The Darwin Spin Off

[FairreLilette]

1 hour ago, Luna Bliss said:

their own power, a kind of "do-gooder" mentality, converting others to their religion only for selfish reasons. He seems to believe all people in general attempting to do good are actually, deep down inside, selfish slobs trying to push their views on others.

I can tell you in the case of my Mom she was not a do-gooder in the name of her religion nor a selfish slob.  She rarely talked about her beliefs at all.  Most of my family who were Roman Catholic are now reformed and are American Catholic and they believe in a woman's right to choose birth control and other things that the Pope says no about.  However, reformed Catholics are no longer in communion with the Roman Catholic church.  Many churches and/or religions in America are reformed.   But, America is a melting pot of beliefs and non-beliefs, this is why I truly believe in a secular government that is for all people to allow them to believe personally or not believe.  It should be personal, not political.  But, organized churches are very powerful and have money - full stop.  Not really going to say much beyond that.  

I read the Wiki about Hitchen's and what little I did read I stopped where it seems he was saying it was a publicity stunt but not in those words.  This is possible but I wondered could it really be proven?  A publicity stunt is usually only proven by the people involved coming out and saying it was a publicity stunt.  

18 hours ago, roseelvira said:

or did man when he evolved have  that mental ability ,,and in any way  are we evolved from rabbits???

We didn't actually evolve from rabbits nor Apes, it is more like we splintered from the chimpanzee and share a common ancestor.  However, I thought this common ancestor has been described as "a missing link".  In other words, the link is not there as to why humans splintered from Apes.  If we truly evolved from apes, they would have to be extinct altogether and the same with rabbits.  Maybe someone can clarify what this missing link is. 

Edited March 18, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Luna Bliss]

1 hour ago, FairreLilette said:

20 hours ago, roseelvira said:

or did man when he evolved have  that mental ability ,,and in any way  are we evolved from rabbits???

We didn't actually evolve from rabbits nor Apes, it is more like we splintered from the chimpanzee and share a common ancestor.  However, I thought this common ancestor has been described as "a missing link".  In other words, the link is not there as to why humans splintered from Apes.  If we truly evolved from apes, they would have to be extinct altogether and the same with rabbits.  Maybe someone can clarify what this missing link is. 

Here's an interesting article:

There Is No 'Missing Link' in Evolution -- Evolution Is A Scientific Fact:

No. There is No "Missing Link" in Human Evolution. (futurism.com)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And then an article about the so-called missing link that was found (from 2 years ago...don't know what the status is now):

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/19/health/australopithecus-sediba-human-history-scli-intl/index.html

Edited March 18, 2021 by Luna Bliss

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, FairreLilette said:

I can tell you in the case of my Mom she was not a do-gooder in the name of her religion nor a selfish slob.  She rarely talked about her beliefs at all.  Most of my family who were Roman Catholic are now reformed and are American Catholic and they believe in a woman's right to choose birth control and other things that the Pope says no about.  However, reformed Catholics are no longer in communion with the Roman Catholic church.  Many churches and/or religions in America are reformed.   But, America is a melting pot of beliefs and non-beliefs, this is why I truly believe in a secular government that is for all people to allow them to believe personally or not believe.  It should be personal, not political.  But, organized churches are very powerful and have money - full stop.  Not really going to say much beyond that.  

I read the Wiki about Hitchen's and what little I did read I stopped where it seems he was saying it was a publicity stunt but not in those words.  This is possible but I wondered could it really be proven?  A publicity stunt is usually only proven by the people involved coming out and saying it was a publicity stunt.  

We didn't actually evolve from rabbits nor Apes, it is more like we splintered from the chimpanzee and share a common ancestor.  However, I thought this common ancestor has been described as "a missing link".  In other words, the link is not there as to why humans splintered from Apes.  If we truly evolved from apes, they would have to be extinct altogether and the same with rabbits.  Maybe someone can clarify what this missing link is. 

I suppose I could argue that organized religions in general are "publicity stunts", with a select few publicists advertising some ideology to the masses in order to secure a following for it. To the degree they can craft a story that resonates with the audience, they'll be successful.

Regarding the missing link, it's an outdated concept. Earlier in this thread, I explained that our spot of the evolutionary tree traces back a branching event, about 90 million years ago, from a pool of creatures that also spawned modern bunnies, and would be more recognizable to us as rabbit than human. We'll never fill the fossil record so completely that we can identify every significant branch point in anything's evolution.

It's not quite true that anything we evolved from must be extinct by now. Yes, if our path branched from Lagomorpha 40-90 million years ago, eventually producing humans, it's unlikely that any of those ancient rabbity things produced a succession of offspring that haven't changed at all. But, there are modern rabbits who share a lot more in common with those ancient ancestors than we do.

There are examples of modern creatures that retain significant proportions of primitive characteristics. Not every branch of the evolutionary tree grows new branches at the same rate. Degree of selection pressure, mutations creating less mutable offspring, mutations creating offspring with superior mutation repair mechanisms; all these affect branch rates. Prior to DNA sequencing, the coelacanth was thought to be the best example of a modern primitive, now it's the lungfish.

It's not too terribly wrong (nor impolite) to point at a lungfish, trace back to our common branch point (using http://timetree.org) and say "we split off from that thing's ancestors 413 million years ago, which looked a lot like that thing". What people often do though, is look at a modern thing and say "evolution is crap, we clearly didn't evolve from that" without understanding that evolution completely agrees with them. Each of us has directly evolved from just two primitive creatures, named...

...Mom and Dad.

In my case, those creatures went extinct within the last 13 years.

ETA: We discussed such things regularly in my youth. I just recalled a discussion in which we wondered what external investigators would say about the three of us from "the evidence". Anyone looking at photographs would presume I'd descended from my mother but not my father. Anyone looking at behavioral evidence would presume I'd descended from my father, not my mother.

It was at that point in the discussion that my mother said "Anyone looking at your DNA would presume you'd descended from the mailman".

That's another bit of McMaster's family lore that still puts a grin on my face.

Edited March 18, 2021 by Madelaine McMasters

[FairreLilette]

19 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

It's not quite true that anything we evolved from must be extinct by now.

Extinction was part of Darwin's theory and I published that quote in this thread but it's a long thread so I am reading through it to find that quote which to me looked emphatically like a conclusion by Darwin.  What I remember now about that particular quote from Darwin was it had something to do with natural selection aka survival of the fittest.  One survived, the other did not (extinct).  However, just attempting to read Darwin's theory of natural selection, it seems the Wiki is saying Darwin was not sure it was complete, his theory of natural selection which Darwin later adapted to survival of the fittest.  

Edited March 18, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Orwar]

28 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

Extinction was part of Darwin's theory and I published that quote in this thread but it's a long thread so I am reading through it to find that quote which to me looked emphatically like a conclusion by Darwin.  What I remember now about that particular quote from Darwin was it had something to do with natural selection aka survival of the fittest.  One survived, the other did not (extinct).  However, just attempting to read Darwin's theory of natural selection, it seems the Wiki is saying Darwin was not sure it was complete, his theory of natural selection which Darwin later adapted to survival of the fittest.  

   Extinction isn't in any way 'required' for a species to evolve. Evolution can also occur when a species spreads and have to adapt to new surroundings - in due course, they will be distinct species in their own right (although that takes rather a long time), but in the short term things like fur or feather colours may shift, beaks or claws may begin to change shape - it's really up to us humans, as we're the ones who've invented the taxonomy system, to decide how different they must become to become a new species or subspecies. 

   I can't remember off the top of my head what it was I was watching, some documentary in which they brought up the national bird of some island group nation and how they struggled to decide how it should be portrayed as there were 27 'variants' of the bird depending on where and on which islands they lived, but were still all 'the same kind of bird'. 

   Evolution is not driven by a need to replace an outdated version of a species, but to adapt a species to its surroundings - and it all works on the individual level; it is then the survivors that breed and carry their genes forwards in the generations, and through this, those individuals within a species who manages to adopt and thrive will contribute to the genepool whilst individuals within a species who die (or just, can't compete in whichever mating rituals the species has) .. Don't do very well with the whole breeding thing, and thus cease to contribute to the genepool. 

[FairreLilette]

1 hour ago, Luna Bliss said:

Here's an interesting article:

There Is No 'Missing Link' in Evolution -- Evolution Is A Scientific Fact:

https://futurism.com/there-is-no-missing-link-in-evolution

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And then an article about the so-called missing link that was found (from 2 years ago...don't know what the status is now):

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/19/health/australopithecus-sediba-human-history-scli-intl/index.html

Okay, I found the quote about SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST and it's not a quote by Darwin. 

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

the continued existence of organisms which are best adapted to their environment, with the extinction of others, as a concept in the Darwinian theory of evolution.

Edited March 11 by FairreLilette 

 

Me, continuing.   All ancient forms of "man" (hominins) are extinct but not apes nor monkeys.   My post was really in response to the saying we evolved from apes/monkeys which is not entirely the case.  We are believed to have splintered off and share a common ancestor.  I was wondering if that involved this "missing link" or not, but apparently not.  I also came across something yesterday called LUCA - last universal common ancestor of all life forms on earth.  That is interesting but is probably for people with some scientific background to understand all of this.  

Edited March 18, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Luna Bliss]

36 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

55 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

It's not quite true that anything we evolved from must be extinct by now.

Extinction was part of Darwin's theory and I published that quote in this thread but it's a long thread so I am reading through it to find that quote which to me looked emphatically like a conclusion by Darwin.  What I remember now about that particular quote from Darwin was it had something to do with natural selection aka survival of the fittest.  One survived, the other did not (extinct).  However, just attempting to read Darwin's theory of natural selection, it seems the Wiki is saying Darwin was not sure it was complete, his theory of natural selection which Darwin later adapted to survival of the fittest.  

It appears the NeoDarwinian's put more emphasis on speciation as opposed to extinction in the evolutionary process.  I'm not quite sure which article to post on speciation as I don't really have a grasp on it.

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

7 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

Extinction was part of Darwin's theory and I published that quote in this thread but it's a long thread so I am reading through it to find that quote which to me looked emphatically like a conclusion by Darwin.  What I remember now about that particular quote from Darwin was it had something to do with natural selection aka survival of the fittest.  One survived, the other did not (extinct).  However, just attempting to read Darwin's theory of natural selection, it seems the Wiki is saying Darwin was not sure it was complete.  

Gonna ramble...

There are different ways to look at this. I evolved from two creatures who are now extinct. That, of course, is an entirely too specific way to look at it. In this way of looking at it, thousands of extinctions happen every day, and not all by natural selection. I'm the only child of my parents. Though I am, I think, fairly fit by most metrics, when I die, there will be no offspring to carry my genes into the future and my minuscule branch of human evolution comes to a... dead end. I am not a branch, I'm a leaf.

Darwin's book was titled "Origin of Species", where the definition of species (for mating creatures) is whether they can mate. If they can't, they're of different species. Within my lifetime, taxonomists have had to reshuffle the evolutionary diagram when productive offspring have arrived from surprising pairings. This definition of "species" is a lot more useful, as it encompasses the larger scale effect of natural selection.

Scientists have wondered if we could bring back mastodons or wooly mammoths by merging DNA retrieved from a fossil with an elephant (or something else deemed promising). I think this was the underlying idea of Jurassic Park. The definition of "species" has evolved over time and won't ever completely and accurately represent the complexity of the thing it's trying to name.

The more complex a creature's DNA, the less likely this is to work, so rather than resurrecting mastodons, it might be more sensible to think about "mating" things with the simpler genetics, where the definition of "species" is more broad than in Darwin's theory (microbiology hadn't been invented yet).

Maybe, just maybe, there's a life form currently on Earth that's similar enough to its billion year old ancestor that it could flourish with them? If so did that ancient "species" ever go extinct?

All that said, though not quite true, it's true enough to say that all of our evolutionary ancestors are extinct.

How's that for weasel wording?

[Luna Bliss]

5 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

How's that for weasel wording?

Excellent!

I accept.

[FairreLilette]

26 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

species

Just wanted to say something about life on this planet.  I find it interesting how people and certain other animals, especially certain mammals - horses, dogs, cats for a few, can be so colorful and each one look so unique, whilst certain birds for example look like a near clone of one another.  People sure are colorful, like cats.  I find something like a Flamingo just seems to be cloning itself for example - they pretty much all look the same.  Any reason why some creatures can reproduce unique looking offspring while others can't according to Darwin?  

Edited March 18, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Madelaine McMasters]

2 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

Just wanted to say something about life on this planet.  I find it interesting how people and certain other animals, especially certain mammals - horses, dogs, cats for a few, can be so colorful and each one look so unique, whilst certain birds for example look like a near clone of one another.  People sure are colorful, like cats.  I find something like a Flamingo just seems to be cloning itself for example - they pretty much all look the same.  Any reason why some creatures can reproduce unique looking offspring while others can't according to Darwin?  

Birds, reptiles, fish and insects are actually far more colorful than mammals. I see bluejays and cardinals in my yard, but no blue dogs or red cats. I see blinking fireflies every July, but no flashing rabbits. I've seen beetles and fish that shimmer with rainbow iridescence, but have only seen that coloring on stuffed unicorns in the toy store.

As for all flamingos looking the same, that's as much or more due to your inability to detect differences in them than in their similarity to each other. If I put you in a room full of caucasian mothers and children (to eliminate obvious pairings based on skin color) on opposite sides of a fence (so they can't self pair) and ask you to pair them up, you'll probably do better than chance. If I put you in a room of golden retriever moms and pups (also to eliminate obvious pairings) and ask the same, you'll probably do no better than chance.

If I let the dogs loose, they'll pair in an instant. They know who's who, they need to.

Your ability to recognize variation in other animals is limited by more than your human specific wiring. Your eyes are actually incapable of seeing a wider range of colors, extending into the infrared and ultraviolet, that birds, reptiles, fish and insects can discern. It's no accident that colorful creatures have great color vision.

The flowers in my annual garden look quite a bit different to bees than to me. My favorite flower is the dandelion, not so much for its color, but for the way it "flips me the stem" after mowing my lawn. I admire pluck.

We'll never know just how bees perceive dandelions, but we do know they have receptors for both UV and red light, so we can guess...

Not all characteristics of creatures are needed for, or decrease our chances of survival, so we can drag along all kinds of useless things through our evolution. It takes careful analysis to determine whether any particular characteristic, like coloration or patterning, is important to survival. I don't know of an example, but there might be a colorful, colorblind creature somewhere that evolved some other successful competitive advantage that's unaffected by coloration.

That's about 0.01% of a good explanation.

 

Edited March 18, 2021 by Madelaine McMasters

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

3 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

Any reason why some creatures can reproduce unique looking offspring while others can't according to Darwin?

Most of the different colors in cats (and dogs) and humans are through artificial selection. In the wild, most intra-species individuals are pretty much alike with only some minor variation.

But sometimes...

Jumping genes (transposons)!

Edited March 18, 2021 by Arduenn Schwartzman

[RunawayBunny]

Cats with heterochromia but they don't suffer any negative effect from it. Some breeds are more prone than others at developing the condition most notably the Japanese Bobtail, Turkish Angora, and the Turkish Van. This condition can happen in any cat with the  right genetic cocktail though.

[FairreLilette]

5 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Birds, reptiles, fish and insects are actually far more colorful than mammals. I see bluejays and cardinals in my yard, but no blue dogs or red cats. I see blinking fireflies every July, but no flashing rabbits.

I meant a different kind of colorful so sorry about that, I meant color variation in one species.  I mean cats can turn out all kinds of colors as can dogs, horses and humans, of course.  While flamingos, just for one example, pretty much all look the same like a clone of each other.  But, you say it's because we cannot see the more mild variation in Flamingos.  Hmmmmmm, I'm sure part of that is true.  But, there are certain kinds of species that to me just look like they are cloning themselves.  It seems we have some species that can reproduce very unique and colorful offspring with lots of different color variations, whilst some other species on this planet are just cloning themselves with not much variety at all.

I was wondering what might be the difference between a species that can be quite varied compared to the ones that just sort of "clone" for lack of a better word.  So, I'll use this time seagulls - it's like seagull, seagull, seagull, seagull - that don't look very different but more like clones as do lots of other creatures.  Then Arduenn wrote this: 

4 hours ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

Most of the different colors in cats (and dogs) and humans are through artificial selection. In the wild, most intra-species individuals are pretty much alike with only some minor variation.

But sometimes...

Jumping genes (transposons)!

 

Edited March 19, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Lindal Kidd]

7 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Though I am, I think, fairly fit by most metrics, when I die, there will be no offspring to carry my genes into the future and my minuscule branch of human evolution comes to a... dead end.

We can't have that. You're too important to be lost to the gene pool. Go get yourself cloned, ASAP.

[RunawayBunny]

1 hour ago, FairreLilette said:

I was wondering what might be the difference between a species that can be quite varied compared to the ones that just sort of "clone" for lack of a better word. 

Clone like looking animals does not require alteration in their genes I believe they are perfect match for their current environment they don't need any further alteration until conditions change.

Cats does not have much alteration.. their interaction with humans shaped them already they are smaller from their base size and does not posses strong jaws but they still retain their quick reflexes and speed from their ancestors (Jaguar, cheetah and similar cat family.)

Dogs have many variants not only color but also skin and skeletal system some of them considered arguably have failed genetic combination and having hard time while breathing. Their jaws and leg size seems changed based on their genes. They are far being from clone.

Some of them have to run very long time while others does not require it

Some of them require stronger jaws for their food source.

It appears some species have to alter their genes to adapt environment and condition but takes very long time (based on human time perspective).

Edited March 19, 2021 by RunawayBunny
Found nice cat family picture because I like cats! :)

[Rowan Amore]

17 minutes ago, RunawayBunny said:

Clone like looking animals does not require alteration in their genetics I believe they are perfect match for their current environment they don't need any further alteration until conditions change.

Cats does not have much alteration.. their interaction with humans shaped them already they are smaller from their base size and does not posses strong jaws but they still retain their quick reflexes and speed from their ancestors (Jaguar, cheetah and similar cat family.)

Dogs have many variants not only color but also skin and skeletal system some of them considered arguably have failed genetic combination and having hard time while breathing. Their jaws and leg size seems changed based on their genes. They are far being from clone.

Some of them have to run very long time while others does not require it

Some of them require stronger jaws for their food source.

It appears some species have to alter their genes to adapt environment and condition but takes very long time (based on human time perspective).

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

2 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

I meant a different kind of colorful so sorry about that, I meant color variation in one species.  I mean cats can turn out all kinds of colors as can dogs, horses and humans, of course.  While flamingos, just for one example, pretty much all look the same like a clone of each other.  

Ah, got it.

Cats, dogs, horses, cows, humans, any animal that shows lots of color/pattern variation within the species, have genes that code for those colors/patterns. Some are dominant, some recessive, some on the X chromosome, some on the Y. If you mix and match animals with those various genes, you'll get variations on their colors and patterns. I don't know if cats have preferences for colorations in potential mates, but domesticated cats don't get much choice, they're bred by humans, often for interesting colors and patterns.

Depending on whether color genes (or any other for that matter) are located on the X or Y chromosomes, coloring possibilities might vary by gender.

Color genes sometimes affect other physical characteristics or are linked with other genes that do. Albino animals often have other defects, like hearing loss or vision problems. Albinism affects the production of melanin, which pigments our skin, hair and eyes and is crucial in the formation of the retina and optic nerve.

Flamingos do NOT get their color from their genes. They're actually white to light grey and get the pink color from the algae they eat.

2 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

So, I'll use this time seagulls - it's like seagull, seagull, seagull, seagull - that don't look very different but more like clones as do lots of other creatures. 

Gulls are not all white/grey. There are species of various colors and shadings, but they don't mate much with each other. Living on the shore of Lake Michigan, I see lot of gulls. Most are white/grey with black details, but I've seen brown speckled ones. It's possible you've see speckled gulls and didn't realize they're gulls. They also change their coloring somewhat throughout the year.

Here's one I photographed some years ago, scooping lunch out of the lake...

Most people think of gulls as pesky garbage birds. I love to watch them fishing. They'll glide up and down the beach and you can tell when they've spotted something in the water by the way they turn their heads. Then they'll dive in, often completely vanishing below the surface, popping up a few feet away with a flapping fish in their beaks.

Great fun!

Edited March 19, 2021 by Madelaine McMasters

[Love Zhaoying]

8 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

15 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Though I am, I think, fairly fit by most metrics, when I die, there will be no offspring to carry my genes into the future and my minuscule branch of human evolution comes to a... dead end.

We can't have that. You're too important to be lost to the gene pool. Go get yourself cloned, ASAP.

Perhaps reincarnation..

[Love Zhaoying]

6 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Flamingos do NOT get their color from their genes. They're actually white to light grey and get the pink color from the algae they eat.

Living in Florida, some places with Flamingos tell us the color is from the shrimp they eat. Disney flamingos are no longer pink (was explained as shrimp there).

* I reserve the right to be wrong, the fact someone pointed at flamingoes and stated a theory means nada. And perhaps they said "the algae" from the shrimp and I forgot.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Love Zhaoying

[Luna Bliss]

A Light exists in Spring by Emily Dickinson

A Light exists in Spring Not present on the Year At any other period — When March is scarcely here A Color stands abroad On Solitary Fields That Science cannot overtake But Human Nature feels. It waits upon the Lawn, It shows the furthest Tree Upon the furthest Slope you know It almost speaks to you. Then as Horizons step Or Noons report away Without the Formula of sound It passes and we stay — A quality of loss Affecting our Content As Trade had suddenly encroached Upon a Sacrament.

[Orwar]

3 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

flamingoes

   Flamingeese, surely.

[FairreLilette]

On 3/17/2021 at 2:23 PM, TDD123 said:

So it's

Okay, here is why I brought up how we splintered off and share a common ancestor with apes/monkeys because while all those previous hominins became extinct, apes/monkeys are still here.  I was badly attempting to explain why that is.  As Madelaine puts it in one of her posts, evolution is like "branches".  So, I gather you could use my word splintered to mean we branched off.  I think the above chart is outdated.  They should begin to use charts more like the LUCA maybe?  Except perhaps Darwin, himself, did not seem 100% sure of LUCA (last universal common ancestor) and stated "probably".  But, still I think the chart is outdated.  We branched off from the chimpanzee and share a common ancestor.  The first figure in the chart above is still alive if that is Gorilla.  Now some sites say we share a common ancestor in the chimpanzee (monkeys) and others say Gorilla.  So what is up with this chart though?  It does seem outdated.  I'm going to link the LUCA chart below.  I don't know what they teach today in schools so I was curious about that this old chart that just goes from Ape to Man (not Bugs Bunny of course).

First, here is what Darwin said about the LUCA:

In 1859, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, in which he twice stated the hypothesis that there was only one progenitor for all life forms. In the summation he states:

"Therefore I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed."^[36]

The last sentence begins with a restatement of the hypothesis:

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one.

Edited March 19, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Ceka Cianci]

I think a lot of us split off from the split off and came from cute lil red panda wandas..

Yes we diiid..

hehehe

[FairreLilette]

24 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

I think a lot of us split off from the split off and came from cute lil red panda wandas..

Yes we diiid..

hehehe

awwwwwwww