(January 27, 2015 at 3:26 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote:(January 27, 2015 at 3:25 pm)Heywood Wrote: Is the crocodile evolving? It's remained largely unchanged for 250 million years. Evolution hits plateaus but just because a plateaus is hit doesn't mean the process has stopped. As long as you have replication, heritiable traits, change, and selection you have evolution.
Actually I agree with this.
Now I feel dirty.
Evolution doesn't always lead to advancement. Some evolved abilities can be lost if they no longer contribute to fitness. This is actually kind of a scary thought for me because humans of course are evolving. Imagine that if in the near future we create machine minds which are intellectually superior to us. Suppose those minds are benevolent to us and take care of us. If our own intelligence is no longer contributing to our fitness we may loose it. A million years from now, our descendants might be as intelligent as cows.