Perspectives on Evolution

[ignoramus]

I'm human because I am a Homo. Not because I am a Homo sapiens.

So is Vorls! Not sure if he's human though!

I just think of evolution as change in all living things over time. (Some things die off, some speciate, some remain the same (eg: sharks).
Question? Is it strictly an environmental thing + random mutations? Or is it more complex than that?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Philosophy? Religion for atheists.

[TheBeardedDude]

I'm human because I am a Homo. Not because I am a Homo sapiens.

So is Vorls! Not sure if he's human though!

I just think of evolution as change in all living things over time. (Some things die off, some speciate, some remain the same (eg: sharks).
Question? Is it strictly an environmental thing + random mutations? Or is it more complex than that?

It’s more complex than that, but I’m on my mobile at the moment so it’ll be hard for me to find some good examples. I’ll remind myself to do so later

[Anomalocaris]

I'm human because I am a Homo. Not because I am a Homo sapiens.

So is Vorls! Not sure if he's human though!

I just think of evolution as change in all living things over time. (Some things die off, some speciate, some remain the same (eg: sharks).
Question? Is it strictly an environmental thing + random mutations? Or is it more complex than that?

It is more complex than that.   For example, unicellular life can have their genes manipukated through lateral gene transfer.   Complex organisms can have their genes manipulated through viral infection.  Mutation and environment were merely two factors that Darwin and other observers could readily see before the maturation of modern molecular genetics.

[TheBeardedDude]

I'm human because I am a Homo. Not because I am a Homo sapiens.

So is Vorls! Not sure if he's human though!

I just think of evolution as change in all living things over time. (Some things die off, some speciate, some remain the same (eg: sharks).
Question? Is it strictly an environmental thing + random mutations? Or is it more complex than that?

There are also a variety of ways that organisms interact with one another that influence the evolution of lineages. Predator-prey interactions (such as the "Red Queen Hypothesis," which was named after the Queen in Alice in Wonderland) and sexual selection are two obvious ones. 

For predator-prey relationships, a trait in one may influence the traits in another. So a fast predator hunting down the slowest among the prey, will be electing against the slower prey and the faster prey will survive and reproduce, resulting in an overall faster subsequent generation. This, in turn, might cause the slowest among the predator species in the next generation to be unable to catch enough food to survive, resulting in an overall faster subsequent predator generation. (we can pick a variety of traits, like camouflage, that this scenario applies to). 

Sexual selection is where one of the genders selects for specific traits in a mate (most commonly it is females selecting males, but some species are reversed. Some birds for instance). Deer are a good example because of their horns. Mature male deer have large horn displays and mate more frequently. So doe select for the more impressive displays and drive selection towards even more elaborate and impressive displays (male peacocks and their plumage is another good example. The female peacock is a drab brown color for more effective camouflage, but males are brightly colored and quite large. They should stand out to predators more easily this way, thus harming their overall survival, but the reproductive advantage outweighs this).

When it comes to stasis in lineages, it means that selection pressures are relatively stable, but this might be a consequence of the organism adapting into an environment where selection pressures are low because the environments are relatively stable through geologic time (like the abyssal ocean), and because the organism has few predators or the predators that preyed upon it have gone extinct. The coelacanth is a great example here

[popeyespappy]

Interesting.  Would you describe the process of aging as a kind of evolutionary process?  Certainly, the question "Who's aging" is something akin, since 5 year-old bennyboy never died, but clearly does not exist as he did.  I think when you say pattern, it's much like the "Archetypal Man" I mentioned in the OP, it's more man-ness, than any individual man (or even collection of men).

I would describe the process of aging as a kind of evolutionary process, but it is one that does not meet the textbook definition of biological evolution of changes in the frequency of alleles within a population over time. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong here, but it is my understanding that changes in the sequence of an individual's DNA (the order of the C, G, T, and A molecules) are rare. Epigenetic changes that change the way the genes express are the norm though. These types of changes start on day one as soon as specialized cells begin to develop and don't stop until you die.

[Anomalocaris]

Aging is the evolution of the individual physical constitution, not the evolution of the population gene pool.

One could apply the word evolution to any process of change involving anything, whether it appears to have a direction or goal or not. In fact the word evolution was made popular first when it was used to refer to the step by step process of change in troops or naval ship formation as they deploy from March to battle during the 16-18th centuries.

But biological evolution refers specifically to the evolution of population gene pool.

[bennyboy]

Philosophy? Religion for atheists.

Science and morality are branches of philosophy.  Pretty sure those aren't religious.  Interpretation about category, properties, semantics etc. is also philosophy, and is what this thread is about.

But I have to say-- if you are so out of ideas that you are just going to start bad-mouthing philosophy in a thread in the philosophy section-- maybe just go fuck yourself.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Philosophy? Religion for atheists.

Science and morality are branches of philosophy.  Pretty sure those aren't religious.  Interpretation about category, properties, semantics etc. is also philosophy, and is what this thread is about.

But I have to say-- if you are so out of ideas that you are just going to start bad-mouthing philosophy in a thread in the philosophy section-- maybe just go fuck yourself.

Religion co-opted morality and law... 

And if I'm melting snowflakes I'm sorry.

[bennyboy]

Aging is the evolution of the individual physical constitution, not the evolution of the population gene pool.

One could apply the word evolution to any process of change involving anything, whether it appears to have a direction or goal or not.   In fact the word evolution was made popular first when it was used to refer to the step by step process of change in troops or naval ship formation as they deploy from March to battle during the 16-18th centuries.

But biological evolution refers specifically to the evolution of population gene pool.

Very interesting etymology, thanks for that.

Yeah, it's metaphors like "gene pool" that I was talking about.  I don't think there IS a gene pool, i.e. as a thing which is undergoing a process over time.  Clearly, those words are a mathematical shorthand for a theoretical sum of the DNA of organisms who match our ideas of what "human" means, either in a subset or overall.

However, people do often end up saying things like, "This species evolved fur to adapt to the polar temperatures during the Ice Age" or whatever, and I'd suggest that may semantically be a pseudo-religious idea: that the archetypal Man-god or Elephant God, as an individual entity, is an active agent in this process, rather than "long-toothed tiger" being just a label for a phenotype seen in fossil records.

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The female peacock is a drab brown color for more effective camouflage, but males are brightly colored and quite large.

Male brilliance as a distraction for predators. I've never thought of it that way, and that's really making me ROFL. Some things seem so immediately true that I wonder why I didn't already see them that way.