The Evolution Thread

[anunitu]

Re: The Evolution Thread

Why we have emojis,to express emotion or even just facial expression. I think I have seen a fart emoji even...

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I did,I did,I did see a fart emoji!!!

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Man, they have a million of these things.


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Here for your Emoji needs.

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One for Medusa

[thalassa]

Re: The Evolution Thread

We actually do this - the majority of communication is non-verbal (which is why communication over the internet creates problems).

Here is an interesting article about our unconscious use of smell:

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/...-emotions.html

Have you seen this book? I'm so going to order it with my tax refund...used on Amazon for $68...




Gleb, animals often are transmitting information by smell (that we can't smell), sound (that we can't hear), visual cues (that we can't see), etc.

[anunitu]

Re: The Evolution Thread

I do know from being around animals that they KNOW a bit more about us than we most likely believe they do.

[Gleb]

Re: The Evolution Thread

Thanks, B. De!

Gleb, animals often are transmitting information by smell (that we can't smell), sound (that we can't hear), visual cues (that we can't see), etc.

What's true is true. Take wolves for example - they use smell in order to track their prey. However the leader of the pack often gives the other pack members signals of what everyone should do during the ambush/hunt by looking directly in their eyes.

[habbalah]

Re: The Evolution Thread

Thanks, B. De!



What's true is true. Take wolves for example - they use smell in order to track their prey. However the leader of the pack often gives the other pack members signals of what everyone should do during the ambush/hunt by looking directly in their eyes.

I forget what I was reading now, but there was a study done that showed that animals who had more whites to their eyes (such as wolves) evolved to communicate silent eye contact, because the larger whites of their eyes allowed for more clear expression.

[thalassa]

Re: The Evolution Thread

I forget what I was reading now, but there was a study done that showed that animals who had more whites to their eyes (such as wolves) evolved to communicate silent eye contact, because the larger whites of their eyes allowed for more clear expression.

Is this what you were thinking of? http://conservationmagazine.org/2014...th-their-eyes/

What's true is true. Take wolves for example - they use smell in order to track their prey. However the leader of the pack often gives the other pack members signals of what everyone should do during the ambush/hunt by looking directly in their eyes.

Actually, pheremones play a big role in communication between animals, including wolves, not just tracking purposes (Rae'ya posted about pee mail in the thread on why dogs pee on things, there's also scent-rolling). And eyes are part of facial expression (see the study I linked above)--subtle facial cues that are pretty much lost on humans. We also are lost on the subtleties of their vocal communications...

Contrary to popular belief (and older science on the subject) pack hierarchy likely has much less to do with behavior during a hunt than previously thought. Hunting behavior in wolves is thought to be quite similar to how birds in a flock (think starlings) fly--it's governed more by spatial arrangement and math than active communication or direction.

[Gleb]

Re: The Evolution Thread

Thanks, Thal.

[Briton]

Re: The Evolution Thread

I think what frustrates me is that you're expected to take sides whenever the topic of evolution comes up somewhere. Now, I don't support any creation myth, I certainly see the grand physics of how the Solar System came to be... but how evolution works just goes over my head. I wouldn't say it's wrong because I don't understand it. Hell knows I've tried to understand it. I'm in the "if it's true, that's cool. I'm sure other people can do something with that fact, but it will probably never effect me, least of all in my choice of career" camp. I see no benefit in taking sides. I have questions about the evolutionary process, but I know that any answer I get will just go over my head so... how important is the understanding and recognition of evolution in this day and age? How does it actually change how we do things as a group of people, a nation, or as a species?

[DragonsFriend]

Re: The Evolution Thread

In certain cases and careers it is very important. In my life it was never more than a curiosity, like rocketry and exterior ballistics. If you work in immunology it is very important. Evolution is a fact but that the processes are not completely understood keeps it listed as a theory, scientifically. It is sometimes easy to see how and when a genetic change takes place - like with the sickle cell anemia genetic steps - but the process of a dinosaur changing into a bird, not well understood even though the genetic record still exists in each species of bird. It would be interesting to see the process of how mankind evolved from a small burrowing mammal in the last 66 million years though not necessarily important to the present day social activities. We rarely eat our young in times of stress any more so some of the instincts have faded. (although I sometimes thing retroactive abortions should be practiced JK)

[thalassa]

Re: The Evolution Thread

I have questions about the evolutionary process, but I know that any answer I get will just go over my head so...

I *think* I have a pretty decent ability to explain aspects of evolution fairly simply, so feel free to ask away.

Or maybe not...my daughter does, after all, call our species-ancestors hu-monkeys...so clearly I've missed explaining something to her satisfaction.

how important is the understanding and recognition of evolution in this day and age? How does it actually change how we do things as a group of people, a nation, or as a species?

An understanding of the nitty gritty minutia? Maybe not so much to someone that isn't in a field directly related to biology... But then again, evolution influences everything from what you eat, what medical treatments you get, and how you act and how cultures interact, to technology and how natural resources are distributed (and how our economies *actually* work)...so at least a very basic understanding and acceptance is needed by enough people to make up for everyone else (a sort of herd immunity from ignorance, if you will)

[Briton]

Re: The Evolution Thread

Surely evolution will occur whether we are aware of it or not. Understanding evolution is no prerequisite to eating healthily or taking care of the environment. As far as we can tell, we are the only species to be aware of the progress of evolution, in the sense of examining it and teaching it, yet b billions of years hasn't been in vain.

My main sticking point is speciation. Why are early humans regarded as humans? That is to say, how do we drew the line between 'ancestor of humans' and 'humans'? Is it because that's when the other great apes diverged? Because I thought they split away a lot earlier than that. Furthermore, what is the line between species and 'breed' or ethnicity? If it were an issue of cross breeding capabilities, we shouldn't have been able to mix with neanderthalensis, but we did.

[thalassa]

Re: The Evolution Thread

Surely evolution will occur whether we are aware of it or not. Understanding evolution is no prerequisite to eating healthily or taking care of the environment. As far as we can tell, we are the only species to be aware of the progress of evolution, in the sense of examining it and teaching it, yet b billions of years hasn't been in vain.

My main sticking point is speciation. Why are early humans regarded as humans? That is to say, how do we drew the line between 'ancestor of humans' and 'humans'? Is it because that's when the other great apes diverged? Because I thought they split away a lot earlier than that. Furthermore, what is the line between species and 'breed' or ethnicity? If it were an issue of cross breeding capabilities, we shouldn't have been able to mix with neanderthalensis, but we did.

So the only thing I'm going to address right now (I'm on my phone and I distinctly dislike texting long posts) is the species thing.

What is a species? I'm guessing you learned that species are populations of organisms that can't interbreed and produce viable offspring.

This is called the biological species concept. (BSC). it's throne most people learn and know, but in reality, it's messier than that. There are over 30 different species concepts (I learned 32, by I think we are up to 36, but only about 20 of them are uswd...if you (or anyone else) are interested I can post some links for the most relevant ones). But the point is that what a a species is, as a scientific idea, is not a black and white definition. The reason why there are so many species concepts is to cover all the different exceptions for different fields of biology.

Basically, what this means is that the BSC is a handy definition to teach because it usually holds true. But, when it comes to closely related species , you can see where it seems to fall apart.

*what a species is* is an entirely man made concept..

To borrow an example (paraphrased) from Richard Dawkins The Greatest Show On Earth (truly one of the two best lay science books on evolution):

Imagine a female rabbit. Now, imagine her mother next to her, her grandmother next to her, etc, generation after generation like troops lined up for inspection. As you walk backwards in rabbit-time, you notice that they begin to look different than your starting rabbit, but the rate of change is so slow that adjacent rabbits (one generation to the next) make this trend impossible to spot. In any one generation, the variation between individuals will be different than the variation between generations. But, as you go back, the rabbit ancestors will stop looking rabbity and start looking more like a shrew (but really not like a shrew we would identify with today). At some point you come to the MRCA (most recent common ancestor)...the point at which the rabbit line branches off from its ancestors to become rabbits. Dawkins calls this a "hairpin turn and, if you make that particular turn and follow it forward again in time from that shrew-like rabbit creature, you actually eventually arrive at the leopard (ignoring of course, other branches you could have taken along the way).

Most of us are familiar with the "evolutionary tree" allegory for evolution, so I'm describing something you are no doubt aware of. And something we could have done with any two organisms... The point is that for any two organisms there has to be that splitting point, the MCRA.

Individuals are links in a chain...and the path "forward" is rather arbitrary. The problem is that Western ideas tend to use Platonic ideal forms. Nature does not. Largely, she laughs at that shit.

Under the BSC, a species would be any branch that can't breed with any other branch....but what if two branches CAN breed, but don't ordinarily do so because of geographic range or seasonality of mating or because they don't look enough alike to recognize each other as mates or even if they do breed, their generation (or the generation after) has problems? What about asexual organisms?

With your question, about when is a human a human, particually taking into account interbreeding in hominid species, it is more helpful to think of a species phylogenetically --as a product of evolution (a phylogeny for lack of an easier definition *is* the evolutionary tree). A phylogenetic species is the end of the branch (including the nodes--the split at the MRCA). If you add the timescale to this (the generation-by generation March to the end of the branch) you have what is called an internodal species.

Neanderthals branched off and had an independent evolutionary lineage from the "last wave" of hominids that produced H.sapiens (when it comes to fossil remains species have yet another way that they are defined by scientists....). This is quite similar to the problem of cats....the African and European wildcats share a very common ancestor (and are more commonly than not regarded by scientists as subspecies, along with the domestic cat and less commonly, the Chinese mountain cat).

The decision with regard to naming a species (and by default, deciding what a species is) is made by committee (for animals this is the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature).

[MaskedOne]

Re: The Evolution Thread

*casts knock on thread*

[Bartmanhomer]

Re: The Evolution Thread

Hey I just thought of something. About by millions years from now, do you think that human beings will evolved into aliens?

[Medusa]

Re: The Evolution Thread

Hey I just thought of something. About by millions years from now, do you think that human beings will evolved into aliens?

Technically yes and technically no. To everything living on any other planet in the universe we are classified as aliens. As a born Earth dweller, we can't be alien to our own planet.

But if we are born on Uranus we would thus be Uranites. :=I: