzard (this may well predate birds: crocs have gizzards as well and it is speculated that some dinosaurs did). As a result they were replacing the bit that grips and possibly does some initial cutting of food with a much more lightweight structure.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The problem is you are not smart enough (no one is - except perhaps god) to understand all the intervening steps.
You don't 'give up' teeth, you get a mutation and are stuck with it. They are not making conscious decisions to evolve, that is just plain ignorance. If you can find a way to survive without the teeth, you continue on. Eventually you get another mutation, and maybe it evolves to take the place of something you lost.
Birds found a way to survive without teeth before they gained a beak. Possibly it was those rocks some birds swallow and use to grind up large chunks of food (I don't know when or if all do this).
Maybe teeth became a liability. People used to die from a rotten tooth, maybe there was an epidemic of bird tooth infecting microbes. It doesn't matter.
As for gender based on-single cell organism, you have that wrong also. Sex evolved from eating - the victim's genes survived inside the single cell that tried to eat it, and it's grew from there. At that point all those single celled life forms were hermaphrodite - they could eat or be eaten and their DNA would survive in the eater. Eventually, the hermaphroditic single celled life forms developed into two varieties - one that could eat and absorb the DNA (female) and the other that could be eaten and pass on their DNA (male).
Also there was no clear line between single celled life forms and multicelluar life forms. First came colonies that learned to cooperate but could also survive on their own.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Why give up teeth
Because as things changed and the years passed they became more of a hindrance than a help to birds (or their ancestors) and so those offspring born with fewer teeth, or smaller teeth, were better at surviving and having offspring.
how to convince your unborn offspring to do take it to the next step.
Why would any "convincing" be required? The offspring are likely to face the same challenges as their parents. If they've got traits that help them survive better than their peers - such as fewer or smaller teeth - then they'll pass these on to their offspring. Then, in turn, those offspring will be facing the same pressures again. So once again, among those offspring, those with fewer or smaller have a better chance at surviving than their brothers and sisters (and cousins).
You would expect these animals to be superior to us and make conscious decisions to change their DNA, to evolve
What animals are you talking about? No animal needs to make a conscious decision to evolve. It's already taken care of by inheritance and selection pressure.
As long as you've got a mechanism for children to be largely similar to but ever-so-slightly different from their parents, and a reason for some of those offspring to reproduce more successfully than others because of those differences, then evolution is inevitable.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
The problem with macro evolution is the inherent issues with the "in between" stages that are mostly useless, being neither good for one thing they are coming from or good for the thing they are changing into.
The example I use is Butterflies, which change from a crawling creature to one that flies, mid life. Incredible "random" feat if you ask me.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Have you ever seen one use a urinal? Their urine is mixed with their poop and let out at the same time, causing it to be white.
Anthropic principle can be applied here. If birds had teeth, they would evolve into mammal-eaters and pose great threat to any mamal that lives above surface. It is hard to imagine human evolution in such circumstances. Basically, if birds had teeth, there would be nobody intelligent to observe them. It is one of many unlikely random events in nature (including many constants physics) that is somehow biased towards our existence.
839*929
i didn't know this
It appears that your understanding of evolution is misinformed. There is no "convincing" and no "conscious decision" involved.
If you are actually interested, there are materials that would help you better understand what is going on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxysZmNsyDk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdddbYILel0
The "in between" stages aren't useless. The whole concept of "in between" stages doesn't even make any sense. If at any point, an organism wouldn't be able to survive, it would go extinct.
I can't believe in this day and age idiots like you still exist.
It's all one big long gradient, man, no stages. If you read about instars in non-metamorphic insects then metamorphosis will begin to make more sense to you. Aside from that, one of the main benefits is that young and adults are not competing for the same resources.
Exactly my point. Half Beak, Half Teeth doesn't make sense.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Interesting reports like this can be rare as hens teeth.
The example I use is Butterflies, which change from a crawling creature to one that flies, mid life. Incredible "random" feat if you ask me.
It's not random. The ability for adult insects to fly evolved gradually. That has nothing to do with the fact that insects go through metamorphosis, which most likely evolved independently and prior to the capability of flight
Your argument makes as much sense as saying: "I don't believe evolution because people can talk using air even though they spend 9 months sealed up in a bag of water."
In most cases, HG Wells' novels are vastly improved upon by their movie adaptations (even starring Tom Cruise), with the notable except of the The Island of Dr. Moreau.
Every member of a species is an in-between stage. You carry with you mutations in your genes. Yes, useless. Doesn't prevent you from procreating. If you do, your genes will end up in another individual who happens to get another mutation. Perhaps that does something; perhaps it does and it tweaks a protein's specificity. Mutations that don't have an effect now may have one in the future when more mutations build up. Mutations are not directed, occur without purpose (selection is directed: you get offspring or not).
Glucose oxidase (GO) oxidises glucose. That's what it does, in every organism that has it. Glucose oxidase (GO) of a human and a chimp are very similar. Those of a rose and a dandelion to each other too. As their purpose is just to oxidise glucose, it would have been the death of the theory of evolution if a human's GO and one of the plant GO were more similar than that of the chimp's. But that's not the way it is. It is just one of the powerful tests that the theory of evolution passed, and even better provides an explanation for.
There certainly is a lack of knowledge how everything evolved; but that's not a problem. The only problem the theory of evolution suffers from is people's lack of understanding, or willingness to take the effort to understand.
Butterflies? They didn't evolve in one generation. The earth is very very old. Insects are the most popular animals. Lots and lots and lots of mutations resulted in a plethora of different species. Amazing, yes. God of any particular flavour required? No.
Bert
Apparently they were more successful than the ones with just teeth. That's all it takes.
I can't believe in this day and age idiots like you still exist.
Why is it hard to believe?
Idiots breed more idiots very quickly.
But moths are just 'meh'...
http://www.acetonestudio.com
Exactly my point. Half Beak, Half Teeth doesn't make sense.
Umm, the universe is not limited to doing only those things that make sense to YOU. I'd even say it's pretty damn arrogant of you to presume your powers of comprehension are literally some kind of universal limiting factor.
"I can't figure out how evolution could have worked, ergo it must be impossible."
Sure. The powers of your brain cells place limits on biological processes that happened hundreds of millions if not billions of years ago? Uh huh. I bet your unicorns fart butterflies, too.
Hell, just for shits and grins let's assume that God did in fact create humanity in His image. He's God - omniscient and omnipotent. If He wanted to create man in His image by using evolution, He could do just that.
In most cases, HG Wells' novels are vastly improved upon by their movie adaptations (even starring Tom Cruise)
Is this quite as true of the 1960 and 2002 movies of The Time Machine? I watched both and my first disbelief breaker was how English survived 800 millennia when Proto-Indo-European fractured into modern languages in only six.
Oh wait, the Animal Crossing anime isn't a sequel to The Island of Dr. Moreau, is it?
Heh "organs". Look at single cell organisms today and you will find our idea of sex is so..... specific and limited.
These suckers don't have "sex organs" they actually toss out copies of their genetic mateiral for others to grab and use. If anything the sex organs provide a method for filtering and slowing down the messy process of gene exchange, rather than enabling it.
I would bet that the origins of sexuality are actually related to horizontal gene transfer and mechanisms organisms developed to tone down the party.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Is this quite as true of the 1960 and 2002 movies of The Time Machine? I watched both and my first disbelief breaker was how English survived 800 millennia when Proto-Indo-European fractured into modern languages in only six.
Oh wait, the Animal Crossing anime isn't a sequel to The Island of Dr. Moreau, is it?
As a sci-fi fan, I struggle with this wherever I encounter it: Dr. Who, SG-1, and yeah, both adaptations of the Time Machine. In the last case, I think that taking the artistic liberty of adding an actual story, with a real conflict to be resolved, necessitates communication of some kind. While the solution in both movies (people still speak English!) leaves something to be desired, it is still better than the boring temporal travelogue that makes up the source material.
It doesn't make sense to you because you're an idiot. The worst kind of idiot.
There is at least some brief attempt to explain this: English is no longer a widely spoken language, but there is a religion-like effort to preserve it as a ceremonial language, aided by conserving any text in a sufficiently durable form.
It's not a very good explanation considering the time scales involved, but it's better than no explanation at all. It does have some historical basis. Hebrew, for example, all but died out for a time before being revived by religious schoolers. Eight hundred thousand years, though, may be pressing things a little.
The morlocks don't need to preserve english - their leader is telepathic.
In the last case, I think that taking the artistic liberty of adding an actual story, with a real conflict to be resolved, necessitates communication of some kind.
The problem in the novel is "I have to get my time machine back", and the conflict is between the Time Traveller and the environment. Learning how to communicate with the locals is a subproblem of this problem.
While the solution in both movies (people still speak English!) leaves something to be desired
It just bugs me that the writers of both adaptations were afraid to spend a mere three minutes of the script on language elicitation. A feature film is not like an episode of Star Trek: $subtitle where you have 44 minutes to tell a story with no time to spend on language-of-the-week. It could have been done as in Avatar or Dances With Wolves before it. Even The Fifth Element managed to work Leeloo's ongoing acquisition of English as a second language into a plot thread. (Multipass!) The Eloi have the mental capacity of five-year-olds, whether by evolution or by the mind-altering pesticides that their Morlock masters spray on their food. So based on the scant clues in the novel, their language can't be that hard to pick up.
"...they actually toss out copies of their genetic mateiral (sic)..."
This is /.; we're familiar with the process.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Latin is probably the example that Wells was going for, given that its primary use seems to be in Roman Catholicism and at the time, was the only language that Catholic Mass was conducted in. Given that The Time Machine was published in 1895, and Itamar Ben-Avi was only born in 1882 so his father's experiment to turn him into the first modern Hebrew speaker probably wouldn't have been widely known of yet.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
It's the exact opposite. Sexual organs enable exchange of extremely high amounts of information. Single cell organisms are exceedingly simple in comparison, and as a result the method you talk about works well for them.
Attempting the same with more complex organisms would result in overwhelming amount of failures due to permutations being lethal or disabling in nature far more often than not.
Apparently they were more successful than the ones with just teeth. That's all it takes.
It doesn't even necessarily take that much. Sometimes the mutated offspring only has to be not so much worse that it can't manage to reproduce. It could potentially be slightly worse, as long as there's enough room for both to survive.
The example I use is Butterflies, which change from a crawling creature to one that flies, mid life. Incredible "random" feat if you ask me.
That's arguably less incredible than all of the animals that change from small, fragile, immobile white (or tan, brown, etc.) balls into fast, flying creatures.
In the original Stargate Movie the evolution of the ancient Egyptian language was a major plot point. They touched on the language stuff in the first couple episodes of the TV series, then juts dropped it (presumably as you say, because when you've got 40 minutes to set-up and resolve your conflict protracted pantomime and "Daniel recognizes random syllables" sequences don't help with pacing). If SG-1 were written today (in the era of long multi-episode story arcs, and entire seasons representing a three day period of time) they might have kept the language issues.)
Birds have very poor oral hygiene. Eating worms and scratching the dirt and what not. And they never flossed. It was just a matter of time before they lost their teeth.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Except, that's just a failure of your understanding.
Every single thing to ever live is an "in between" species. It sits "in between" its ancestors and its descendants, but resembles neither perfectly.
The fallacy is in thinking that what you can see alive today and in the fossil record is a complete family tree. It isn't. It's a collection of tiny snapshots from across billions of years.
The example I use is Butterflies, which change from a crawling creature to one that flies, mid life.
Except we have a pretty good idea of how it happens.
Do you believe in eggs? That is, do you believe in organisms--including insects--that reproduce by laying eggs? And do you believe that those eggs don't have shells?
If so, can you imagine a mutation that makes an egg very slightly motile? The outer layers of such eggs is typically some kind of protein. Suppose that there is a mutation such that after the egg has grown to a certain size there is a biochemical response that causes the protein coat to contract when exposed to light. Lots of biochemicals react to light, and some of them change shape or react with other molecules under the exposure to light in ways that cause them to change shape. It just has be a tiny bit.
Now you have an "egg" that in its later stages of development moves away from light. Such an egg might plausibly be more likely to survive than one that stays put. So over time, the eggs of such insects that are very slightly motile come to predominate. There is no way around that if the mutation is heritable, so unless you don't believe in DNA--and chemistry--you have to accept that that happens. You could also deny the laws of probability, in which case I have a lottery ticket to sell you.
Now iterate this process over a few million generations. Can you see how you might go from a flying insect that lays eggs to a flying insect that lays slightly motile eggs to a flying insect that has a motile larval stage?
What we can or cannot imagine is irrelevant to what does or does not exist, so I'm not arguing here that "evolution is imaginable and therefore true", but merely trying to extend your imagination to the point where you are motivated to look more deeply into the subject.
My own belief is that evolution by variation and natural selection is not just plausible, but mathematically necessary: http://www.amazon.com/Darwins-...
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Thank you for an informative post...
I don't think that a TV series would have kept it. Nearly all science fiction shows have lampshaded it with some sort of technology. Doctor Who explains that the TARDIS does it. Farscape did it with injectable nano devices of some kind. Star Trek does it with the Universal Translator. Babylon 5 explains that since the station's primary function is commerce and since commerce for humans is generally conducted in English, that's why nearly everyone who speaks with humans speaks in English, and if everyone speaks English as a second language because they came to the station for commerce purposes, they'd probably speak English with each other as well.
Language would get in the way of storytelling if this wasn't handled this way, unless a major part of the plot was to try to figure out how to communicate. Stargate the feature film had this, but the TV show could not have sustained itself on that.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The problem with macro evolution is the inherent issues with the "in between" stages that are mostly useless, being neither good for one thing they are coming from or good for the thing they are changing into.
That seems like eerily familiar with the creationist concept of irreducibility which is considered to be a flawed concept. Two things to remember is that evolution is not goal driven and exaptation has been demonstrated countless times.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
SG-1 did have a few episodes involving the language barriers, particularly those with the Unas. In the one with the Unas tribe, Daniel spent the entire episode repeating himself and gesturing. If that was every episode though, Stargate wouldn't have had so many seasons.
Oh, everything I said above was in relation to the film, not the book. The book has it much simpler: No-one in the future speaks english at all.
There was a book about this. It was called Protector.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I don't see how that is opposite, of course that makes sense. You could even say that turning off or severely restricting HZT is hard to see as anything but a requirement for developing as a multicellular organism that lives and dies by its coordination.
My point was really about the other end.... trying to imagine the evolution of sexual reproduction from simple cell lines that only pass genes vertically through the generations....I can see why that is hard, but we don't have to imagine that since, it was unlikely to have happened exactly like that in such a simple and clean fashion.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
They messed with Chuck.
But let's just say that the Tooth Fairy used to have a different business model.
Very badly written article. The bad writing is not in the summary, it is in the original. There are about 4500 bird species. There are 48 orders. Species -> genus -> family -> order. All extant bird orders, and they took one sample species from each. The article has mangled the reporting of the original research.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Wouldn't some birds with teeth still be around? Why would they died out?
I always thought it was due to bad landings...
"I can't figure out how evolution could have worked, ergo it must be impossible."
Actually, having a brain causes me to think about such things. I do understand evolution. And if it were an advantage, at all, some species would likely to have both. But none exist. So having half teeth and half beak wasn't so good after all, but apparently it was good enough to get from teeth to beak for all birds, and not just some.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
The ability for adult insects to fly evolved gradually.
Explain the stages where it sort of flew.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Not really. The chick doesn't wrap itself up in an egg shell.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Look at today's flying squirrels. It's not hard to figure out how you get from walking mammals to this species, nor from flying squirrels to fully winged creatures. Why would it be any harder for insects to follow the same path?
They learned how to play hockey!
Evolution is results driven, not goal driven that is true. Now figure out how the results of two partial stages has an advantage over surviving that doesn't last for any length of time.
Stage A has advantages, as experienced in animals having A
Stage B has advantages, as experienced in animals having B
No animals have A and B, but somehow we are supposed to believe that animals having A/B existed and had enough advantage to beat out those having A, on their way to having B, but the A/B didn't beat out those who ended up B only. This would indicate that B is evolutionary superior(advantageous) to A, such that many animals starting at A, and developing B, ended up at B, while completely replacing the A/B combinations.
The problem is, there are no evolutionary advantage to A/B or else we would see more examples in nature. This would simply mean that A/B is not viable long term. Requiring evolutionary process from A to B to be relatively quick, so that A exists (and stays A) and B exists (and stays that way) but A/B doesn't exist very long.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
People forget that there is a lot of randomness and luck in evolution. Disasters happen (volcanoes, asteroid strikes are some extreme examples) causing genetic bottlenecks. If the birds with half beaks and teeth had the bad luck to get wiped out in a natural disaster, doesn't matter how much of an advantage they had, the ones lucky enough to further away from the disaster reproduce.
In some ways it's survival of the luckiest as well as the fittest and since luck seems to be just a random process, it can't be selected for.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Perhaps beaks evolved via bills. I believe duck billed platypuses and some duck billed dinosaurs also had teeth, though small.
It's a shame the fossil record is so sparse as some things we'll never know for sure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Evolution is results driven, not goal driven that is true. Now figure out how the results of two partial stages has an advantage over surviving that doesn't last for any length of time.
Again, evolution is not goal driven. Your second sentence contradicts your first admission. A trait survives when it provides or benefit or is neutral. You keep forgetting a trait that provides no advantage can be passed. The issue is really if a trait that proves to be a disadvantage affects a species ability to procreate.
No animals have A and B, but somehow we are supposed to believe that animals having A/B existed and had enough advantage to beat out those having A, on their way to having B, but the A/B didn't beat out those who ended up B only.
I can take from your long-winded and illogical sentence that you're never seen a dolphin or whale in your life? ,a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetacea">Cetaceans are water animals yet they breathe air. Again, you keep insisting goal driven results of advantages.
This would indicate that B is evolutionary superior(advantageous) to A, such that many animals starting at A, and developing B, ended up at B, while completely replacing the A/B combinations.
Again, evolution is not goal driven. You keep insisting that B must be "superior" to A will surely mean that all As dies. In many ways dogs are "superior" to wolves but yet wolves still exist. They exist because "superior" is a judgement not science. Wolves have advantages over dogs and disadvantages over dogs. One of the main disadvantages is that dogs can live with humans whereas wolves cannot; however, wolves are much better suited to living in the wild than dogs.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It's explained in Doctor Who: Time Lords have neat communication abilities that they can share with others. That way, everything sounds like English to the Doctor's companions.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The conditions species live in aren't constant. Advantages of A and/or B fluctuate over time. If an animal has A, and the environment suddenly favors B, those closer to B win. For a while some animals will have both.
However, every feature comes at an energy cost, so animals quickly let what they don't need atrophy. If in the current environment B beats out A+B minus extra energy to generate both, then they will settle at B only.
At any rate, every organism is a mixture of thousands of features, from A0 to Z99999, many of which get added and deleted all the time, so your whole argument is bogus to begin with.
The problem I see with many people is that they see evolution as binary. Everything must be an advantage to be passed on and that mutations are bad. No, mutations are normal with some providing advantages and some are disadvantages. And as you pointed out, some traits have no effect whatsoever. Other traits appear to be a disadvantage or an advantage given the right environment. Fair skin, for example, is advantage in places like Norway where more vitamin D is produced with less light. It is a terrible disadvantage in places of high sunlight like the Sahara, American Southwest, etc.
And some traits are both an advantage and disadvantage like sickle cell anemia. It cuts the lifespan by years and is painful to deal with. However genetically it provides those with the genes an advantage when it comes to malaria which can cause death.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Evolution is imperfectly results-driven, being stochastic rather than deterministic. A trait that confers an advantage may not come to dominate, for a variety of reasons. It may be (necessarily or accidentally) linked with a trait that's a disadvantage. It might not be enough of an advantage to overcome bad luck. It may diverge into a new species that's then wiped out somehow.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Again, evolution is not goal driven.
Animals have A or B, but AB is not evolutionary advantageous to survive. This is not goal, it is a simple statement of what exists. The explanation is that A moves to B along an evolutionary line, where none of the AB survive long term. This is a result, not a goal. Further evidenced by lack of any animals that progressed from B back to A (result, not goal).
As I said, A has advantages, B has advantages, but AB appears to have neither, due to lack of any remaining AB hybrids. A mutates and starts progressing towards B, it either stops and reverts at some point, staying A or it continues to B. However, the AB stage is temporary, thus indicating long term viability of AB is limited if it exists at all.
Again, you keep insisting goal driven results of advantages.
Do you understand the difference between goal and result? Goals require intelligence, results simply exists. Advantages lead to certain results. Disadvantages lead to different results, but results none the less. Evolution is all about results of traits towards viability. Viability is the "goal" ;) In my sentance, I clearly show that A progress towards B in such a way that AB doesn't remain behind. That is a result, not a goal. The viability of AB is what I am questioning, since there is no such thing long term. Viability of half stages is in question.
The Term Superiority is one of resultant progression. As far as I know, B never revered back to A.
Dogs and wolves are both Canines, and not enough differences exist to support your hypothesis. I've seen tamed wolves and wild dogs, to the point where the wild dogs were more dangerous to humans than tamed wolves. ;)
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Climate Change.
People get macro evolution wrong because they're stuck thinking that evolution is about solving an optimization problem: ie, more evolution means better creatures. Except that evolution is about adaptability into the environment, into particular niches, and so forth. There are no higher or lower organisms, they just are. No in between stages, they just are. Sure, there are things between dinosaurs and birds, but then perhaps the bird itself is just an in-between stage between pre-birds and post-birds. Humans in that sense also are just an in-between stage as well, so clumsy and awkward that we can't even adapt without building tools. Defining things as a beginning, in-between, and end is the wrong way to look at things.
As for butterflies, all insects have a larval stage and later an adult stage, most of those adult stages have wings even if vestigial. Butterflies are not at all special in this regard. Once you've got some insects that have wings then most of the evolution that occurs is about separating the insects into a huge variety of species, some who adapted to use wings to escape from predators, while other have brightly colored wings that move them about slowly so that they're a bigger target, and so on.
The "in-between" stages absolutely are useful in some regard, even if the layman's view of evolution doesn't like it. Maybe there was a mutation that seemed pointless and harmful (probably was harmful) but as a side effect it may have made living in a particular environment easier even if they birds ended up eating more of them than the ones without the mutation. Maybe they went for eons with the mutation sticking around in some individuals and not others, until something changed in the environment which gave those with the mutation a very tiny advantage. There may be a big catastrophe wiping out many species and leaving the awkward subspecies of one just barely hanging on but able to exploit all those newly available niches.
They don't even have to be more successful all the time. Those could have been the underdog not so well suited to the environment, but there was a famine or flood or other event. The niches open up for whatever can move in like squatters. Either the local competiton dies off and the previous underdog is left alone there, or the underdog migrates to a less desirable environment that the competition doesn't like.
You see similar things today. We tend to think of very select niches for some species, such as a bird who only eats one type of insect. But we find species willing to adapt to sudden changes in the environment, not necessarily whole sale but a subset of them figure out that they can survive on a different type of insect even if it's not as yummy as the previous kind.
Animals have A or B, but AB is not evolutionary advantageous to survive.
Your binary thinking is a major flaw in your thinking. Nature is not necessarily binary and you asserting AB is not advantageous without evidence. There are many examples of gradients like the fact that humans have remnants of a third eyelid. Transitional forms are not AB entirely.
This is not goal, it is a simple statement of what exists. The explanation is that A moves to B along an evolutionary line, where none of the AB survive long term.
Again, what? You are stating as a fact that none of AB survive long term. You don't know that. The fossil record clearly shows that transitional forms have existed and do exist like the giant panda..
This is a result, not a goal. Further evidenced by lack of any animals that progressed from B back to A (result, not goal).
Again stating something as fact when the fossil record says otherwise.
Do you understand the difference between goal and result?
Do you? All your arguments are about A marching towards B. That is not how evolution works.
Evolution is all about results of traits towards viability.
Again this is flawed understanding of evolution. You keep stating using the term "results" when you mean goals. There are no goals in evolution. There are no results in viability. A species is viable if it lives.
Viability is the "goal" ;)
You just contradicted yourself
In my sentance, I clearly show that A progress towards B in such a way that AB doesn't remain behind.
Again evolution is not a ladder from A to B with AB in the middle. There could be C, D, E, F, and G which all are in between and become their own species.
That is a result, not a goal.
You contradicted yourself above.
The viability of AB is what I am questioning, since there is no such thing long term. Viability of half stages is in question.
Again your binary thinking is frustrating. Everything is not 1/2 steps. Again dolphins and whales are not half fish.
A mutates and starts progressing towards B, it either stops and reverts at some point, staying A or it continues to B. However, the AB stage is temporary, thus indicating long term viability of AB is limited if it exists
What? Your understanding of evolution is highly flawed. A is not mutating towards B as some sort of goal. A will mutate. B may eventually come out of it. Any steps in between isn't temporary if it lasts millions of years. C, D, and E could result. That is what is in the fossil record. See cats. See dolphins.
The Term Superiority is one of resultant progression. As far as I know, B never revered back to A
AGAIN, B is not the end goal. "Superiority" is a judgement. There is no such thing as reverting back because evolution always takes place. Take for example the cheetah. By your logic, the cheetah must be faster to keep evolving. That is not understanding of evolution. They cheetah could evolve to become a longer distance runner or ambush by stealth like jaguars. You cannot say that either method of killing is better.
Dogs and wolves are both Canines, and not enough differences exist to support your hypothesis.
No, dogs descended from wolves. The DNA proves it. Unless you are serious denial of facts (which at this point I don't doubt). And my hypothesis is not a hypothesis; it is a fact that wolves had advantages over dogs and disadvantages over dogs.
I've seen tamed wolves and wild dogs, to the point where the wild dogs were more dangerous to humans than tamed wolves.
If you want to keep a tame wolf around your family, then you are an idiot. As for dogs being tamed by humans, please don't conflate the subject. Wild dogs are not tamed and you know it.
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Welcome our new winged overlords, that sprung teeth as a result of genetic manipulation. Will see who's chicken then.
I guess, on a story like this, one can expect most of the comments to bite.
I already read this story on my old fashioned paper newspaper last Friday. Is internet news slow today, or is my newspaper unbelievably fast?
Teeth or Beaks are binary in nature, we don't see any creatures with both. Your rant about binary nature is flawed, because while nature isn't binary, sometimes the results are.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Before you fly, you can glide. Before you can glide, you can slow your fall. Before you can slow your fall, you can use it to warm/cool your body. Spread the partial wing in the shade when hot and you increase surface area, cooling yourself down. Do the same in the sun and you get more warmth
Basically, if the effect is really mostly useless than that also means it is not particularly bad - such as being born an albino. Albinos live fine lives, with just a few problems. Having a minor problem does not stop you from living OR breeding.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
The first rule is that nobody talks about Bird Fight Club
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"The island of Dr Moreau" is about the transformation of animals in human like creatures. They were all kind of mammals: meat eters , herbivores ... but no birds as far as I remember.
Teeth or Beaks are binary in nature, we don't see any creatures with both. Your rant about binary nature is flawed, because while nature isn't binary, sometimes the results are.
You are aware that chicks have teeth right? It's how they break out of their eggs. They lose their tooth quickly after being hatched but they do have teeth for a short period. As for them not having teeth generally, this evidence shows they lost their teeth over millions and millions of years. I'm not sure where you get the idea of "temporary."
As for rants, keep stating that A must become B. That's not nature. A can still remain as A while a population of A becomes C. That's how most species evolve. You never did answer the question: Are whales half fish? Aren't they AB in your book? What about dogs? They are subspecies of wolves yet you never seen a wolf the size of a chihuahua. Yet dogs and wolves can still mate. This doesn't even encompass the many transitional forms found in fossils.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.