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Joined: Jun 2005
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Quote:
Originally posted by jjw004:
...evolution is a creator of sorts with a grand plan up front to make sure this planet has a little of everything?
jjw
CODE RED: Origins alert!!!

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Every food chain at its simplest contains three elements: a primary producer, a primary consumer, and a secondary consumer. Primary producers produce biomass which is consumed by the primary consumer, which are then consumed by the secondary consumer. Let's take an example from the African savannah. Plants are the primary producers, Zebras, gazelles and wildebeasts are examples of primary consumers, and Lions and Hyenas are secondary consumers. Each occuppies its niche in the food chain. If for instance zebras were to go extinct, there would be an opportunity for a forager to feed on what they used to eat (not all primary consumers snack on the same foods). A strain of wildebeast or gazelle could then move in and take over the forage that once sustained the zebras. In so doing they would have to adapt to the different food source, and those best fitted to utilize it would prosper, passing on their genes to future generations. When enough time passed, they would have mutated (adapted) enough to be a new species, separate and distinct from the ancestral species. In terms of evolution, organisms adapt to utilized available resources; sufficient adaptation results in new species being formed.

I could give an example from deep ocean vents, but most of you wouldn't understand it too well. It's easier to envision a world without zebras than a world without shrimps or giant tube worms.

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Quote:
Originally posted by Amaranth Rose:

I could give an example from deep ocean vents, but most of you wouldn't understand it too well. It's easier to envision a world without zebras than a world without shrimps or giant tube worms.
Has it got anything to do with a story, Volcanic Clay May Have Served As Womb For Emergent Life , that we covered last year?

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Thanks, Amaranth and Soilguy, for your explainations. And thanks JJW for your theories that have lead to the explainations, too smile

I'm learning a lot, here. I'm sure other readers are, too.


~Justine~
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No, Rusty. I was thinking about the geoautotrophic bacteria as primary producers and realized then I'd have to explain what a geoautotroph was and that could take some time. So I chose the macroscopic example that first came to mind.

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Hi all and soil guy:

I agree with the many comments and I guess I was lax in being more explicit in my view. Being eaten is not the most common means to extinction but it is potentially the fastest. One bird eats the eggs of another and the eaten goes bye bye. While evolution is allowing for the survival of the fittest by adaptation that serves to accomplish that purpose some of the microbes from the ocean are somehow divided into those to be consumed and those that are to be the consumers. It is possible that I am the only person here that sees this to be a unique development. If there were no carnivorous animals except scavengers of corpses there would be survival of lots of misfits as long as the environment did not take them down or force adaptation. So why did nature create the carnivorous ones? Otherwise why didn?t nature provide the rest of the eatables with more defenses?

From the various responses to my comments I get the impression that everything was by pure chance and I can accept that. Soil guy was concerned with my use of the word ?decide? or decided and I did not mean that literally. When one animal progresses and another goes extinct there is a decision being made of sorts by nature which some how deprived one of the species of what ever it took to make the adjustment. The more I think about it the more complex the application of evolution becomes for me.
jjw

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I disagree a little here.
The Eastern Society you know here has come into existence very recently.
Not only Women are treated badly.. even Gurus are treated badly.
Why?
Take the example of teachers...
Teachers once understood as equivalent to God left no room for Life. They tried to linearize the entire Society forgetting the very nature of Life.
They took every rule as a Manifestation of Binary (or Shankya in Sanskrit) Universe.
It was the biggest blunder they ever made and paid the price.
They got reduced to just another begger.

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jw004 wrote:
"The more I think about it the more complex the application of evolution becomes for me."

Why? It is amazingly simple. This has absolutely nothing to do with survival of the fitest as though fitness is some static quality.

An essential element of fitness is adaptability. Can you survive climate change? Can you survive a new disease organism? Can you survive a new predator? Can you survive disappearance of your primary food source?

Humans fail on almost every measure of fitness except for that of adaptability. No beef ... we eat fish or foul. No sunshine ... we wear the skins of others. No claws ... we make knives and spears.

This is not complexity ... this is the essence of simplicity.


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Quote:
Originally posted by dkv:
I disagree a little here.
The Eastern Society you know here has come into existence very recently.
Not only Women are treated badly.. even Gurus are treated badly.
Why?
Take the example of teachers...
Teachers once understood as equivalent to God left no room for Life. They tried to linearize the entire Society forgetting the very nature of Life.
They took every rule as a Manifestation of Binary (or Shankya in Sanskrit) Universe.
It was the biggest blunder they ever made and paid the price.
They got reduced to just another begger.
You're rambling again. Please try to get on the same topic as everyone else.

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Hi all and soil guy:

Oh I get it now. I see what game we're playing. It's called, "Let's segregate the soil scientist from us decent folk." Well I've had it will elitists like you! wink

I agree with the many comments and I guess I was lax in being more explicit in my view. Being eaten is not the most common means to extinction but it is potentially the fastest.

I can't say for sure, but I would guess starvation would be a bigger cause of extinction. Exposure after an abrupt environmental change might also be a biggy.

While evolution is allowing for the survival of the fittest by adaptation that serves to accomplish that purpose some of the microbes from the ocean are somehow divided into those to be consumed and those that are to be the consumers. It is possible that I am the only person here that sees this to be a unique development. If there were no carnivorous animals except scavengers of corpses there would be survival of lots of misfits as long as the environment did not take them down or force adaptation. So why did nature create the carnivorous ones? Otherwise why didn?t nature provide the rest of the eatables with more defenses?

The term "survival of the fittest" is a little over the top, IMO. Seems like it's more like "survival of the fit enough."

Instead of thinking of evolution only as one species struggling against another, also think of it as individuals struggling to live to reproduce. How well does a population of creatures do at sending its genes on to the next generation? Many different tactics and combinations of tactics can work. Along the lines of your thoughts, some may have defenses, others may produce large numbers of individuals with fewer defenses. It may seem to YOU that the ones who can defend themselves are best fit to reproduce, but observations show that producing large numbers of offspring can be quite effective.

From the various responses to my comments I get the impression that everything was by pure chance and I can accept that. Soil guy was concerned with my use of the word ?decide? or decided and I did not mean that literally. When one animal progresses and another goes extinct there is a decision being made of sorts by nature which some how deprived one of the species of what ever it took to make the adjustment. The more I think about it the more complex the application of evolution becomes for me.
jjw


DA Morgan is right, you're making things too complicated. Biologically, an individual is a "success" if that individual lives to breeding age and successfully reproduces. That's all. It doesn't matter, for example, if a bear can kick a mouse's butt in a fight. If the bear has difficulty getting food, defending its cubs, finding cover, etc., it could be in danger of being a biological "failure." The keys to survival don't necessarily mean the ability to defeat another creature in a cage match.


When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
--S. Lewis
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"If there were no carnivorous animals except scavengers of corpses there would be survival of lots of misfits as long as the environment did not take them down or force adaptation."

A presupposition of evolution is that populations of organisms will expand to overflow the capacity of the environment. This creates the selection pressure. If there were no carnivores, there would still be evolution.

I'm not sure what "misfit" means. Evolution doesn't say that the most fit will survive. Roughly, it says that "on average" those that are best adapted to their environment will pass on their genetic material. If you can find the existing food faster, or take it away from those who have it, or find it in places the other guys can't get, then you are better adapted to a specific niche, and those other guys are in trouble.

Success means being able to produce offspring which can reproduce. It doesn't work for the improvement of an individual. Sickle-cell anemia kills its host, but it provides a little protection against malaria. IIRC, something like 3 million people per year die of malaria in Africa alone. Having any protection at all is a big advantage - so the sickle-cell genes pass from generation to generation, regardless of the fact that it will eventually kill each host, because "on average" the host will live long enough to reproduce.

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I will stand corrected. It is not complex to you all. Your posts make a lot of sense and are very convincing. I see something deeper that may not exist and would not change your well put explanations even if it did exist.
jjw

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I want to join the discussion group that decided to start the mutating of ants so that they would have Mandibles. Where do I apply, any insite?

And another thing, the thing that started wasps mutating out stingers should be sued. I have been stung at least 30 times in my life and I want compensation. And another thing about stingers, they sure are a violent thing to add to an animal. I thought they had Mandibles they could use to kill things with. Two things to do one thing, talk about overkill.
Who wants to eat what they just stuck their arse on anyway.
Failsafe system? I think to much I think.

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rlb60123 ... please try rewriting with content.

And stay away from the use of four letter words. We are all adults and are wholly unimpressed.


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Looks like I get to play the role of pointing out that humans are not all that unique.

Yes we have technology and writing but do you really think animals do not have individual languages for each species? Admittedly, the language may be mostly body signals in some cases but it is still a language.

Writing, elephants can use a paint brush and make artwork that sells and looks a lot like some of the "modern art" I see in the museums.

The topic of mercy, elephants mourn their dead, wolves, African wild dogs and many other pack species feed and try to care for injured or sick pack members.

Are we unique and special, can we fly without aid, see in the dark, hear or speak in ultrasonic ranges, live for months without drinking water, come alive as toads do in monsoon storms and then hiberate for months if not years waiting for the seasons to be correct again?

Our brain was our survival adaptation to make up for all the things we lack that other creatures have.

There is no best species, no master species, no dominant species. Life is interdependent upon each other. Other then perhaps lemmings, humans seem the only species intent on self destruction however, maybe that is what makes us "special".

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Any time humans get too full of themselves and want to loudly trumpet their superiority over the animals it might do them a bit of good to go have a conversation with Owen and Mzee.

If they can talk to each other ... one would expect a superior human could join in.

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/h/hippo-tort.htm
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/01/1718758.php
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0439829739/103-9404023-2948633?v=glance&n=283155

No doubt someone will now get their drawers in a twist.


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How precious. Thank you for sharing.


~Justine~
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here's an idea about the ant. the mandibles might have started off as a pair of legs, that were used to put food into the mouth. along came one that was able to use it to cut, which gave it an advantage, but it was still weak since it was still used as a leg. then one came along that the legs were harder, which made it stronger, and a better fighter, allowing it to kill the other kind easier. then another, until it mutated into the type they have to day.

the ones that squirt acid might originally have not had it, but there was a food source that was not being tapped. when other food sources began to dry up, some of them tried to eat the new source. with many different ones, a few had a form of acid (there are always lots of mutations, the great majority of which disappear for lack of a use) which was able to convert the food to something they could use. this gave them an advantage over non mutated ones. then came the ones that squirted the acid, giving them a better advantage.


the more man learns, the more he realises, he really does not know anything.
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With evolution you have to start at the beginning of something. You need to know what came before ants to be able to ask meaningfull questions about their development.
The current thinking is that Ants are wasps which took to the ground and lost their wings (apart from the males and queens). Therefore the ant mandibules developed from wasp mandibles rather than from "nubbins" on their cheeks. To look for "nubbins" you would have to trace back well before the first proto insects till you found something with a mouth that was clearly not a mandible.
Untill you have a definate starting point it is very difficult to make realistic guesses about how to get from there to the end point.

In discussion on evolution in multicelular organisms most debate seems to be stuck in the simple bacterial paradigm of needing sequential mutations to produce significant change.
However in complex organisms there is a very different process at work - the recombination of genes via sexual reproduction. With changed selection pressure, this can rapidly produce radical changes in populations without the need for any new mutations. Look at how human selective breeding has produced so many different varieties of dogs, cats, birds, fish and plants, etc, and much of this has occured in only a few hundred years.
Sexual reproduction allows the bringing together of a number of mutations which can combine to produce the beginning of a new characteristic. In addition, sexual reproduction allows individual genes which reduce survival value to be retained in a population long enough to have the oportunity to combine with other genes which interact to produce much higher servival values.

Many bacteria do not stick to the simple sequential mutation model. e.g. Drug resistance can be transfered between many different strains of bacteria, and a pathogen can pick up resitance to a number of different antibiotics without the need to ever come into contact with any of them. Alternatively, harmless strains of bacteria can acquire genes for toxins, etc, which turn them into pathogens.

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