Evolution



here's a thought...there's always the term 'caveman' banded about....I live in Kent, I've never seen any caves.....and there's not that many around the country....so where did we all live, and how didn't we all get scoffed, I know we made fire.....but what about before that....and how did we make fire. 'John, what are you rubbing those two sticks together for?' 'Dunno, see what happens......ooof fuck me, look at that'

I'm guessing someone one here has the answers.....or some comical thoughts at least.
 
Natural selection isnt purely random. The organism most adapted to the environment survives to reproduce more often than those that are marginally less suited.

It is random in that the organism didn't have any say in its make up that made it better suited to enable it to survive and procreate/pass on advantageous traits.
 
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I was 100% right. I said purely random ;)

It is though. Without the random the rest doesn't happen.
What do you mean?

It doesnt decide, I know, I need slightly longer nails to get this nice bit of bait from a rock to survive. It's random, and if it gives an advantage that enables it to thrive and survive then that random trait is passed on. And so on.
 
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How do you define random, in this context? I'm still struggling with what you mean.

Two birds born from same mother. One was born with a slightly larger beak. The bugs it eats are burrowing lower into the deck. The bird with the slightly longer beak than the norm can reach them and thus survive. It was random chance that it got a slightly bigger beak as opposed to there being thought behind it.

Obviously that's a very basic example, but the point of an advantage being by chance still holds true.

On the flip side, some berks think if the world flooded we'd just grow gills, just like that, cos that would ensure we survived.
 
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It is though. Without the random the rest doesn't happen.


It doesnt decide, I know, I need slightly longer nails to get this nice bit of bait from a rock to survive. It's random, and if it gives an advantage then enables it to thrive and survive then that random trait is passed on. And so on.

I think I see what you are getting at. I agree the individual living organism has no say in the matter. But it certainly isn't a random selection. I think it is magical in it's brutal indifference and it's efficiency. Darwin is my number one bloke in history for figuring it out and keeping it quiet for 20 years because he didn't want to upset the apple cart :lol: . Plenty of contenders for the title of my number one person in history, as well.
 
Lad alive.
god made man in his own form, do you lot know nowt?
my money is on T. rex, not only great tunes but also big teeth.
im sure dinosaur would have knacked predictors really slowing down our evolution due to lack of numbers
 
Why would humans have had any more difficulty outsmarting dinosaurs than we have had with lions and other apex predator.
A human would be a poor waste of time for something like a T-Rex to actively hunt, a lot of effort for not much return. A bit like us trying to catch rabbits by running after them. Of course if stupid humans got caught in the open we would be easy pickings for any predator.
 
Quite happily live along side them, I'm at the National showcaves in wales and theres dinos all owa!!
 
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Why would humans have had any more difficulty outsmarting dinosaurs than we have had with lions and other apex predator.
A human would be a poor waste of time for something like a T-Rex to actively hunt, a lot of effort for not much return. A bit like us trying to catch rabbits by running after them. Of course if stupid humans got caught in the open we would be easy pickings for any predator.
The apex predators we had to deal with were mammals, like you say but not dinosaurs. We aren't the natural prey of these mammals, they might pick us off in a opportunistic way on occasion but we're just not worth the effort as food. That allows us to use our bigger brains over time to gain a greater advantage. We have breathing space.

With dinosaurs in the mix we are very much on the defensive, not just from the big ones but also from the smaller and faster raptor like ones that hunt in packs. That would drive our evolution. Less breathing space. e.g. We used to drive large animals over cliffs for food and we were successful. Any apex predators would be kept at bay until we'd had our fill. I doubt that would have been the case with dinosaurs, even with the smaller carnivores of that group.
 
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I think I see what you are getting at. I agree the individual living organism has no say in the matter. But it certainly isn't a random selection. I think it is magical in it's brutal indifference and it's efficiency. Darwin is my number one bloke in history for figuring it out and keeping it quiet for 20 years because he didn't want to upset the apple cart :lol: . Plenty of contenders for the title of my number one person in history, as well.
Only the mutation in DNA during replication is random. Most mutations either make no difference as to whether that animal survives long enough to mate or they actively make it less likely to happen.

However what happens next is certainly not random. if the random mutation of a gene means a change in the organism that affords it an advantage over its peers and siblings then this can mean it is more likely to survive loenough to mate (e.g. sharper teeth, a longer neck, better eyesight etc).

Or the change could make the organism a more attractive mate, meaning it’s more likely to get laid due to sexual selection (e.g. more colourful plumage, a slightly different pheromone molecule, a more attractive square jaw line etc). Again that mechanism isn’t random.

Over time those organisms more likely to mate for the reasons above will tend to pass on their genes at a greater rate than their competition. viewed retrospectively we can see why animals changed and developed into new species. However given different random mutations, changing environments and climates we’d never get exactly the same story unfolds and if we played it all again.

It’s a fairly simple idea, but Darwin’s (and Wallace’s) genius was to spot it, prove it and communicate it, but there are still millions of people who prefer the simpler, lazier magic wand explanation of “Yeah, god did it all” followed by an Essex Sniff.
 
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The apex predators we had to deal with were mammals, like you say but not dinosaurs. We aren't the natural prey of these mammals, they might pick us off in a opportunistic way on occasion but we're just not worth the effort as food. That allows us to use our bigger brains over time to gain a greater advantage. We have breathing space.

With dinosaurs in the mix we are very much on the defensive, not just from the big ones but also from the smaller and faster raptor like ones that hunt in packs. That would drive our evolution. Less breathing space. e.g. We used to drive large animals over cliffs for food and we were successful. Any apex predators would be kept at bay until we'd had our fill. I doubt that would have been the case with dinosaurs, even with the smaller carnivores of that group.

It's a moot point though no as mammals just wouldn't have been able to evolve in in the conditions that were on Earth at the that time and why reptiles were so successful. Hence it was about 250 million years before even anything relating to man was knocking about, or was it just a hypothetical question?
 
It's a moot point though no as mammals just wouldn't have been able to evolve in in the conditions that were on Earth at the that time and why reptiles were so successful. Hence it was about 250 million years before even anything relating to man was knocking about, or was it just a hypothetical question?
I was talking hypothetically tbf.

As you say (and I said yesterday) in reality mammals survived the dinos mainly by being very tiny.
 

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