Ryan2065
Well-Known Member
The whole of evolution states that a gene will have more of a chance than another. Evolution comes about when that gene kills the rest of the genes... Or beats out the rest of the genes. So lets say, in your example, you have a bird with the 6" beaks as opposed to 3". We call this a mutation. It does not cross over into evolution until the environment changes or something changes that gives the bird with a 6" beak a leg up. Even in your example you give a situation where it makes the 6" inch beak birds able to live there where 3" beak birds have a tough time... Eventually the 3" beak birds will die out, taking away their genes... If birds just went about mating randomly, one bird getting one mutation and leaving it at that would not bring about evolution. Again, you need genes taken out of the picture in order for evolution to happen... IE for evolution to happen one needs the environment to be hostile to the bad gene and to accept the good gene... Then the bad gene will go away and the good gene will flourish.JerryL said:Natural selection (what you refer to as "survival of the fittest") is an attrition process, yes; though it's not about "killing off" neccessairily. It essentially says that critters with more traits benificial to reproducing are more likely to reproduce.
But natural selection is only part of the equasion. You also have a mechanism which introduces new variety into the pool... mutation.
Right, mutation is about changes, evolution is about a species losing or gaining a trait. If a species evolved from no hair to some hair, you would say the species gained hair wouldn't you? If a species went from 4 legs to 2 legs, you would say the species lost 2 legs... This is how it works...JerryL said:Was a trait gained or lost? Neither, it was just changed. The concept of "loss" and "gain" is mostly ours. Mutation is just about changes.
My argument is that without something to kill off the "bad genes" evolution will have a hard time coming about... So because humans are all concerned about saving everyone, we are slowing down evolution.