the extinction event that wipped all large animals of the face of the earth. as for the whole confusing early man thing well dint many aspects of the bible confuse early man aswell? oh wait they were to stupid to think about it and they accepted it on blind faith no matter the amazingly impossible events it claimed. aswell intelligence isnt a the single skill that makes a species successful the T-rex dint need amazing intelligence because it was huge and went after large unintelligent prey.
the theory of evolution describes all of these vestigal organs on dino's such as the giant fins which arent vestigal they actually help heat up the animal in the early hours of the day. also the same dino's werent around for the enterity of 160,000,000 years they continued to evolve. also there was a direct correlation to brain size to mass when it came to dino's the larger ones had smaller brain's and the smaller ones had larger brain's which explains why there ancestors survived the cont:
In the history of life on earth, extinction is the most common fate of all species. The evolution of our level of intelligence has happened...well, once as far as I know, and it's still not understood exactly how. It is a misconception that greater intelligence is an obvious "goal" of evolution. Evolution doesn't have goals. Having our level and type of intelligence is a rare and unnecessary oddity.
None of the examples of dinosaurs were inconsistent with evolution. It's hard to be sure why some seemingly useless feature evolved millions of years ago, but that doesn't mean there isn't a simple explanation. Deer antlers seem pretty strange and useless until you realize that they are just a result of mating behavior. The spines too weak for defense could have other benefits: it could be a bluff to appear larger or more dangerous. It could be a sort of radiator for hot climates, etc.
NATURAL LIMITS TO EVOLUTION: Evolution within "kinds" is genetically possible in nature (i.e. varieties of dogs, cats, etc.), but not evolution across "kinds" (i.e. from worm to human). Species couldn't have survived while their vital tissues, organs, biological systems were still evolving. Read my Pravda Internet article: WAR AMONG EVOLUTIONISTS! I discuss: Punctuated Equilibrium, "Junk DNA," genetics, mutations, natural selection, fossils, genetic/biological similarities between species.
Apes are quite comfortable in how they walk just as humans are quite comfortable in how they walk. Even a slight change in the position of a muscle or bone, for either, would be excruciatingly painful and would not be an advantage for survival. There's no hard evidence that humans evolved from an ape-like creature anymore than there's hard evidence that apes evolved from a four-legged dog-like creature. Read Internet article: MISSING LINKS THAT NEVER WERE
hi, to anwser some of your questions, dinosaurs actually got smarter over time. they just didn't get as smart as we did. Did we evolve faster in that area? maybe, but you have to consider our anscestor we're also evolving during those 160 million years, so it took us a really long time to develop the current intelligence as well. Also evolution is random so if you get smarter and some other guy gets bigger, the predators will eat you because the bigger guy is too big to attack safely
Now evolution never had a say in my atheism because I understood evolution my whole life, and even more now that I am in college upon taking genetics class and evolution ecology. became atheist 5 months ago. Anyways, evolution is not led by an outside source because random mutation leads to some dying out and some living. Its all about having the most offspring (fitness in a biology terminology). And yes, we have answers for the small arms etc. Its not always black and white though.
Due to genetic variation and mutation, alleles can be spread through a process called drift, which affects negative, positive, and neutral mutations. There is also sexual selection where generally the female chooses which male to breed with.This is why you find seemingly useless structures on animals, to compete or to look fancy for the female so that they can mate.There is also biases towards different traits based on what females prefer (such as orange being the color of a feather and a fruit)
@iliveon I've heard the mating proposal, but it feels like a huge stretch. Wouldn't limbs that would aid in its survival be more useful and thus have a stronger guiding factor than some random "appeal" factor to women. Where does this appeal system come from? What evolutionary principal is this? Is it the ability for a female to find a mate with strong survival abilities? Then why did they not pick the mutations that were more vicious and useful for hunting and defence?
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Limbs that aid in survival are more useful. And the limbs that we had when we were in the trees were very useful for staying away from predators, who usually lived on the ground. We used our structured larger brains for survival more than our brawn. Let me define fitness for you. Fitness is the factor of how many children are born, usually by traits that an individual has. If an individual has the trait for a larger brain, this comes with being able to store more information
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK This information storage and being able to compare and contrast in our heads, is useful for survival just as sharp claws are useful for survival. It leads to greater fitness because we can be smarter to avoid predators and not have to use brawn to do so. Being that the human species comes from africa, its likely that an ancestor species moved from the trees to the ground when less vicious predators were around, or that we began to use sticks to fend predators off.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Its all about passing our genes down to the next generation is what makes our brains good at survival. We used sticks and stones rather than muscles to fight our enemies. And as we can ponder, our ancestors likely grew bigger brains because the "dumber" ones died off more. Dieing off more leads to less children to spread the genes to. Fun fact 99% of all life on earth has went extinct. When you posit a plan for evolution, that is all I can think of..
@iliveon Thank-you, I'm glad my understanding was similar. This however doesn't explain why intelligence wouldn't happen in other animals over the huge timescale of the Dinosaurs. It is clearly a useful attribute so why didn't it develop in some of the smaller animals that couldn't use brute force to survive? They did get better at evasion and so did develop some intelligence but surely this should naturally continue under the same guiding principle?
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Intelligence has evolved in many many more mammals and many of these animals are social animals. Look at the apes for instance. Apes are all smart. Remember evolution doesn't follow a strict set of rules and its all about passing your genes on. Apes happened to get the largest brains, and who knows, maybe smartness leads to wars between smart animals. This could have happened before writing and apes could have killed off a similarly smart species. I'll list a few smart animals
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Dolphins (mammals), Hogs/pigs (mammals), Chimps, gorillas, etc (mammals), dogs which are domesticated from wolves and have gotten smarter since we tend to prefer smart dogs (artificial selection) (mammals), badger (mammals), groundhogs who build(mammals), birds build (these are dumber being that they have only the reptile brain (look up neocortex and reptile brain together), there have to be many many more, I cannot think of them all right now that I know,but bigger brain=smarter
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Don't forget elephants and others.. Look up chimpanzee intelligence on youtube and smartest animals. Has a lot of information on those. So yes, bigger brains have evolved in many other species
@iliveon Yes exactly, you are strengthening my point. Evolution time and again has used intelligence as a valid developmental path, but why didn't this happen in these other species that had far more time to evolve these skills?
"evolution doesn't follow a strict set of rules" - But isn't that the essence of evolution? The traits that improve survivability are passed on and so propagate. This is the fundamental principle that guides the theory. When is this not strictly true?
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK "The traits that improve survivability are passed on and so propagate. This is the fundamental principle that guides the theory. When is this not strictly true?"
This is explained by other "character traits" that propagate survivability of a species. These can range from how many offspring are born throughout a mother's lifespan, if something can fly, how often can they get pregnant, how mobile the mother is while pregnant, what temperatures can they live in, camouflage,
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK camo, how small they are, how fast they are, how tall they are, if they can swim or not, if they can live in water or not, etc intelligence is not the only way to propagate a species
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK "Evolution time and again has used intelligence as a valid developmental path, but why didn't this happen in these other species that had far more time to evolve these skills?"
All life has the same amount of time to use different methods of survival. We all come from a single ancestor, and we all branched out separate ways, ways in which we use different aspects of the environment and pass our genes down differently. Short/long lifespans, many weak or few strong offspring
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK And of course, there is large changes over large amounts of time. There is a thing called drift as well. Alleles change in a population that can add negative, positive, or neutral potential to offspring number. There is such a thing as dominant negative fitness traits. There are changes that occur over large amounts of time. Maybe the ancestor used its claws to kill prey, the extant species has webbed claws that uses them mainly just to swim. These are traits that add to survival
@iliveon All very good arguments for possible reasons for evolutionary path. I do see your point, but it doesn't discount intelligence as being a valid and plausible path to have been tried in the great soup of species. All the other possibilities you mentioned were explored in a wide variety of ways, so why wasn't there this variety in intelligence? If there were then surely the benefits would naturally shine through as they did with us. it just doesn't seem reasonable that they didn't.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Look up intelligent species if you are wondering what other animals use their brains along with their brawn.
To get a larger brain, you must first start with the basic features of a chordate. Then you must adapt to have a reptile brain, then you need such a thing as a neocortex. Different parts of the brain do different things. You must examine the anthropic principle and whatI just explained is that since there are so many ways to have surviving children, not all will be smart
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK And take some time out to research some intelligent animals. Usually mammals, there are many species that use their brain to solve puzzles, able to identify themselves in a mirror, use tools, able to paint, dream, communicate (so many ways animals communicate), able to search out places to hide and or live, etc. Yeah, just look some up with some keywords
@iliveon I accept all of that but you haven't offered any theories as to why intelligence wouldn't develop, to the extent it now has, much earlier in Earths history. Yes there are many other ways it has gone but you've offered no good reason why our development process only happened at such a relatively late time period when compared to the time animals with any kind of intelligence have lived.
Evolution didn't ignore this path but it was muted for an awfully long time. Why? That's all I ask!
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK One one enzyme/protein at a time evolution adds genetic information. Life has been around for approximately 3.5billion years. This life was unicellular, being of the precambrian era. multicellular complex life only appeared 600 million years ago. I don't know what to tell you. I don't see a problem with it
@iliveon So you cannot offer a reasonable explanation for the unusual delay in this path of evolution, and yet you don't think that it is a problem? There is a scientific gap here which is normally all that is needed for intense investigations but I'm not sure if this is happening. I presume you are in the field, based on your knowledge, so could you let me know if this is the case?
For example how long ago did a creature that exhibited some "intelligent" behaviour exist?
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK We do not know how long ago intelligent behavior existed. I am sure with an upwards of 50 million years, since that's when some other ape lineages broke off from the great apes such as lemurs. These apes are smart in comparison to many other mammals. But it builds on (complexity) if it benefits the offspring number. And only if that is the case with natural selection at least. Sexual selection can choose the smarter individuals to mate with as well.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK I presume that you think humans are the smartest ever.. This isn't the case. Humans can only remember a sequence of about 7 items on average without forgetting the rest, we have good long term memories, but we do tend to forget things. I mean we aren't perfect and its not like we are super computers, but look at intelligence in the same way you would look at building up to a lightbulb.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK This is an analogy.. So in order to have a lightbulb, you must first have the knowledge of static electricity. You got to then learn about resistivity, current and how to get a current. You must find out how to make something similar to a battery, but to do this you got to have the materials to make the battery and you've got to understand how to harness the potential from these items. You've got to have metals, which were first discovered by panning dirt. You must have fire
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK You must have fire in order to melt metals, and you must know how fire works and how to start it. You've got to understand how glass is made and what to make it out of. You get the point so yeah its a build-up of one step at a time in order to get such a brain that can firstly, see 3 colors (wavelengths detected by cells - some mutations allow for seeing alittle more), to be able to detect sound waves, have skin protection, skull to protect, and eyes to see.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK There is more to it, but each of these has to come gradually. These are all needed before a brain can be situated in a safe place (the skull) and for it to grow in size throughout the generations. Without all of these extra things, the brain really cannot do anything. It needs sensory organs to put the information together. And it needs many many generations of random mutations to get to where it is. Natural selection would choose the best suited for the environment
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK I hope that helped. 600 million years isn't an an extraordinary amount of time to collect random mutations each generation, each one building off the next, or sometimes not building off the next. Most mutations are neutral, more than beneficial, you have deleterious, because you interfere with a working combination sometimes. You also must examine the anthropic principle. You are a human and since you are a human, you are this way. My brain, just responded to your question :)
@iliveon Please don't take this the wrong way but that was a little condescending, and didn't address the issue.
If we even take you 50m year range then you still say that that 10 or 20 MILLION years is not enough time to evolve further levels of intelligence? What was happening at that time? Where is the evolutionary principal at work? There seems to be massive stretches of time where it doesn't do anything. Is this an equilibrium? Why is it so "punctuated" - to use a loaded word!?
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Sorry, my answer was unknowledgable, it is not 600 million years. I made a mistake. It took more than 600 million years to develop the brain. Randomly made genes built up in our bacteria and eukayotic ancestors. Genes get made that don't get turned on a lot of the time, we humans actually have a large percentage of DNA that does not code for anything.Only when it codes for something, do we get proteins that perform functions. So its likely that genes were made before 600mya too
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK I am not sure of your question then. Are you saying that other animals should be just as smart? Or smarter, or that we should be capable of more than what we are brain-wise? (if we had so much time to add on beneficial traits) I think you need to understand a bit more that evolution is not about becoming smart. Fitness means the ability to have surviving children. The larger brain made it so that we could survive using less muscles, poison, fangs, brawn, claws, etc.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK It seems that the more a species uses its brain to survive, the less it will use brawn. The ape lineage happens to use its brain more than others and humans in particular used intelligence to survive. Its all about survival, not about a continual increase in knowledge/muscle strength etc. To survive, a gorilla for instance uses more muscles to survive and pass on its genes. We don't use as much muscles and would die to a gorilla if we had to compete.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK We humans, as a social species as well, used intelligence to get away from our enemies, to use tools to help us survive (as many other apes do), and developed larger brains over the generations because the smarter of us tended to survive better. All about survival my friend, and about passing the genes down to the next generation. Positive mutations in the genes for the brain allowed us to use intelligence more than other traits to survive. There are many other ways to propagate
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK And sometimes there are massive stretches of time that a species doesn't tend to change much. This happens in species like the crocodile, and probably some rodent species. Because they have surviving offspring, and they are well adapted to their environment, they have no need to change morphology. Because what they have works. again, its all about passing down surviving offspring, not about an end-goal
@iliveon Yes, I'm beginning to see that the "ideal" or the equilibrium argument seems to be the only reason that evolution seemingly stops. But I find it hard to believe. With a changing environment you are saying there are no further developments possible for the crocodile? Its just effectively finished? It could be possible at the top of the food chain, as with the shark, but doesn't explain the rest of the species that had many predators. Intelligence would help to avoid a crocodile.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Chimps are known to be 5 times strong as humans of the same size. Less intelligent, but more brawn, and they survive rather well. They are still very smart though and have better short term memory that humans. A much faster brain indeed, check out this video /watch?v=D3nr5uSJRuM
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK With a changing environment, the crocadile species would change over time. Yes.. but you see crocodiles have always lived in a marshy watery environment. They are cold blooded and need a hot area to get energy from the sun. They use water to cool down when too hot. They use their bodies to swim and jaws to bite down on water-needing savannah animals and the like. Crocadiles are well suited to their environment and even have resistance to a multitude of diseases and viruses from
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK from living in a damp moist, bacteria prone environment. They are well adapted, but if the environment was changed dramatically, its likely they'd die, but if some with the necessary adaptations moved out, their morphology could change, and a new species would be "born." That's why you see branches on the tree of life, not one species turning into another, but instead new species coming about from a single species. They like any other animal are subject to change if need be
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK And with a fast reproductive rate, it seems the millions of animals in the herds have many mechanisms of survival. Their main features include speed, bulk, workiing in groups and social behavior of protecting one another, horns for fighting, and their fast reproductive rates. With these, a species can maintain itself just fine, there is less natural selection occuring than say a species that is used to cold weather, but is living in a warm environment.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK The method of natural selection with these animals has in a way adapted to its predators. And they are adapted to living there just as the crocodile is adapted to preying there. Accelerated natural selection occurs in populations that are introduced to new environments. In ecology class, I found that ecologists study how populations animals in ecosystems have adapted to one another.There is a thing called competitive evolution where both species maintain by adapting to each other
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK We see that grazing animals tend to have strong offspring when born. This is because they have much predators to worry about when coming born. The stronger an offspring is, the less offspring that have to be produced. Same with numbers, the more offspring, the less strong each individual has to be. This is why the majority of frog tadpoles die out when born in temporary puddles in the wild. Primates tend to have more strong offspring when born, and grazing animals, even stronger
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK If you ask any geneticists, they will tell you the mechanism by which evolution acts. Random mutations that occur in the germ line (sperm eggs) are the changes that will be found in each offspring. Remember a population evolves, not an individual. Some mutations include transposons interrupting or making new proteins, point mutations where one letter is replaced or added or deleted caused by the replication molecule error, new proteins are born in this fashion,
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Point mutations change the amino acids that are within proteins. If you add a letter, you will throw the reading frame off by one. New proteins will be made in this way. Same happens when you subtract a letter. Amino acids come together by the ribosome and together they make proteins, which perform either enzymatic functions, or structural functions. So if amino acids 1 2 and 3 are present, you get protein 123. Protein 123 is totally changed if the amino acid 2 is changed to 4.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Not always are you going to have a change, but not protein 123 is mutated and it performs a new function. 143. Protein 143 is created because amino acid 2 was replaced with 4. There are many more mutations including translocations of segments of DNA, inserts of DNA via viruses and transposons/insertion elements, inversions of segments of DNA, and repetitive letters of DNA being copied too many times via protein complexes.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK So basically, I am not sure what you are skeptical of, other than some smaller parts regarding evolution. Is it questions about the ecology and population genetics you are asking or are you skeptical of the whole theory?
@iliveon I think the theory of evolution is brilliant and reasonable. But it just doesn't seem to fit the observed results perfectly. I just want to know why the system seems to start and stop for no apparent reason and for huge periods of time. If it is so reasonable then why do we not see thousands of variations upon variations in most species? Even in crocodiles a more intelligent one would eat better and survive better than a less intelligent one.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK There is lots of subspeices on crocodiles...
C. niloticus
C. acutus
C. intermedius
C. rhombifer
C. moreletii
To just name a few... then there is also alligators and kaimans who are closely related...
and its not all about intelligence a crocodile that is stronger, faster and more "stealthy" then a more intelligent one would prob survive better then a slightly more intelligent one...
Evolution have never stopped and it do fit the observed result perfectly...
@thetrazor But in your answer you agree that intelligence would have some evolutionarily relevant influence and so surely if it had even a tiny effect wouldn't it grow over millions of years? There are quite a few theories that we've had for a long time that are now falling down under closer examination. I think this has always been reasonable but limited in how it explains the great diversity we see.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Punctuated equilibrium (not sure of the spelling there :) ) explains why evolution start and stops and starts again over and over again. In crocodiles IQ wont get passed on because its not a skill that the females like, the want big sexy claws and fangs and then they are happy. so that is why tho crocodile most like will not get smarter no matter how much evolution works on them.
@iliveon You must remember that due to random mutations per generation, a child may have a difference than its parents. A lot of genes accumulated due to bacterial life having such a short reproduction time before multicellular life arose. Even some multicellular life replicates its genome fast, but basically, with 600 million years to work with, you got to do one step at a time in order to get highly complex things working together.
Actually I'm pretty sure the dinosaur arms were useful. It's probably a bit like the remnants of legs that the snakes have. They only use them to reproduce. It's not that useful but they still give an advantage.
As for the intelligence, it requires a lot of evolution for a small change in intelligence. A larger brain uses ALOT of energy. It's not always that useful anyway. I mean, what would a snake do with intelligence?
@Kwinnky It's not about what species tries what. It's about why this mechanic seemingly stopped for such long times. We had hairy bodies and so I would assume that was fairly good camouflage.
evolution isnt just about biggest, strongest, smartest. its just about what makes one reproduce better. darwin had the same question as you do with dinosaurs when he was looking at birds of paradise. the answer though is sexual selection. and the T-rex small arms were a result of evolution because the arms were not needed, having large arms would only use up energy. so the ones born with smaller arms had an advantage.
@ihmen A more impressive visual appearance in a mate may only reflect just that, which may be no proof that the target is better than another with regard to survival skills.
A species can be fantastically good a reproduction, but if their offspring don't survive to breeding age then it is for nought. Intelligence must improve some of the key requirements for successful survival.
Another concern I have is the apparent plateauing of evolutions effect during these long periods.
@NWOshill I too have heard this sexual selection argument, but it does just feel a little stretching and weak. Surely intelligence would also help drive reproduction. A mate should select a more intelligent creature if possible as they will be more able to protect and provide for their offspring. A more impressive visual appearance will only reflect just that, which may be no proof that the target is better than another with regard to survival skills.
@NWOshill If a female 'could' detect it then this 'intelligence of detection' would serve them well - evolutionary useful. But the point is there should also just be slightly more 'intelligent' creatures to pick from as they are slightly more likely to survive to breeding age than others. Even this small bias - according to the evolutionary theory - should be enough to give this trait a chance to prevail.
E.g. Which Gladiator would you bet on, the one wearing a helmet and many scar, or the one without a helmet and no scars?
The crests may be intentionally fragile so that a female would pick one that is the most intact. This should mean that they are good enough to survive to this age with no damage. The greater the 'show' of no damage, the greater their skills - which may include intelligence. It doesn't answer the intelligence problem though.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK What you have described in your own words is sexual selection. Which you initially rejected. And your right it does not explain intelligence.
@Kwinnky But isn't the premiss of evolution that these incremental changes, however small, do prevail if they are useful and given enough time? This is the essence of evolution and why it works.
@Kwinnky Sharks are an interesting point. I can see why they could potentially not evolve further - they are at the top of their environments food chain. Well done sharks!
But what about all the other creatures? Why aren't they evolving to compete or better them? Why aren't they getting better defences against being eaten by sharks or getting better at eating sharks themselves? Evolution would predict a variant that could do this should develop.
@Kwinnky So are you saying we aren't the dominant species or that our success isn't due to our intelligence. We have dominance over almost every other animal - which is something we abuse on a regular basis. Unfortunately we are probably also dominating ourselves out of existence - but thats another subject!
"a long time" - do you mean the 200,000 years we've been around for? This is a tiny amount of time compared to dinosaurs.
@Kwinnky Evolution must surely itterate to better solutions. It's the essence of the principal. We have proven that intelligence is the best way to survive by becoming the dominant species on this planet. Why didn't this happen sooner?
Greater intelligence just requires a larger brain. There are far less physical barriers to this modification.
Surely the best female selection is their ability to detect the healthiest and best of their kind? A cleverer mate could surely fake this too!
Evolution occurs in response to environmental pressures. If there are no environmental pressures, there is no requirement to have adaptations and changes to cope. T-Rex and his ilk were primarily scavangers, and had no need to bring food to their mouths or use forelimbs for defence. Likewise , paleontological evidence indicates that the assorted frills,crests,and spines of most dinos that had them were heat radiators to bleed off excess body heat, or to absorb heat from sunlight when cold.
@pontecanis Yes there is the heat theory, but they also make them very vulnerable to damage which goes against evolutionary survival principals. Most of the explanations I have seen are vague guess with very obvious counter arguments (I'm not an expert here though).
Survival is a persistent environmental pressure. Increased intelligence has been proven to increase survival rate - we are this proof.
T-rex had small arms for the same reason dodos had small wings, they don't use them any more, there's nothing selecting them to be larger or stronger.
Why should intelligence evolve in dinosaur times? It had to evolve some time, right? And if it did evolve earlier those intelligent beings would be asking the same question. We are not the final result of evolution, evolution has no plan, sight or knowledge. It's just the result of breeding populations.
@Impaler1815 Evolution is very efficient. It develops things that are useful and removes things that are not. We evolved away our tails as they were no longer needed. The Raptorex was much smaller but otherwise near identical to the T-rex but lived 30 million years before. This was ample time for evolution to have an effect.
Yes, evolution has no plan but it does work on a principal. So why would this principal stop being applied for millions of years?
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK A principle is an inaccurate way to describe evolution. Evolution is a process, the result of breeding and competition. The question you should be asking is what is the selective pressure for the T-rex losing its arms. If the arms don't hinder the T-rex's chances for survival they could just hang around, generation after generation. There's simply no reason to fully get rid of them.
@Impaler1815 Surely if they are not useful they would evolve away. If they were useful, and many animals do find them useful, then why didn't they develop? Their hands evolved down to just 2 fingers making them almost useless, so why stop there? Surely a useless limb is more vulnerable to damage, infections and attack?
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK You know a quick search on wikipedia answers your question pretty well. The T-Rex arm was quite strong, meaning it was used for something. Apparently this use didn't necessitate size.
Still, you're thinking of evolution as having a plan, working towards some ultimate goal. You can't question its intent, it doesn't have one. An organism is the way that it is because only it's ancestors survived to reproduce.
@Impaler1815 There is no plan and I make no suggestion that there is something "working towards some ultimate goal", but there is an observable change caused by incremental improvements. This is the essence of evolution but it seemed to stop in dinosaurs.
The arguments over the T.rex's arms varies from site to site, but I read one today that talked of its missing 3rd digit but ultimately they still didn't know their use. There are many suggestions but most are barely plausible.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Well they got wiped out, evolution happens in very slow increments over long periods of time. Given more time who knows what would have happend.
@antonny11 They had 160 million years!!! How much time does it need? We have proven that intelligence wins out as we are the dominant species, so why didn't this happen when they were around for far far longer than us? I think it's a reasonable question but science has yet to give a reasonable answer. Or has it? I'm waiting for it here!
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK ~The best explanation has to do with musclature of the jaw and face. Herbivores require very large muscles for eating tough fibrous plant material. This in turn requires heavy tough anchorage for muscles. Likewise carnivores, especially large ones, require powerful jaws and muscles for tearing large amounts of meat. Compared to chimps and gorillas, humans have a far more varied diet, as do Bonobos. We have smaller jaws and also the bony anchorages are smaller and lighter...
as a result of this , there is more flexibility in the skull, which is thinner as well. As a result, the skull plates are able to expand and the bone joints do not fully fuse until much later than in chimps and even more than gorillas. Thus there is room for brain growth not seen in these other primates and other apes. We have larger brains, particularly in the cortex regions. This allows for greater development of intelligence. Source: Max Planck Institute.
@pontecanis Interesting. So apes evolved the ability to delay the fusing of the skull which allowed for more variations in the size of the brain? But why didn't this evolve in other creatures? Were there no candidates for this kind of step during the 160 million years filled with an amazing variety of creatures?
My greatest concern is the plateauing of the evolution effect. I think its a great theory so why did it seem to stop having a significant effect for millions of years?
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK ~Again, evolution occurs in response to environmental pressures primarily and secondarily through mutation, With a very stable environment and lack of other mitigating pressures (new predators, for example) the need for change or adaptation is absent. The population changes after mass extinctions is a good indication of the impact of environmental factors; the Cambrian 'explosion' and the rise of mammals are two examples.
@pontecanis Yes environment is a factor but it is not the only factor. If the environment stayed static, the basic principle of randomly better permutations surviving would continue. Environment is a factor but is not the only and overriding factor.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Well maybe because they are two completely different species. Also the environmental pressures could have been completely different. But who knows.
@antonny11 Exactly - who knows!? We can speculate lots of possible answers to try and "protect" evolution, or we can start to accept that there could be something in addition at work.
Most of the suggested answers are the most thin guesses of any form of science that I've ever seen. I'm sure most couldn't even be called theories. If they were then the word has a much broader use than the scientific community would have us believe.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK lol Just because their are gaps in our knowledge does not mean you can automatically assume there is other forces at work. Further you seem to be coming into this with your mind made up, your being biased.
@antonny11 A theory or hypothesis is proposed which is the time that others are invited to discredit it. It is the basic test of any theory. That is all I am doing. I don't have a great conclusion that I'm gonna spout after people agree that there are holes in the theory. I'm not going to jump up and say, "Ah ha, so it must be aliens then"!
People who solely believe in evolution have their mind far more "made up" than me. I am very concerned that this very nice theory has rather obvious gaps.
Human brains are rather complex machines, suggesting that a lot of different mutations have to coincide, making its emergence anything but probable. Also, it actually might have developed in different degrees, but without a body capable of manipulating tools, it wouldn't have left a trace.
As for the arms, a good answer would require studying T-Rexes in the field. They might actually have served some purpose. Or there was just no selective pressure to let them wither further.
@garouHH Welcome and thank's for being the first responder - and so quickly!
I found the T-rex problem from a TV programme that had many others so don't focus on this one example.
As the evolutionary process is dependant on millions of variations then yes it could be hard to get the right patterns to evolve intelligence, but surely 160 million years is ample time considering the comparably short time it took apes to evolve into humans.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Well, consider the time that the pre-sentient apes and their ancestors had in which they probably did *not* evolve intelligence, or rather sapience, as intelligence refers to any cognitive process; it's the same time in which all other species (presumably) didn't evolve sapience either.
Also consider that sapience isn't necessarily a useful trait to have, especially in its beginning stages. It takes a lot of energy to feed a brain.
@garouHH Do we eat noticeably more than other animals to feed our brains? Greater intelligence must surely improve survival skills? Hunting skills would improve and be more successful. Evasions skills would mean you escape more of your predators.
Sapience - Nice word. Didn't know that one but you are right, that is just what I meant. It's a subtle distinction between animals and humans.
> Do we eat noticeably more than other animals to feed our brains?
In a way, yes. We expend less energy to ingest more calories per body weight than many other animals, and most importantly, we prepare our food in a way that gives us access to much more energy than raw food would provide. While there are many adages of that form, "It is cooking which made us human" is a rather probable one.
> Hunting skills would improve and be more successful. Evasions skills would mean you escape more of your predators.
I am not that sure of that. Both hunting and evasion depend largely on the rest of the body, especially for bodies incapable of tool use. Also, nature is full of examples of animals that show coordinated behavior that would seem like it would require sapience, but doesn't, like building complex burrows to hide in and holding lolokout in shifts.
@garouHH Yes we see a high level of intelligence in animals in the way they hunt and hide, but do you think this is only a recent skill? You say that it seems sapient and so surely a few million years of developing this would produce greater skills and sapience? The development seems to have plateaued but the evolution principal doesn't have an explanation for this.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK What do you mean by "plateaued"? Are you implying that the development of cognitive capabilities would be incremental and not reversible?
@garouHH If evolution is the only governing force and cognitive development produces improved survivability then yes that is the general assumption. The mechanic of evolution must surely continue, and it is reasonable for it to do so.
There is nothing inherently there that prevents it from happening and if getting dumber ensured survival then it would prevail but I'd like to see the argument for the possibility of this happening.
But WE may make ourselves extinct through our own intelligence!
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK While evolution does indeed continue with every new generation, it does not necessarily continue in the same direction. While an environmental change that makes food supply plentiful may allow and even select for increased brain volume and cognitive capabilities, a subsequent change in the environment may just as well reverse the trend. Neither getting smarter nor getting dumber inherently improves an organisms fitness, it always depends on its relation to the environment.
@garouHH Yes I can see it falls within the realms of possibility, but surely there would be more obvious evidence to show this? I'm sure scientists have explored such theories and I've yet to hear of a breakthrough on this.
Surely an environmental change could be countered by a more intelligent creature? Surely a more intelligent creature would find better ways to find their food and thus survive longer? Intelligence will always help and thus be propagated? I'd love to hear of a counter case.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Research on the evolutionary impact of cognitive capabilities is difficult at best. Brains are so far one of the most mysterious organs, and so are the genetics that grow them; the most advanced research that I know of is manipulating the FOXP gene of mice and finding that those mice indeed sound different than non-manipulated ones. Running tests to figure out the cognitive capabilities of animals is a rather recent thing also, so research is very limited.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Also intelligence is not a linear measure, but the confluence of a lot of distinct skills. Ravens, for instance, have a theory of mind, pigs can employ lateral learning and so on. Having a certain part of intelligence that another species lacks doesn't mean that that species does not have another capability that you lack. Neither is there any guarantee that any of those skills actually helps in an environment that is different from that in which said skill evolved.
@garouHH Yes I agree that we can't expect every animal to all evolve the best attributes. Flying seems like a great way to evade predators so it surely must be in the top 5 of 'must have' traits!?
I do know that perhaps being bigger could make you safer, or more aggressive, or better camouflaged would help more. But most of these options don't preclude ALSO having more intelligence. Yes, flying requires important weight concerns but most animals don't have such physical limitations.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK There are no "must have" traits as "good enough to survive" is, well, good enough. Also for a trait to be selected for, there first has to be a series of mutations leaving up to that trait. As you said, both flight and greater size may be desirable, but they are also mutually exclusive. Next, consider that any trait helpful for the defense of individuals of a species is also helpful for their predators; flight does not help against birds of prey.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK As for more intelligence always being better, no, there still is a price in the form of higher energy demands, maybe interference with other, more helpful cognitive capabilities and, not to forget, there may be no probable evolutionary trajectory towards those capabilities. Also the payoff may be rather small. The mental capacity to use tools is worth little for a fish, and the ability to mentally map a territory and remember spots doesn't help a predator of a nomadic species.
@garouHH Yes that's reasonable, but some creatures and animals did develop greater "intelligent" skills. The Veloceraptor comment in Jurrasic park about hunting in packs was not fiction, and evidence has been found to help corroborate this. If intelligence was already proving dividends then why would it not continue?
Even among the "top of the food chain" creatures, intelligence may mean they will eat and procreate more than their contemporaries. This drive should always exist.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK That certain cognitive capabilities increase the fitness of a given species at a given time does not mean that they are inherently helpful for any species at any time, and as I also pointed out, they may even be detrimental. As there may be a chance for any given trait to arise if the right mutation appears under the right selective pressure, there is also a chance for any given trait to disappear again if the right mutation appears under the right selective pressure.
@garouHH I agree, but isn't intelligence a reasonable trait to have thrived in SOME species? I can't believe that in all that time of different creatures and differing intelligence levels that it wouldn't happen. It just doesn't seem reasonable and so I think we are missing something critical.
Don't worry, it doesn't have to be supernatural, but I think we are missing something.
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK What are the chances of all the cognitive capabilities necessary for sapience to arise being present in the same species at the same time AND that species being physically capable of leaving traces that we could still detect today? And even if both of these traits which are on their own improbable coincided, consider this: If all humans became extinct today, how long do you think it would take until *our* detectable traces would vanish?
@garouHH Sapience has been shown to lead very quickly to construction, so one creates the other.
I think we will ALWAYS be detectable. If a bone, organic material, can survive for millions of years, then I am sure there will always be easily detectable traces of humans. Even if this was just distorted concentrations of broken down matter it would be evident for a long time to a sapient species.
I didn't expect someone to suggest that they 'may' have been a sapient race that died out!!!
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Lastly, I don't know of any study about changes in cognitive capabilities under forced evolution, but such experiments would be very long-term and be difficult to set up, so don't expect definitive answers any time soon. It's easy to say that "Surely scientists must have research this", but the actual research on the evolution of minds is a really, *really* new field.
the extinction event that wipped all large animals of the face of the earth. as for the whole confusing early man thing well dint many aspects of the bible confuse early man aswell? oh wait they were to stupid to think about it and they accepted it on blind faith no matter the amazingly impossible events it claimed. aswell intelligence isnt a the single skill that makes a species successful the T-rex dint need amazing intelligence because it was huge and went after large unintelligent prey.
prind666 2 months ago
the theory of evolution describes all of these vestigal organs on dino's such as the giant fins which arent vestigal they actually help heat up the animal in the early hours of the day. also the same dino's werent around for the enterity of 160,000,000 years they continued to evolve. also there was a direct correlation to brain size to mass when it came to dino's the larger ones had smaller brain's and the smaller ones had larger brain's which explains why there ancestors survived the cont:
prind666 2 months ago
In the history of life on earth, extinction is the most common fate of all species. The evolution of our level of intelligence has happened...well, once as far as I know, and it's still not understood exactly how. It is a misconception that greater intelligence is an obvious "goal" of evolution. Evolution doesn't have goals. Having our level and type of intelligence is a rare and unnecessary oddity.
theshredator 2 months ago
None of the examples of dinosaurs were inconsistent with evolution. It's hard to be sure why some seemingly useless feature evolved millions of years ago, but that doesn't mean there isn't a simple explanation. Deer antlers seem pretty strange and useless until you realize that they are just a result of mating behavior. The spines too weak for defense could have other benefits: it could be a bluff to appear larger or more dangerous. It could be a sort of radiator for hot climates, etc.
theshredator 2 months ago
Evolution is seperate from creation/ the big bang.
Percival917 3 months ago
1:57 those large sails were used to collect heat and warm the dinosaur's blood
wgilbert1 5 months ago
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NATURAL LIMITS TO EVOLUTION: Evolution within "kinds" is genetically possible in nature (i.e. varieties of dogs, cats, etc.), but not evolution across "kinds" (i.e. from worm to human). Species couldn't have survived while their vital tissues, organs, biological systems were still evolving. Read my Pravda Internet article: WAR AMONG EVOLUTIONISTS! I discuss: Punctuated Equilibrium, "Junk DNA," genetics, mutations, natural selection, fossils, genetic/biological similarities between species.
Mogley52 6 months ago
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Apes are quite comfortable in how they walk just as humans are quite comfortable in how they walk. Even a slight change in the position of a muscle or bone, for either, would be excruciatingly painful and would not be an advantage for survival. There's no hard evidence that humans evolved from an ape-like creature anymore than there's hard evidence that apes evolved from a four-legged dog-like creature. Read Internet article: MISSING LINKS THAT NEVER WERE
Mogley52 6 months ago
hi, to anwser some of your questions, dinosaurs actually got smarter over time. they just didn't get as smart as we did. Did we evolve faster in that area? maybe, but you have to consider our anscestor we're also evolving during those 160 million years, so it took us a really long time to develop the current intelligence as well. Also evolution is random so if you get smarter and some other guy gets bigger, the predators will eat you because the bigger guy is too big to attack safely
Tutterkop 9 months ago
Now evolution never had a say in my atheism because I understood evolution my whole life, and even more now that I am in college upon taking genetics class and evolution ecology. became atheist 5 months ago. Anyways, evolution is not led by an outside source because random mutation leads to some dying out and some living. Its all about having the most offspring (fitness in a biology terminology). And yes, we have answers for the small arms etc. Its not always black and white though.
iliveon 9 months ago
Due to genetic variation and mutation, alleles can be spread through a process called drift, which affects negative, positive, and neutral mutations. There is also sexual selection where generally the female chooses which male to breed with.This is why you find seemingly useless structures on animals, to compete or to look fancy for the female so that they can mate.There is also biases towards different traits based on what females prefer (such as orange being the color of a feather and a fruit)
iliveon 9 months ago
@iliveon I've heard the mating proposal, but it feels like a huge stretch. Wouldn't limbs that would aid in its survival be more useful and thus have a stronger guiding factor than some random "appeal" factor to women. Where does this appeal system come from? What evolutionary principal is this? Is it the ability for a female to find a mate with strong survival abilities? Then why did they not pick the mutations that were more vicious and useful for hunting and defence?
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 9 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Limbs that aid in survival are more useful. And the limbs that we had when we were in the trees were very useful for staying away from predators, who usually lived on the ground. We used our structured larger brains for survival more than our brawn. Let me define fitness for you. Fitness is the factor of how many children are born, usually by traits that an individual has. If an individual has the trait for a larger brain, this comes with being able to store more information
iliveon 9 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK This information storage and being able to compare and contrast in our heads, is useful for survival just as sharp claws are useful for survival. It leads to greater fitness because we can be smarter to avoid predators and not have to use brawn to do so. Being that the human species comes from africa, its likely that an ancestor species moved from the trees to the ground when less vicious predators were around, or that we began to use sticks to fend predators off.
iliveon 9 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Its all about passing our genes down to the next generation is what makes our brains good at survival. We used sticks and stones rather than muscles to fight our enemies. And as we can ponder, our ancestors likely grew bigger brains because the "dumber" ones died off more. Dieing off more leads to less children to spread the genes to. Fun fact 99% of all life on earth has went extinct. When you posit a plan for evolution, that is all I can think of..
iliveon 9 months ago
@iliveon Thank-you, I'm glad my understanding was similar. This however doesn't explain why intelligence wouldn't happen in other animals over the huge timescale of the Dinosaurs. It is clearly a useful attribute so why didn't it develop in some of the smaller animals that couldn't use brute force to survive? They did get better at evasion and so did develop some intelligence but surely this should naturally continue under the same guiding principle?
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 9 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Intelligence has evolved in many many more mammals and many of these animals are social animals. Look at the apes for instance. Apes are all smart. Remember evolution doesn't follow a strict set of rules and its all about passing your genes on. Apes happened to get the largest brains, and who knows, maybe smartness leads to wars between smart animals. This could have happened before writing and apes could have killed off a similarly smart species. I'll list a few smart animals
iliveon 9 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Dolphins (mammals), Hogs/pigs (mammals), Chimps, gorillas, etc (mammals), dogs which are domesticated from wolves and have gotten smarter since we tend to prefer smart dogs (artificial selection) (mammals), badger (mammals), groundhogs who build(mammals), birds build (these are dumber being that they have only the reptile brain (look up neocortex and reptile brain together), there have to be many many more, I cannot think of them all right now that I know,but bigger brain=smarter
iliveon 9 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Don't forget elephants and others.. Look up chimpanzee intelligence on youtube and smartest animals. Has a lot of information on those. So yes, bigger brains have evolved in many other species
iliveon 9 months ago
@iliveon Yes exactly, you are strengthening my point. Evolution time and again has used intelligence as a valid developmental path, but why didn't this happen in these other species that had far more time to evolve these skills?
"evolution doesn't follow a strict set of rules" - But isn't that the essence of evolution? The traits that improve survivability are passed on and so propagate. This is the fundamental principle that guides the theory. When is this not strictly true?
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 9 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK "The traits that improve survivability are passed on and so propagate. This is the fundamental principle that guides the theory. When is this not strictly true?"
This is explained by other "character traits" that propagate survivability of a species. These can range from how many offspring are born throughout a mother's lifespan, if something can fly, how often can they get pregnant, how mobile the mother is while pregnant, what temperatures can they live in, camouflage,
iliveon 9 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK camo, how small they are, how fast they are, how tall they are, if they can swim or not, if they can live in water or not, etc intelligence is not the only way to propagate a species
iliveon 9 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK "Evolution time and again has used intelligence as a valid developmental path, but why didn't this happen in these other species that had far more time to evolve these skills?"
All life has the same amount of time to use different methods of survival. We all come from a single ancestor, and we all branched out separate ways, ways in which we use different aspects of the environment and pass our genes down differently. Short/long lifespans, many weak or few strong offspring
iliveon 9 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK And of course, there is large changes over large amounts of time. There is a thing called drift as well. Alleles change in a population that can add negative, positive, or neutral potential to offspring number. There is such a thing as dominant negative fitness traits. There are changes that occur over large amounts of time. Maybe the ancestor used its claws to kill prey, the extant species has webbed claws that uses them mainly just to swim. These are traits that add to survival
iliveon 9 months ago
@iliveon All very good arguments for possible reasons for evolutionary path. I do see your point, but it doesn't discount intelligence as being a valid and plausible path to have been tried in the great soup of species. All the other possibilities you mentioned were explored in a wide variety of ways, so why wasn't there this variety in intelligence? If there were then surely the benefits would naturally shine through as they did with us. it just doesn't seem reasonable that they didn't.
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 9 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Look up intelligent species if you are wondering what other animals use their brains along with their brawn.
To get a larger brain, you must first start with the basic features of a chordate. Then you must adapt to have a reptile brain, then you need such a thing as a neocortex. Different parts of the brain do different things. You must examine the anthropic principle and whatI just explained is that since there are so many ways to have surviving children, not all will be smart
iliveon 9 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK And take some time out to research some intelligent animals. Usually mammals, there are many species that use their brain to solve puzzles, able to identify themselves in a mirror, use tools, able to paint, dream, communicate (so many ways animals communicate), able to search out places to hide and or live, etc. Yeah, just look some up with some keywords
iliveon 9 months ago
@iliveon I accept all of that but you haven't offered any theories as to why intelligence wouldn't develop, to the extent it now has, much earlier in Earths history. Yes there are many other ways it has gone but you've offered no good reason why our development process only happened at such a relatively late time period when compared to the time animals with any kind of intelligence have lived.
Evolution didn't ignore this path but it was muted for an awfully long time. Why? That's all I ask!
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 9 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK One one enzyme/protein at a time evolution adds genetic information. Life has been around for approximately 3.5billion years. This life was unicellular, being of the precambrian era. multicellular complex life only appeared 600 million years ago. I don't know what to tell you. I don't see a problem with it
iliveon 9 months ago
@iliveon So you cannot offer a reasonable explanation for the unusual delay in this path of evolution, and yet you don't think that it is a problem? There is a scientific gap here which is normally all that is needed for intense investigations but I'm not sure if this is happening. I presume you are in the field, based on your knowledge, so could you let me know if this is the case?
For example how long ago did a creature that exhibited some "intelligent" behaviour exist?
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 9 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK We do not know how long ago intelligent behavior existed. I am sure with an upwards of 50 million years, since that's when some other ape lineages broke off from the great apes such as lemurs. These apes are smart in comparison to many other mammals. But it builds on (complexity) if it benefits the offspring number. And only if that is the case with natural selection at least. Sexual selection can choose the smarter individuals to mate with as well.
iliveon 9 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK I presume that you think humans are the smartest ever.. This isn't the case. Humans can only remember a sequence of about 7 items on average without forgetting the rest, we have good long term memories, but we do tend to forget things. I mean we aren't perfect and its not like we are super computers, but look at intelligence in the same way you would look at building up to a lightbulb.
iliveon 9 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK This is an analogy.. So in order to have a lightbulb, you must first have the knowledge of static electricity. You got to then learn about resistivity, current and how to get a current. You must find out how to make something similar to a battery, but to do this you got to have the materials to make the battery and you've got to understand how to harness the potential from these items. You've got to have metals, which were first discovered by panning dirt. You must have fire
iliveon 9 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK You must have fire in order to melt metals, and you must know how fire works and how to start it. You've got to understand how glass is made and what to make it out of. You get the point so yeah its a build-up of one step at a time in order to get such a brain that can firstly, see 3 colors (wavelengths detected by cells - some mutations allow for seeing alittle more), to be able to detect sound waves, have skin protection, skull to protect, and eyes to see.
iliveon 9 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK There is more to it, but each of these has to come gradually. These are all needed before a brain can be situated in a safe place (the skull) and for it to grow in size throughout the generations. Without all of these extra things, the brain really cannot do anything. It needs sensory organs to put the information together. And it needs many many generations of random mutations to get to where it is. Natural selection would choose the best suited for the environment
iliveon 9 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK I hope that helped. 600 million years isn't an an extraordinary amount of time to collect random mutations each generation, each one building off the next, or sometimes not building off the next. Most mutations are neutral, more than beneficial, you have deleterious, because you interfere with a working combination sometimes. You also must examine the anthropic principle. You are a human and since you are a human, you are this way. My brain, just responded to your question :)
iliveon 9 months ago
@iliveon Please don't take this the wrong way but that was a little condescending, and didn't address the issue.
If we even take you 50m year range then you still say that that 10 or 20 MILLION years is not enough time to evolve further levels of intelligence? What was happening at that time? Where is the evolutionary principal at work? There seems to be massive stretches of time where it doesn't do anything. Is this an equilibrium? Why is it so "punctuated" - to use a loaded word!?
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 8 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Sorry, my answer was unknowledgable, it is not 600 million years. I made a mistake. It took more than 600 million years to develop the brain. Randomly made genes built up in our bacteria and eukayotic ancestors. Genes get made that don't get turned on a lot of the time, we humans actually have a large percentage of DNA that does not code for anything.Only when it codes for something, do we get proteins that perform functions. So its likely that genes were made before 600mya too
iliveon 8 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK I am not sure of your question then. Are you saying that other animals should be just as smart? Or smarter, or that we should be capable of more than what we are brain-wise? (if we had so much time to add on beneficial traits) I think you need to understand a bit more that evolution is not about becoming smart. Fitness means the ability to have surviving children. The larger brain made it so that we could survive using less muscles, poison, fangs, brawn, claws, etc.
iliveon 8 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK It seems that the more a species uses its brain to survive, the less it will use brawn. The ape lineage happens to use its brain more than others and humans in particular used intelligence to survive. Its all about survival, not about a continual increase in knowledge/muscle strength etc. To survive, a gorilla for instance uses more muscles to survive and pass on its genes. We don't use as much muscles and would die to a gorilla if we had to compete.
iliveon 8 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK We humans, as a social species as well, used intelligence to get away from our enemies, to use tools to help us survive (as many other apes do), and developed larger brains over the generations because the smarter of us tended to survive better. All about survival my friend, and about passing the genes down to the next generation. Positive mutations in the genes for the brain allowed us to use intelligence more than other traits to survive. There are many other ways to propagate
iliveon 8 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK And sometimes there are massive stretches of time that a species doesn't tend to change much. This happens in species like the crocodile, and probably some rodent species. Because they have surviving offspring, and they are well adapted to their environment, they have no need to change morphology. Because what they have works. again, its all about passing down surviving offspring, not about an end-goal
iliveon 8 months ago
@iliveon Yes, I'm beginning to see that the "ideal" or the equilibrium argument seems to be the only reason that evolution seemingly stops. But I find it hard to believe. With a changing environment you are saying there are no further developments possible for the crocodile? Its just effectively finished? It could be possible at the top of the food chain, as with the shark, but doesn't explain the rest of the species that had many predators. Intelligence would help to avoid a crocodile.
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 8 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Chimps are known to be 5 times strong as humans of the same size. Less intelligent, but more brawn, and they survive rather well. They are still very smart though and have better short term memory that humans. A much faster brain indeed, check out this video /watch?v=D3nr5uSJRuM
iliveon 8 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK With a changing environment, the crocadile species would change over time. Yes.. but you see crocodiles have always lived in a marshy watery environment. They are cold blooded and need a hot area to get energy from the sun. They use water to cool down when too hot. They use their bodies to swim and jaws to bite down on water-needing savannah animals and the like. Crocadiles are well suited to their environment and even have resistance to a multitude of diseases and viruses from
iliveon 8 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK from living in a damp moist, bacteria prone environment. They are well adapted, but if the environment was changed dramatically, its likely they'd die, but if some with the necessary adaptations moved out, their morphology could change, and a new species would be "born." That's why you see branches on the tree of life, not one species turning into another, but instead new species coming about from a single species. They like any other animal are subject to change if need be
iliveon 8 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK And with a fast reproductive rate, it seems the millions of animals in the herds have many mechanisms of survival. Their main features include speed, bulk, workiing in groups and social behavior of protecting one another, horns for fighting, and their fast reproductive rates. With these, a species can maintain itself just fine, there is less natural selection occuring than say a species that is used to cold weather, but is living in a warm environment.
iliveon 8 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK The method of natural selection with these animals has in a way adapted to its predators. And they are adapted to living there just as the crocodile is adapted to preying there. Accelerated natural selection occurs in populations that are introduced to new environments. In ecology class, I found that ecologists study how populations animals in ecosystems have adapted to one another.There is a thing called competitive evolution where both species maintain by adapting to each other
iliveon 8 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK We see that grazing animals tend to have strong offspring when born. This is because they have much predators to worry about when coming born. The stronger an offspring is, the less offspring that have to be produced. Same with numbers, the more offspring, the less strong each individual has to be. This is why the majority of frog tadpoles die out when born in temporary puddles in the wild. Primates tend to have more strong offspring when born, and grazing animals, even stronger
iliveon 8 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK If you ask any geneticists, they will tell you the mechanism by which evolution acts. Random mutations that occur in the germ line (sperm eggs) are the changes that will be found in each offspring. Remember a population evolves, not an individual. Some mutations include transposons interrupting or making new proteins, point mutations where one letter is replaced or added or deleted caused by the replication molecule error, new proteins are born in this fashion,
iliveon 8 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Point mutations change the amino acids that are within proteins. If you add a letter, you will throw the reading frame off by one. New proteins will be made in this way. Same happens when you subtract a letter. Amino acids come together by the ribosome and together they make proteins, which perform either enzymatic functions, or structural functions. So if amino acids 1 2 and 3 are present, you get protein 123. Protein 123 is totally changed if the amino acid 2 is changed to 4.
iliveon 8 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Not always are you going to have a change, but not protein 123 is mutated and it performs a new function. 143. Protein 143 is created because amino acid 2 was replaced with 4. There are many more mutations including translocations of segments of DNA, inserts of DNA via viruses and transposons/insertion elements, inversions of segments of DNA, and repetitive letters of DNA being copied too many times via protein complexes.
iliveon 8 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK So basically, I am not sure what you are skeptical of, other than some smaller parts regarding evolution. Is it questions about the ecology and population genetics you are asking or are you skeptical of the whole theory?
iliveon 8 months ago
@iliveon I think the theory of evolution is brilliant and reasonable. But it just doesn't seem to fit the observed results perfectly. I just want to know why the system seems to start and stop for no apparent reason and for huge periods of time. If it is so reasonable then why do we not see thousands of variations upon variations in most species? Even in crocodiles a more intelligent one would eat better and survive better than a less intelligent one.
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 8 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Look up species of crocodiles or any other animal
iliveon 8 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK There is lots of subspeices on crocodiles...
C. niloticus
C. acutus
C. intermedius
C. rhombifer
C. moreletii
To just name a few... then there is also alligators and kaimans who are closely related...
and its not all about intelligence a crocodile that is stronger, faster and more "stealthy" then a more intelligent one would prob survive better then a slightly more intelligent one...
Evolution have never stopped and it do fit the observed result perfectly...
thetrazor 7 months ago
@thetrazor But in your answer you agree that intelligence would have some evolutionarily relevant influence and so surely if it had even a tiny effect wouldn't it grow over millions of years? There are quite a few theories that we've had for a long time that are now falling down under closer examination. I think this has always been reasonable but limited in how it explains the great diversity we see.
UkPolyboyYT 6 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Punctuated equilibrium (not sure of the spelling there :) ) explains why evolution start and stops and starts again over and over again. In crocodiles IQ wont get passed on because its not a skill that the females like, the want big sexy claws and fangs and then they are happy. so that is why tho crocodile most like will not get smarter no matter how much evolution works on them.
Sprattelkungen 2 months ago
@iliveon You must remember that due to random mutations per generation, a child may have a difference than its parents. A lot of genes accumulated due to bacterial life having such a short reproduction time before multicellular life arose. Even some multicellular life replicates its genome fast, but basically, with 600 million years to work with, you got to do one step at a time in order to get highly complex things working together.
iliveon 9 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK One thing I think you may be forgetting is that not all the dinosaurs died out. Some lived on and continued to evolve.
So intelligence isn't really a matter of 160,000,000 years vs. 200,000 years. It's more of a matter of 160,200,000 years.
But, also, intelligence may not have been what meant survival back then. It may have been more imperative to be able to run from a T-Rex or to swim.
MagicActor1987 9 months ago
Actually I'm pretty sure the dinosaur arms were useful. It's probably a bit like the remnants of legs that the snakes have. They only use them to reproduce. It's not that useful but they still give an advantage.
As for the intelligence, it requires a lot of evolution for a small change in intelligence. A larger brain uses ALOT of energy. It's not always that useful anyway. I mean, what would a snake do with intelligence?
ivanlagrossemoule 10 months ago
@ivanlagrossemoule What would a monkey do with intelligence?
Yes intelligence may not help all species due to physical characteristics but there are a LOT that would benefit from it.
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 10 months ago
@Kwinnky It's not about what species tries what. It's about why this mechanic seemingly stopped for such long times. We had hairy bodies and so I would assume that was fairly good camouflage.
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@Kwinnky I asked the question first! Why wouldn't intelligence be a useful trait that would grow with natural selection?
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@Kwinnky So why wouldn't intelligence, something that can also aid in this survival, not be developed and passed on?
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
evolution isnt just about biggest, strongest, smartest. its just about what makes one reproduce better. darwin had the same question as you do with dinosaurs when he was looking at birds of paradise. the answer though is sexual selection. and the T-rex small arms were a result of evolution because the arms were not needed, having large arms would only use up energy. so the ones born with smaller arms had an advantage.
ihmen 11 months ago
@ihmen A more impressive visual appearance in a mate may only reflect just that, which may be no proof that the target is better than another with regard to survival skills.
A species can be fantastically good a reproduction, but if their offspring don't survive to breeding age then it is for nought. Intelligence must improve some of the key requirements for successful survival.
Another concern I have is the apparent plateauing of evolutions effect during these long periods.
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
The useless crests could have come about by sexual selection. I can't explain the arms of T-Rex though.
NWOshill 11 months ago
@NWOshill I too have heard this sexual selection argument, but it does just feel a little stretching and weak. Surely intelligence would also help drive reproduction. A mate should select a more intelligent creature if possible as they will be more able to protect and provide for their offspring. A more impressive visual appearance will only reflect just that, which may be no proof that the target is better than another with regard to survival skills.
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK So tell me how a female dinosaur goes about determining how intelligent a male dinosaur is?
NWOshill 11 months ago
@NWOshill If a female 'could' detect it then this 'intelligence of detection' would serve them well - evolutionary useful. But the point is there should also just be slightly more 'intelligent' creatures to pick from as they are slightly more likely to survive to breeding age than others. Even this small bias - according to the evolutionary theory - should be enough to give this trait a chance to prevail.
But this is a good question...
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@NWOshill This may help explain the crests to me.
E.g. Which Gladiator would you bet on, the one wearing a helmet and many scar, or the one without a helmet and no scars?
The crests may be intentionally fragile so that a female would pick one that is the most intact. This should mean that they are good enough to survive to this age with no damage. The greater the 'show' of no damage, the greater their skills - which may include intelligence. It doesn't answer the intelligence problem though.
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK What you have described in your own words is sexual selection. Which you initially rejected. And your right it does not explain intelligence.
NWOshill 11 months ago
@Kwinnky But isn't the premiss of evolution that these incremental changes, however small, do prevail if they are useful and given enough time? This is the essence of evolution and why it works.
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
Eh... decent point. But those are just a few of many variables that could affect "evolution".
venomoustouch69 11 months ago
@Kwinnky Sharks are an interesting point. I can see why they could potentially not evolve further - they are at the top of their environments food chain. Well done sharks!
But what about all the other creatures? Why aren't they evolving to compete or better them? Why aren't they getting better defences against being eaten by sharks or getting better at eating sharks themselves? Evolution would predict a variant that could do this should develop.
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@Kwinnky So are you saying we aren't the dominant species or that our success isn't due to our intelligence. We have dominance over almost every other animal - which is something we abuse on a regular basis. Unfortunately we are probably also dominating ourselves out of existence - but thats another subject!
"a long time" - do you mean the 200,000 years we've been around for? This is a tiny amount of time compared to dinosaurs.
We have no predators. We've won!
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@Kwinnky Evolution must surely itterate to better solutions. It's the essence of the principal. We have proven that intelligence is the best way to survive by becoming the dominant species on this planet. Why didn't this happen sooner?
Greater intelligence just requires a larger brain. There are far less physical barriers to this modification.
Surely the best female selection is their ability to detect the healthiest and best of their kind? A cleverer mate could surely fake this too!
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
Evolution occurs in response to environmental pressures. If there are no environmental pressures, there is no requirement to have adaptations and changes to cope. T-Rex and his ilk were primarily scavangers, and had no need to bring food to their mouths or use forelimbs for defence. Likewise , paleontological evidence indicates that the assorted frills,crests,and spines of most dinos that had them were heat radiators to bleed off excess body heat, or to absorb heat from sunlight when cold.
pontecanis 11 months ago
@pontecanis Yes there is the heat theory, but they also make them very vulnerable to damage which goes against evolutionary survival principals. Most of the explanations I have seen are vague guess with very obvious counter arguments (I'm not an expert here though).
Survival is a persistent environmental pressure. Increased intelligence has been proven to increase survival rate - we are this proof.
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
T-rex had small arms for the same reason dodos had small wings, they don't use them any more, there's nothing selecting them to be larger or stronger.
Why should intelligence evolve in dinosaur times? It had to evolve some time, right? And if it did evolve earlier those intelligent beings would be asking the same question. We are not the final result of evolution, evolution has no plan, sight or knowledge. It's just the result of breeding populations.
Impaler1815 11 months ago
@Impaler1815 Evolution is very efficient. It develops things that are useful and removes things that are not. We evolved away our tails as they were no longer needed. The Raptorex was much smaller but otherwise near identical to the T-rex but lived 30 million years before. This was ample time for evolution to have an effect.
Yes, evolution has no plan but it does work on a principal. So why would this principal stop being applied for millions of years?
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK A principle is an inaccurate way to describe evolution. Evolution is a process, the result of breeding and competition. The question you should be asking is what is the selective pressure for the T-rex losing its arms. If the arms don't hinder the T-rex's chances for survival they could just hang around, generation after generation. There's simply no reason to fully get rid of them.
Impaler1815 11 months ago
@Impaler1815 Surely if they are not useful they would evolve away. If they were useful, and many animals do find them useful, then why didn't they develop? Their hands evolved down to just 2 fingers making them almost useless, so why stop there? Surely a useless limb is more vulnerable to damage, infections and attack?
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK You know a quick search on wikipedia answers your question pretty well. The T-Rex arm was quite strong, meaning it was used for something. Apparently this use didn't necessitate size.
Still, you're thinking of evolution as having a plan, working towards some ultimate goal. You can't question its intent, it doesn't have one. An organism is the way that it is because only it's ancestors survived to reproduce.
Impaler1815 11 months ago
@Impaler1815 There is no plan and I make no suggestion that there is something "working towards some ultimate goal", but there is an observable change caused by incremental improvements. This is the essence of evolution but it seemed to stop in dinosaurs.
The arguments over the T.rex's arms varies from site to site, but I read one today that talked of its missing 3rd digit but ultimately they still didn't know their use. There are many suggestions but most are barely plausible.
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Well they got wiped out, evolution happens in very slow increments over long periods of time. Given more time who knows what would have happend.
antonny11 11 months ago
@antonny11 They had 160 million years!!! How much time does it need? We have proven that intelligence wins out as we are the dominant species, so why didn't this happen when they were around for far far longer than us? I think it's a reasonable question but science has yet to give a reasonable answer. Or has it? I'm waiting for it here!
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK ~The best explanation has to do with musclature of the jaw and face. Herbivores require very large muscles for eating tough fibrous plant material. This in turn requires heavy tough anchorage for muscles. Likewise carnivores, especially large ones, require powerful jaws and muscles for tearing large amounts of meat. Compared to chimps and gorillas, humans have a far more varied diet, as do Bonobos. We have smaller jaws and also the bony anchorages are smaller and lighter...
pontecanis 11 months ago
as a result of this , there is more flexibility in the skull, which is thinner as well. As a result, the skull plates are able to expand and the bone joints do not fully fuse until much later than in chimps and even more than gorillas. Thus there is room for brain growth not seen in these other primates and other apes. We have larger brains, particularly in the cortex regions. This allows for greater development of intelligence. Source: Max Planck Institute.
pontecanis 11 months ago
@pontecanis Interesting. So apes evolved the ability to delay the fusing of the skull which allowed for more variations in the size of the brain? But why didn't this evolve in other creatures? Were there no candidates for this kind of step during the 160 million years filled with an amazing variety of creatures?
My greatest concern is the plateauing of the evolution effect. I think its a great theory so why did it seem to stop having a significant effect for millions of years?
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK ~Again, evolution occurs in response to environmental pressures primarily and secondarily through mutation, With a very stable environment and lack of other mitigating pressures (new predators, for example) the need for change or adaptation is absent. The population changes after mass extinctions is a good indication of the impact of environmental factors; the Cambrian 'explosion' and the rise of mammals are two examples.
pontecanis 11 months ago
@pontecanis Yes environment is a factor but it is not the only factor. If the environment stayed static, the basic principle of randomly better permutations surviving would continue. Environment is a factor but is not the only and overriding factor.
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Well maybe because they are two completely different species. Also the environmental pressures could have been completely different. But who knows.
antonny11 11 months ago
@antonny11 Exactly - who knows!? We can speculate lots of possible answers to try and "protect" evolution, or we can start to accept that there could be something in addition at work.
Most of the suggested answers are the most thin guesses of any form of science that I've ever seen. I'm sure most couldn't even be called theories. If they were then the word has a much broader use than the scientific community would have us believe.
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK lol Just because their are gaps in our knowledge does not mean you can automatically assume there is other forces at work. Further you seem to be coming into this with your mind made up, your being biased.
antonny11 11 months ago
@antonny11 A theory or hypothesis is proposed which is the time that others are invited to discredit it. It is the basic test of any theory. That is all I am doing. I don't have a great conclusion that I'm gonna spout after people agree that there are holes in the theory. I'm not going to jump up and say, "Ah ha, so it must be aliens then"!
People who solely believe in evolution have their mind far more "made up" than me. I am very concerned that this very nice theory has rather obvious gaps.
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Their is nothing to protect, as our knowledge expands maybe we will find the answers.
antonny11 11 months ago
Human brains are rather complex machines, suggesting that a lot of different mutations have to coincide, making its emergence anything but probable. Also, it actually might have developed in different degrees, but without a body capable of manipulating tools, it wouldn't have left a trace.
As for the arms, a good answer would require studying T-Rexes in the field. They might actually have served some purpose. Or there was just no selective pressure to let them wither further.
garouHH 11 months ago
@garouHH Welcome and thank's for being the first responder - and so quickly!
I found the T-rex problem from a TV programme that had many others so don't focus on this one example.
As the evolutionary process is dependant on millions of variations then yes it could be hard to get the right patterns to evolve intelligence, but surely 160 million years is ample time considering the comparably short time it took apes to evolve into humans.
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Well, consider the time that the pre-sentient apes and their ancestors had in which they probably did *not* evolve intelligence, or rather sapience, as intelligence refers to any cognitive process; it's the same time in which all other species (presumably) didn't evolve sapience either.
Also consider that sapience isn't necessarily a useful trait to have, especially in its beginning stages. It takes a lot of energy to feed a brain.
garouHH 11 months ago
@garouHH Do we eat noticeably more than other animals to feed our brains? Greater intelligence must surely improve survival skills? Hunting skills would improve and be more successful. Evasions skills would mean you escape more of your predators.
Sapience - Nice word. Didn't know that one but you are right, that is just what I meant. It's a subtle distinction between animals and humans.
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK
> Do we eat noticeably more than other animals to feed our brains?
In a way, yes. We expend less energy to ingest more calories per body weight than many other animals, and most importantly, we prepare our food in a way that gives us access to much more energy than raw food would provide. While there are many adages of that form, "It is cooking which made us human" is a rather probable one.
garouHH 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK
> Hunting skills would improve and be more successful. Evasions skills would mean you escape more of your predators.
I am not that sure of that. Both hunting and evasion depend largely on the rest of the body, especially for bodies incapable of tool use. Also, nature is full of examples of animals that show coordinated behavior that would seem like it would require sapience, but doesn't, like building complex burrows to hide in and holding lolokout in shifts.
garouHH 11 months ago
@garouHH Yes we see a high level of intelligence in animals in the way they hunt and hide, but do you think this is only a recent skill? You say that it seems sapient and so surely a few million years of developing this would produce greater skills and sapience? The development seems to have plateaued but the evolution principal doesn't have an explanation for this.
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK What do you mean by "plateaued"? Are you implying that the development of cognitive capabilities would be incremental and not reversible?
garouHH 11 months ago
@garouHH If evolution is the only governing force and cognitive development produces improved survivability then yes that is the general assumption. The mechanic of evolution must surely continue, and it is reasonable for it to do so.
There is nothing inherently there that prevents it from happening and if getting dumber ensured survival then it would prevail but I'd like to see the argument for the possibility of this happening.
But WE may make ourselves extinct through our own intelligence!
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK While evolution does indeed continue with every new generation, it does not necessarily continue in the same direction. While an environmental change that makes food supply plentiful may allow and even select for increased brain volume and cognitive capabilities, a subsequent change in the environment may just as well reverse the trend. Neither getting smarter nor getting dumber inherently improves an organisms fitness, it always depends on its relation to the environment.
garouHH 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK An example of the same phenomenon working on skin coloration can be seen in John Endlers guppy pond experiments.
garouHH 11 months ago
@garouHH Yes I can see it falls within the realms of possibility, but surely there would be more obvious evidence to show this? I'm sure scientists have explored such theories and I've yet to hear of a breakthrough on this.
Surely an environmental change could be countered by a more intelligent creature? Surely a more intelligent creature would find better ways to find their food and thus survive longer? Intelligence will always help and thus be propagated? I'd love to hear of a counter case.
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Research on the evolutionary impact of cognitive capabilities is difficult at best. Brains are so far one of the most mysterious organs, and so are the genetics that grow them; the most advanced research that I know of is manipulating the FOXP gene of mice and finding that those mice indeed sound different than non-manipulated ones. Running tests to figure out the cognitive capabilities of animals is a rather recent thing also, so research is very limited.
garouHH 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Also intelligence is not a linear measure, but the confluence of a lot of distinct skills. Ravens, for instance, have a theory of mind, pigs can employ lateral learning and so on. Having a certain part of intelligence that another species lacks doesn't mean that that species does not have another capability that you lack. Neither is there any guarantee that any of those skills actually helps in an environment that is different from that in which said skill evolved.
garouHH 11 months ago
@garouHH Yes I agree that we can't expect every animal to all evolve the best attributes. Flying seems like a great way to evade predators so it surely must be in the top 5 of 'must have' traits!?
I do know that perhaps being bigger could make you safer, or more aggressive, or better camouflaged would help more. But most of these options don't preclude ALSO having more intelligence. Yes, flying requires important weight concerns but most animals don't have such physical limitations.
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK There are no "must have" traits as "good enough to survive" is, well, good enough. Also for a trait to be selected for, there first has to be a series of mutations leaving up to that trait. As you said, both flight and greater size may be desirable, but they are also mutually exclusive. Next, consider that any trait helpful for the defense of individuals of a species is also helpful for their predators; flight does not help against birds of prey.
garouHH 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK As for more intelligence always being better, no, there still is a price in the form of higher energy demands, maybe interference with other, more helpful cognitive capabilities and, not to forget, there may be no probable evolutionary trajectory towards those capabilities. Also the payoff may be rather small. The mental capacity to use tools is worth little for a fish, and the ability to mentally map a territory and remember spots doesn't help a predator of a nomadic species.
garouHH 11 months ago
@garouHH Yes that's reasonable, but some creatures and animals did develop greater "intelligent" skills. The Veloceraptor comment in Jurrasic park about hunting in packs was not fiction, and evidence has been found to help corroborate this. If intelligence was already proving dividends then why would it not continue?
Even among the "top of the food chain" creatures, intelligence may mean they will eat and procreate more than their contemporaries. This drive should always exist.
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK That certain cognitive capabilities increase the fitness of a given species at a given time does not mean that they are inherently helpful for any species at any time, and as I also pointed out, they may even be detrimental. As there may be a chance for any given trait to arise if the right mutation appears under the right selective pressure, there is also a chance for any given trait to disappear again if the right mutation appears under the right selective pressure.
garouHH 11 months ago
@garouHH I agree, but isn't intelligence a reasonable trait to have thrived in SOME species? I can't believe that in all that time of different creatures and differing intelligence levels that it wouldn't happen. It just doesn't seem reasonable and so I think we are missing something critical.
Don't worry, it doesn't have to be supernatural, but I think we are missing something.
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK What are the chances of all the cognitive capabilities necessary for sapience to arise being present in the same species at the same time AND that species being physically capable of leaving traces that we could still detect today? And even if both of these traits which are on their own improbable coincided, consider this: If all humans became extinct today, how long do you think it would take until *our* detectable traces would vanish?
garouHH 11 months ago
@garouHH Sapience has been shown to lead very quickly to construction, so one creates the other.
I think we will ALWAYS be detectable. If a bone, organic material, can survive for millions of years, then I am sure there will always be easily detectable traces of humans. Even if this was just distorted concentrations of broken down matter it would be evident for a long time to a sapient species.
I didn't expect someone to suggest that they 'may' have been a sapient race that died out!!!
GOODTHOUGHTSUK 11 months ago
@GOODTHOUGHTSUK Lastly, I don't know of any study about changes in cognitive capabilities under forced evolution, but such experiments would be very long-term and be difficult to set up, so don't expect definitive answers any time soon. It's easy to say that "Surely scientists must have research this", but the actual research on the evolution of minds is a really, *really* new field.
garouHH 11 months ago