Evolution embraces anthropomorphism - it is recognizing those characteristics within ourselves in other creatures around us.
I don't think you understand what "anthropomorphism" means.
"Anthropomorphism" is when you (usually incorrectly) attribute human or human-like intentions to something which isn't human.
Evolution doesn't "embrace" anything. It doesn't have intentions or goals.
Nor does much of life "want" anything. Plants and bacteria, to name a few examples, don't "want" to survive, it's just what they do.
Anthropomorphizing those things to give them intentions they don't actually have can mislead you to what is actually going on here, which is why Mestemia suggested you should stop doing it.
So... there are no species which are in fact "extinct", they have all just... evolved? Most people think there are many species which are now extinct, wiped out, dead, erased - even though some of their children are still around.
You're conflating "extinct" with "wiped out". Those don't mean exactly the same thing.
Yes, most species that have ever lived are now extinct. However, most have not been "wiped out" entirely, because much of their DNA survives in the species which exist today. Dinosaurs may be extinct, but much of their DNA lives on in every species of bird that exists today.
Saying that they've been erased or wiped out paints a rather inaccurate picture of what's actually happened, because they haven't actually been entirely erased as you suggest.
Survival
can be a goal, however that doesn't mean that it's
always a goal. Sometimes it's simply a result. (E.g. If someone seriously tries to commit suicide but survives, clearly survival wasn't their goal, but it's what happened anyways.)
Living things have goals and ambitions - most living things have the goal of living and reproducing etc.
And again, this is the problem with anthropomorphizing. You're attributing goals, ambitions, and wants to things that mostly don't actually have them. A bacteria simply doesn't have the brain power to have a "goal" or "ambition" as most people mean those terms, so it's misleading to apply them to such lifeforms.
Living, reproducing, etc. is simply the result of chemical processes brought about by the creature's DNA. It doesn't "desire" to survive and reproduce, it simply exists because the DNA of its ancestors managed to do that.
If it helps, think of the DNA like randomly produced software code. If you made a bunch of random software, and some of the software survived and reproduced while other software didn't, the software that just happened to be able to survive and reproduce would become more common, while the software that didn't wouldn't become more common. The end result would be more copies of the self-replicating software. Would you say that the software "wanted" to survive and reproduce? Or was the CPU simply running the code it was given, which just happened to produce that result? The error of attributing human-like traits to software might make you think it is the former, however a less biased viewpoint would make you realize that it's actually simply the latter.
This is why you shouldn't anthropomorphize; it can lead your thinking astray.
It is pretty cool to think about, but I don't think DNA is what has survived - how similar is our DNA to what existed billions of years ago? has anything from billions of years ago actually survived?
Yes, lots of stuff. That's how we can tell that all life likely has a single common ancestor.
Take for example the
hox genes. This set of genes dates back to the beginnings of multicellular life over 570 million years ago, and is found in
all animals, plants, and fungi. (
source)
Another example would be the glutamine synthetase (GS) genes, which are found in (almost?) all life. These genes are estimated to be at least 3.2 billion years old (
source). That's pretty old considering all life is estimated to have begun around 3.8 billion years ago. Genes like this one, which are vital to life, are far more likely to be conserved, thus change little or not at all over time.
So yes, genes from billions of years ago
have actually survived to today.
The genes have not survived, they have changed.
Some have, some haven't. You're painting all genes with a single brush, when they aren't all the same.
