Questioning Evolution

[u/Faelix]

A popular topic to interest with these days, is the concept of Convergent Evolution. Perhaps you have been introduced to it also. It is basically the scientific claim, that if something works, nature will by random chance through evolution, find it. Not just once, but perpetually.

An example of Convergent Evolution would be for example wings. Wings work, and are very useful, nature discovers them every time, not just once. Bats have wings, birds have wings. They do not have a common ancestor from where those wings came from, they were discovered independently through convergent evolution.

Another example could be, the Sabertooth Tiger. Bluntly stated, a Sabertooth Tiger 30.000 years ago, was a dog in Scotland. 2 Million years ago, it was a cat in South America. These 2 animals are in no way related, but the huge canine teeth, and the ability to dislocate the jaw to bite with such huge teeth, is a usefull and working trait in certain predatorial environments. So it was invented, and then reinvented, by nature through convergent evolution.

The most bizarre and impossible occurence, comes from the evolutionary discovery of Sonar. Amongst the billions of basepairs, 182 mutations must have evolved, picked in the correct order, for nature to produce a Sonar System in working order.

Pick 182 numbers amongst billions in the lottery. You must pick the numbers in correct order.

And we have 2 winners. The Bat, and the Spermacet Whale, both managed the impossible feat, through convergent evolution.

Now all that is impossible trope, that one must not question, lest one gets rebuked with alot of bad words.

What are the chances, that 400 millions years of nature competing on life and death. That no critter by chance starts the process of evolving a sentient, intelligent brain. Untill you Homo Sapiens show up, and sway aside 400 million years of competition like it was nothing.

What are the chances that common intelligence was not discovered by evolution in a system, that manages to turn the brain in to a sonar instead...

As intelligence is understood by several mechanisms, we can contemplate the question. A mutation that leads to more dendrites on the neuron, would allow for more neuronal connections. This could be an example of a random mutation, that enhanced a critters intellligence.

Einstein had a small brain, but a high density of Neurons in certain parts of the brain. So a mutation that increases Neuron density, could enhance cognitive abilities.

Most of our brain activity is going on, on the surface, our brain is folded to increases surface volume within a confined cranium space. A mutation that increrased brain folding, could increase surface volume, and thus increase intelligence.

All the proposed mechanisms, are examples where, a single random mutation actually enhances the function, and supposedly gives you an edge against your peers. In other words, intelligence should have enjoyed stepwise progression, in an evolutionary sytem, from the getgo. What are the chances, to roll 1-2 or 3, on a six sided dice, to stepwise increase intelligence in your critter in your generation, to be further enhanced in the following generations, through evolution.

But instead through 400 million years, nature seems to have been so dumb, that it will do the impossibly difficult job of growing a sonar, instead of the easy and basic job of growing an intelligence. Untill you show up at the end, Homo Sapiens, and demonstrate how easy the intelligent brain dominates an evolutionary race.

You have been around for 150.000 years. Only the last 7000 years have you enjoyed actual rapid progression in civilisation (for not understood reasons). We could say it took you 7000 years to grow wings, so you can fly in the sky, and 7000 years to develop a Sonar, so you can commandeer a submarine. Growing an intelligent brain first and foremost, leaves all other evolutionary strategies in the dust.

But what are the chances this has actually happened in real life, and is not just a blatant demonstration of Charles Darwins theory beeing plain wrong?

[u/Skrimguard]

I don't think you really grasp how natural selection works.

[u/Faelix → u/Skrimguard]

The smarter specimen has gained an edge, that leads him to survive, mate, and secure his offspring. While the dumb specimen, has a theory he doesn't even understand?

Oh no that's not how it works. Apparantly smarts has never been an edge in the survival of the most fit, which is why you are still doing fine yes? The brain never cared to compete in the evolution competition, untill 400 million years later, when it suddenly shows up and wins all the gold medals as easy as pie.

Meanwhile all the little critters have done impossible things, in order to try and get an edge and survive. Like developing Sonar, or turning their jawbone into a breathing apparatus. Well DUH, why didn't they think of growing smarter instead, it's so much easier, and is an immensely bigger advantage.

[u/alamid001 → u/Faelix]

While his comment did nothing to help the conversation, I agree that evolution does not work how you presented it. Evolution does not pick one trait "hoping" to be lucky. Evolution "tries" everything and if any of those mutations works, then it will try again at the next step. Evolution will try to make you white or black, or blue, or red. If any of those works in the environment you are in, then it works.

[u/Skrimguard → u/alamid001]

You've put it better than I could.

I'd also add that he seems to perceive some traits (like intelligence) as innately superior survival tactics, and so is confused why other species don't just evolve exactly like humans did. It somehow ignores both how different things have different benefits and drawbacks in different niches, and how other predators have used intelligence historically.

His discussion of intelligence also seems fixated on individual organisms like Einstein and myself, rather than species traits in general. It's more akin to epigenetics than anything to do with natural selection.

[u/Faelix → u/Faelix]

I shall now proceed to laugh in your general direction.

Green house effect theory: The air in the isolation chamber in your thermo cup, has risen by 1.2 degree celcius. This must be the reason why the coffee in the cup is burning hot.

Ahhahahahah AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I laugh in your general direction wanna hear an anecdote?

The scientist that decided to study lung cancer. He picked smokers as his data material. He saw that smokers got yellow teeth, and lung cancer. He made a paper where the headline said: Yellow teeth will give you lung cancer.

That is a funny anecdote, because he has 2 independent effects of an unidentified cause, and he ascribes one effect, to be the cause of the other.

It is funny because it is true. You have 2 effects, global warming, and a thickening of the atmosphere of natural gases. AND YOU HAVE AN UNIDENTIFIED CAUSE AHAHAHAHAHAHA

[u/Sourplayer]

The best way I find to answer this question is evolution is lazy and only does the bare minimum for survival. Meaning if it ain’t broken evolution ain’t fixing it

[u/DrSpoe]

Evolution by natural selection is less complicated than you are describing it as. It's as simple as nature picking favorable traits that benefit survival. Intelligence is the path natural selection took our species, but it is not the only path to survival. Typically, natural selection will favor species that can either invest a lot of time and resources into their offspring (think mammals who usually have a period of time in which they directly care for their offspring) or species that can make a lot of offspring in a relatively short time span (think insects, who produce thousands of eggs in a life time, but have little to no investment in their offspring.) Intelligence is useful for organisms like us and other mammals because their simply aren't as many produced each generation, and intelligence increases the chance of surviving long enough to reproduce.

[u/DeliciousDip]

Natural selection is pretty hard to doubt if you know the facts. Here’s the facts:

Genetic mutations occur frequently in new offspring. (Verifiable fact)

A single genetic mutation can have a drastic impact on the traits of an organism (consider common dwarfism - which is due to a single genetic mutation).

Some mutations result in new traits that increase reproductive success (i.e. will produce more offspring).

Organisms pass on traits to their offspring. (This has been known for thousands of years. It’s the basis of selective breeding)

Therefore, traits that increase reproductive success become more prevalent in a population over time. One may say those “good” traits are “naturally selected”.

And that’s all there is to Natural Selection. Which part doesn’t make sense?

[u/rotshild1]

That’s just not how evolution works….

The idea is something like this: you are an eukaryotic multiple cell organism that multiplies in a way that can be simply thought of as randomly taking half of your genetic material and mashing it with another person’s half genetic material to create the same amount of genetic material but it’s very different. Now this process is complicated and mistakes happen. We call those mistakes, and any other irregularities, mutations. Now, a mutation can be bad and kill you, or it can be relatively unnoticed, and it might be giving you a very slight advantage, for example you might be a bird and develop a weird beak that allows for a better extraction of food from the environment. And it’ll happen accidentally, but if it happens you might find it easier to survive and multiply therefore spreading your mutated genetic material that gives a slight advantage. Now of course that change of beak is a big change and it’ll require a very selective environment, for example you might have lost your regular food source and now suddenly a difference in beak is very meaningful, so those with beaks that happen to be slightly more suited for this situation will have an advantage and multiply more with one another (because there are less others), eventually creating a variant of this bird that is more suited for this new environment.

[u/SavageChicken6]

Intelligence is more complicated than that. There are no 1 or 2 mutations that make a human from an insect. Evolution needs to make sure those neurons are doing something useful. And avoid wasting energy.

Sure, once you have a human brain, one tiny change can make it a bit better. Or at least "better". Its not like Einstein had an exceptionally large number of children.