Why is evolution hiding?

[max-greece]

Missed this thread. I read through the first 22 pages and just wanted to raise a few things for Thunder.

1. You kept referring to gorillas and asking why they weren't becoming more like us. I was struck by this question as most people ask it of chimps/bonobos rather than of gorillas.

The reason people normally ask it of chimps is that they are actually a closer relative to us than gorillas.

In fact, and this may be a shock for you in the light of some of the things you've said - Chimps and bonobos are closer to us than they are to gorillas genetically.

The reasons as to why gorillas and chimps are not developing as fast as you would seem to like are many and various. Firstly, they are more suited to their jungle environments than we were to life on the great plains of Africa so the need was less. Secondly, our migration from the trees to the plains enforced a higher meat content diet upon us. This introduced higher proportionate quantities of protein which helped drive the development of the brain. Thirdly, walking upright freed up our hands which could be dedicated to manipulating objects driving brain development further in order to take advantage of our new found abilities.

There's more besides but that's the basics right there. We evolved at a terrific rate (relative to more common evolutionary timescales) because we needed to.

2. Bacteria bred in the lab are still bacteria. True - but bacteria is not a species label. Its at the phylum level really - which contains groups divided into families divided into genus and into species. Bacterial species change. At some point in that process of change the emergent bacterium is identifiable as a different species from its forebears.

Why don't bacteria change to become something else? Because they are the most successful group in the history of our planet. They simply don't need to.

Fruit flies, similarly, are not a species but a group of species (genus). Individual species of fruit flies do change - but to date they have remained within the genus.

In essence then species change is not that rare, genus change is rarer, family change rarer still and so on.

3. Hybrid mammal/reptiles?

Funnily enough there is something that does rather fit that description and its alive today:

Meet:



The duck billed platypus - one of only 5 species of mammals remaining that lays eggs. It comes from an old line of mammals and is actually the last of its lineage (the only species in its genus).

Or you might prefer:



The Echidna.

These both have cross-over features between mammals and reptiles. They both lay eggs but then, once hatched, they suckle their young - despite actually lacking nipples which are common to all other mammals.

4. Changing forms.

The best example we have of the development and change of a species is the Cetacea (whales)



Taken from http://novataxa.blogspot.gr/2013_01_01_archive.html

Now - ask yourself the question, once the whales had separated off from the hippos and the cows at what point did they becomes whales for you? What defines what a whale is to you? If a whale has legs is it still a whale? If it was smaller than a cow? If it lived partially on land?

Is that the kind of change you were looking for?