Evolution...are there any rules?

Ok…

Some of my thoughts about evolution of species

Lately I read how the first amphibians started to colonies dry land, all early creatures on Earth were aquatic. The first challenge presented was how to completely cut the tie with the water by giving birth to more creatures without the need of the sea. This is because their eggs were all jelly like and would dry out once out of the water.

This was solved by our ancestors…a hard shell egg was being produced.



This is where I get completely lost..So basically our ancestors were able to think a solution to a specific problem and change something inside their DNA. If a living creature is able to change so much from its biological structure how come there is somehow a limit what you can change…why a creature wouldn’t make itself unbeatable? Make it self the stronger? The fastest? ….is it the creature itself to decide what to evolve or there is something else? ….is mother Earth a living Organism that decides what to evolve and how? Are there any rules written somewhere inside the genetics?

reply to post by heineken

Our ancestors were able to think a solution to a specific problem and change something inside their DNA.

The 'ancestors' of which you speak were probably something like a mud-skipper or a lungfish.


I don't suppose they would have been capable of much in the way of thinking.

Evolution is not intelligent design. It doesn't involve thinking. Surely this must have been explained to you many times before?

Anyway, to answer your question: evolution follows one famous rule, survival of the fittest. The definition of 'fittest', though, is ever-changing, because it is defined by the environment in which the organism must survive.

reply to post by Astyanax


still it seems there must be some sort of feedback right..

who or what noticed a hard shell egg was needed ?

who gave me the feedback to whom that the egg was not surviving on land ?

do you agree there is some sort of feedback of whats going on ?

reply to post by Astyanax


It really should be survival of the fit enough. "Survival of the fittest" is not a scientific description (same with "the missing link") and it does not adequately describe evolution by natural selection.

Evolutionary processes are constrained by the laws of physics and chemistry, so that's why you do not see species as "unbeatable" with abilities that far exceed the limitations of their morphology.

Originally posted by heineken
who or what noticed a hard shell egg was needed ?

who gave me the feedback to whom that the egg was not surviving on land ?

do you agree there is some sort of feedback of whats going on ?

The feedback is of course, the ability to survive and reproduce. I don't think the animals were thinking about it that much, they just laid their eggs wherever their instincts told them to, and when that ended up being in better hidden spots on land, more of those eggs survived, so that could then become the norm, rather than the water. The better hidden eggs could have a higher survival rate, and there were moist hiding places on land:

Amniote

Although some modern amphibians lay eggs on land, with or without significant protection, they all lack advanced traits like an amnion. This kind of egg became possible only with internal fertilization. The outer membrane, a soft shell, evolved as a protection against the harsher environments on land, as species evolved to lay their eggs on land where they were safer than in the water. The ancestors of the amniotes probably laid their eggs in moist places, as such modest-sized animals would not have difficulty finding depressions under fallen logs or other suitable places in the ancient forests; and dry conditions were probably not the main reason the soft shell emerged.[3] Indeed, many modern day amniotes are dependent on moisture to keep their eggs from desiccating.

If you think about the part I quoted, there are lots of clues.

Or look up reference 3 at that link.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


they literally wanted to be able to go further inland..

One of the greatest evolutionary innovations of the Carboniferous period (360 - 268 million years ago) was the amniotic egg, which allowed early reptiles to move away from waterside habitats and colonise dry regions. The amniotic egg allowed the ancestors of birds, mammals, and reptiles to reproduce on land by preventing the embryo inside from drying out, so eggs could be laid away from the water.

Plant and Animal Evolution

reply to post by heineken

still it seems there must be some sort of feedback right.

Yes, it is called natural selection.

who or what noticed a hard shell egg was needed?

Nobody noticed anything. A mutation occurred that made shells harder. Natural selection favoured the mutation, and it prospered. The soft-shelled-egg-layers all died out. Today, all egg-laying non-aquatic animals lay hard-shelled eggs.

*

reply to post by IEtherianSoul9

Fair enough. Let's keep it simple for the uninitiated, shall we? The OP seems to be having enough trouble with the basic concept.

Ideology prevails in some evolutionists' academic circles.

When one don't recognise epigenetic mechanisms that justify parts of Lamarck's theory that strongly, just so they can deny some correctness of Lamarck, evolutionary discussions aren't that rigorous...

reply to post by Astyanax


"A mutation occurred "

still you can tell what drove the mutation..


"The OP seems to be having enough trouble with the basic concept."

this is what im currently working on right now..

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desc.BindFlags = D3D11_BIND_UNORDERED_ACCESS | D3D11_BIND_SHADER_RESOURCE; desc.ByteWidth = uElementSize * uCount; desc.MiscFlags = D3D11_RESOURCE_MISC_BUFFER_STRUCTURED;
desc.StructureByteStride = uElementSize;
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InitData.pSysMem = pInitData; return pDevice->CreateBuffer( &desc, &InitData, ppBufOut ); ] else return pDevice->CreateBuffer( &desc, NULL, ppBufOut ); ]

so dont think you are on a pedestal or something...

I may lack in English since obviously its not my 1st language...but I cant see why you try to state you got more brains

your post basically...is worth nothing

reply to post by Astyanax


"Yes, it is called natural selection."

se·lect (s-lkt) v. se·lect·ed, se·lect·ing, se·lects
v.tr. To take as a choice from among several; pick out.
v.intr. To make a choice or selection.

A choice...

nature is choosing you said..

who is nature?


there must be something yet unknown to us...something me and a genius like you cant describe

there is a feedback going on between the creatures who experience life..and the Universe or Earth

Originally posted by heineken
This is where I get completely lost..So basically our ancestors were able to think a solution to a specific problem and change something inside their DNA.

Indeed, you got completely lost. No thinking nor deliberate change in DNA from the part of our ancestors took place. More like, natural selection, for whatever reason, favored individuals that laid eggs with harder shells. Thus over time, the alleles that caused harder shells, became more frequent in this population.

Originally posted by heineken
nature is choosing you said..who is nature?

there must be something yet unknown to us...something me and a genius like you cant describe

Astyanax can describe it. It takes various forms, but in this video I'd describe it as big, brown and weighing about half a ton each:

HD: Grizzly Bears Catching Salmon - Nature's Great Events

Originally posted by wujotvowujotvowujotvo
Ideology prevails in some evolutionists' academic circles.

When one don't recognise epigenetic mechanisms that justify parts of Lamarck's theory that strongly, just so they can deny some correctness of Lamarck, evolutionary discussions aren't that rigorous...

A thoughtful post on evolution 421 in a thread that's grappling to understand evolution 101, so expecting a rigorous discussion of that topic in this thread would be unrealistic.

Originally posted by rhinoceros

Originally posted by heineken
This is where I get completely lost..So basically our ancestors were able to think a solution to a specific problem and change something inside their DNA.

Indeed, you got completely lost. No thinking nor deliberate change in DNA from the part of our ancestors took place. More like, natural selection, for whatever reason, favored individuals that laid eggs with harder shells. Thus over time, the alleles that caused harder shells, became more frequent in this population.

sorry but you are lost..

There was no natural selection here

Is it that hard to grasp..

There was time where all the eggs ALL.. where jelly like soft shell...

So nature selected from nothing...there was nothing to choose from all eggs were soft...

Until there was a feedback that a hard shell was needed...

and indeed a hard shell appeared

NO SELECTION..rather an evolution happened...but..HOW?

who gave the feedback...who decided a hard shell is the way to go... (when I say WHO i refer to a process, an entity, chemistry..whatever)

Originally posted by heineken
who gave the feedback...who decided a hard shell is the way to go... (when I say WHO i refer to a process, an entity, chemistry..whatever)

This is just my very basic understanding and I'm a dork but ...

Hereditary material is passed from parent to child and changes slightly each time. The changes aren't always helpful, some are utterly pointless, but now and then one comes which is actually useful and means that this turtle reproduces and survives better than that turtle.

Some sort of mutations and behaviours are even unhelpful. For example, a cannibalistic turtle which eats its mate after copulating maybe has perhaps a better chance of survival and breeding more. Successful mating male turtles start being eaten whilst the smart ones hide in the corner and slowly die out despite the fact on average they live longer and understand being eaten kind of sucks!

A lot of thoughts are out there ... such as why do humans act the way we do? Didn't we evolve over thousands and thousands of years to be awesome?! Some people suspect it's almost the opposite. We're woefully adapted for modern life. Take our perception skills for example ... they're pretty poor really. We see faces and shapes in almost everything, we get paranoid over silence, and we're pretty impulsive beings at times with poor self control.

Picture our distant ancestor who has better eyes and can see everything precisely. Whilst our particular brand name of human was hiding up a tree being paranoid because we thought we heard a noise and saw a tree that looked like a monster ... our ancestor was at the bottom of the tree wondering what was wrong with us. Nine times out of ten our human brand was over reacting. That one time we weren't? Ancestor got eaten and we stayed hiding in a hole or up a tree or elsewhere. Our impulsive (but incorrect learning) and poor self control mixed with bad perception perhaps meant efficient predators struggled to eat us as regularly.

Our ancestor was probably better at maths, maybe more attractive, and possibly even stronger and certainly nicer. We probably weren't that nice since we likely killed a good pile of the other two legged walking things or they might be around today still. Good trait to guarantee a species though, racism/hatred of the other. Again, not that useful for modern life.

Too much words summary: I personally believe the feedback isn't really feedback at all exactly ... It's a mix of biology, random chance, and helpful changes. If a bad mutation piggy backs with a good mutation, then both are in play. Good mutations are still favoured due to them increasing survival chances but they're not 'chosen'. In your example perhaps hard eggs or land based eggs formed due to multiple mutations and because the eggs were harder to get to or consume they survived more predators. Same with creatures that managed to sneak out onto land ... very good trait when all your competition is still wearing floaties.

Originally posted by heineken
sorry but you are lost..

There was no natural selection here

Is it that hard to grasp..

There was time where all the eggs ALL.. where jelly like soft shell...

You're suggesting that all the eggs had exactly the same physical properties, e.g. the same way all humans are of the exact same height? If yes. You're wrong.

So nature selected from nothing...there was nothing to choose from all eggs were soft...

Nature selected from variation.

Until there was a feedback that a hard shell was needed...

For whatever reason individuals started laying their eggs on land. Maybe it was more secure than the ocean? I don't know. Either way, harder shells survived better than softer ones, increasing the frequency of the alleles that lead to harder shells in the next generation. Here or there you might have had a mutation that led to an even harder shell, and again this would be favored by natural selection, leading to the increase in frequency of this new allele. Of course, something like the hardness of an egg shell, is not due to a single gene the same way human height isn't due to a single gene. This particular example of shell hardness might also have epigenetic dimensions, e.g. the amount of time a specific gene is expressed may effect the thickness of the shell, and e.g. DNA methylation may affect this.

Basic concepts of evolution, learn them..

reply to post by rhinoceros


OK i think i know were is the problem with you...you did not read or follow the thread as supposed to..

I will illustrate it to you hopefully making it clear...because at the end of the day be assured we are all on the same boat on this one...and no body not you nor anybody else knows more than anybody else because at the time being we can only guess..

SO

MILLIONS OF YEAS AGO

- Only Water Creatures existed

MILLIONS OF YEARS PASSED

- Creatures learned to breath out of water

- Creatures enjoyed dry land and wanted to colonize it

- One Problem

- They had to return back to sea to lay eggs

- Problem solved...Hard Shell Eggs appeared

- Dry land can now be colonized

So basically there was no selection..but rather..a wanted and well thought solution to the problem

WHO REALIZED THE EGGS WERE NOT HATCHING? ... WHO GAVE THE FEEDBACK...

picture yourself this..

the Egg left the mother's body...

Who observed the egg died out of the water?

To whom was the feedback passed?

*always keep in mind...the WHOM i'm referring may not be an entity but rather a process..something

reply to post by heineken


Just because you have come to the conclusion that "something" made a choice to develop hard eggs, does not make your hypothesis accurate.

Until we can travel back in time and observe the sequence of events, we will never really know. And that's OK.

Based on all the evidence collected so far, and what we can observe in species today. We can be fairly certain that it was a gradual process that most likely had as many steps backward as forward. The traits and behaviors that were not beneficial were not continued because they resulted in the demise of their progenitors. While the traits and behaviors that did assist in survival obviously have made it through to today.

I am not seeing any evidence that would require a conscious "choice or decision" for a trait to be selected for advancement.

It seems to me, that you are starting with a predetermined conclusion, and are now seeking to validate it.

reply to post by rhinoceros

For whatever reason individuals started laying their eggs on land. Maybe it was more secure than the ocean? I don't know

from this simple quote I realized that you dont have an idea what we are talking about...just wasted my time..and yours

reply to post by watchitburn


no dear friend...

the fact is...

that the egg left the creatures body..

and thus..it needed observation in order to be known if its liable or not...

are you still with me..

so we have an observer...who observed if the egg was sucessful ok..

the egg was outside of the body keep that in mind..

so for you..Who observed if the egg was successful out of water?

i believe ..that we know nothing yet how creatures evolved...and it is not as easy as they picture it...

i believe there is some kind of communication between the one who experience things..and the one who can change things...

there is a link between THE CREATURE and THE UNIVERSE ITSELF

the creature return data to the Universe...and the Universe make changes...

the Universe might be..our Sun? planet Earth? milky way's Black hole? God? u name it