10 Worst Evolutionary Designs 232
JamJam writes "Besides my beer gut, which I'm sure has some purpose, Wired is running a story on the
10 Worst Evolutionary Designs. Ranging from baby giraffes being dropped 5-foot during birth to Goliath bird-eating spiders that practically explode when they fall from trees."
Old (Score:5, Insightful)
This was posted 2 weeks ago, it was stupid then and is stupid now. Also, go back to digg with your lists kthxby.
Re:Old (Score:5, Insightful)
This was posted 2 weeks ago, it was stupid then and is stupid now. Also, go back to digg with your lists kthxby.
I second that emotion. The most notable thing about the list is that it shows a possibly-unhealthy level of interest in non-human reproduction on the part of the author -- five out of the ten, including "slug genitalia" and "hyena clitoris". Mr. Wolman should either get into a college-level comparative anatomy class, or into therapy.
And lists aren't such a bad thing, in and of themselves. I've gotten addicted to the Cracked Mazagine (sic) [cracked.com] lists of things like "The 6 Most Badass Murder Weapons in the Animal Kingdom". Compare those with the Wired.com list, and you can't help but wonder if Cracked already saw this list... and stamped it "REJECTED".
If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
"If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid" - that also applied to evolutionary designs.
Also, some of these 'design issues' might in truth be advantages. For example, sea mammals can swim through oxygen-depleted dead waters just fine - they don't depend on dissolved oxygen.
Not Design! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Spartan Giraffes (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. The only way I can think of to even start to consider a "worst evolutionary design" would have to be in terms of adaptability. I.e., how sensitive is the life form to small changes in its environment? Even that is full of problems though, as "best" and "worst" are measured only relative to the current environment. Any stable population could be considered the best solution for its environment--at least a local maximum, if not global.
As a side note, this thread is also why you should never invite a pedant to a party. We have the capability of sucking the joy out of nearly any conversation.
engineering principles (Score:3, Insightful)
In any evolutionary system, provided the species with the "mistakes" survives to maturity in sufficient numbers to maintain the population, it's a success.
Maybe the real stupid evolutionary "designs" belong to all the thousands of species that have been too inflexible to survive and have become extinct.
Re:Spartan Giraffes (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously though, evolution does not provide traits that are advantageous, it simply removes those that are disadvantageous
Um, source? If this were true, wouldn't we still be single celled organisms right now?
Re:Humans (Score:5, Insightful)
3) Walking upright leads to distended colon, piles, etc
It also allows us to use our hands better, for things like wielding weapons against animals that would kill us otherwise.
Re:Spartan Giraffes (Score:5, Insightful)
"...evolution does not provide traits that are advantageous, ..."
Yes it does.
"it simply removes those that are disadvantageous"
That would assume you ahve all traits at the 'beginning'.
New traits can develop from new mutations.
You seem to be a little too Lamarkian.
Purpose of the beer gut (Score:5, Insightful)
Storing fat is a useful way of surviving famine or food shortages. Unfortunately the stored fat always makes the male less athletic, less able to fight, hunt, evade, etc. Storing extra fat on the gut/love handle area is probably the best compromise for athletic purposes - lowest center of gravity possible without adding excess weight to the legs (which have to change direction rapidly).
The worst places to store fat in large quantities are at the extremities such as fingers, toes, hands, feet, forearms, calves and the head, because of the reduction to athletic performance.
Ass, thighs and chest aren't as great as the mid-section but aren't terrible. These areas are where women usually store their fat because if they stored it on their gut men can't tell if they are are pregnant or not.
Re:Not Design! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Humans (Score:3, Insightful)
And can't wield weapons, thank DEITY$!!
Re:Humans (Score:2, Insightful)
This is something that I've always found hard to understand with the argument for evolution. Surely the natural selection process would strongly bias against any traits that result in the animal being killed off in the first few minutes. (And likewise a strong bias towards traits that improve birth mortality rates). Yet we see so many instances of "poor design" in the birth process. Four in this article alone.
If natural selection does such a "poor" job of refining the birthing mechanism when there is a clear correlation between some new (good or bad) trait and the likelihood of that trait being propagated to future generations, then how can we reasonably expect that it is also responsible for highly refined systems where there is a much lower correlation between the new trait and the likelihood of producing offspring. (For example, in esoteric features of the imune system, or the brain - the new trait may only even come into play in certain situations during the animals life, and therefore only has any selective power in the specific animals for which it occurs ... unlike traits relating to birth which are immediately tested for all creatures)
If evolution is about compromise, then the most obvious compromises would favour succesful birth. If birth is unsuccesful than other traits don't even get a chance to be tested.
Not evolutionary design .... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not really evolutionary design, it's evolutionary results.
Evolution doesn't sit down at the drawing board and try to figure out how to give birth to a giraffe. This is the end result of bazillions of little experiments that ended up with the rather comic/disturbing notion of a baby giraffe falling that far.
I'm sure to an advanced species, our mating habits, genitals, mode of breathing, and whatnot look hilarious. :-P
Cheers
Re:Humans (Score:3, Insightful)
But our reptilian ancestors had only four limbs each, and having two new limbs wasn't going to happen.
Re:Not Design! (Score:2, Insightful)
....we should not confuse evolution with design....
That is right, evolution is random, but design is purposeful.
Re:Humans (Score:4, Insightful)
This is something that I've always found hard to understand with the argument for evolution. Surely the natural selection process would strongly bias against any traits that result in the animal being killed off in the first few minutes. (And likewise a strong bias towards traits that improve birth mortality rates). Yet we see so many instances of "poor design" in the birth process. Four in this article alone.
If natural selection does such a "poor" job of refining the birthing mechanism when there is a clear correlation between some new (good or bad) trait and the likelihood of that trait being propagated to future generations, then how can we reasonably expect that it is also responsible for highly refined systems where there is a much lower correlation between the new trait and the likelihood of producing offspring. (For example, in esoteric features of the imune system, or the brain - the new trait may only even come into play in certain situations during the animals life, and therefore only has any selective power in the specific animals for which it occurs ... unlike traits relating to birth which are immediately tested for all creatures)
If evolution is about compromise, then the most obvious compromises would favour succesful birth. If birth is unsuccesful than other traits don't even get a chance to be tested.
Considering the following.
Evolution is flawed, makes sense because its an ongoing process.
Creatures are flawed, through the deliberate act of the creator. That makes the creator either a dipshit, or an asshole.
Take your choice.
journey not a destination (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Humans (Score:3, Insightful)
I tend to agree. My example is the elephant. The first animals (presumably like a pig) had a short nose. Some random member of the species gets born with a slightly longer nose. Not much mind you, because they cant have very much variation in only one generation, so this nose is barely noticeable to be longer, yet it has so much reproductive advantage that generations later the short snout has evolved to a long trunk? It doesnt make sense.
Another example, this one from the stupid list in the article. Dolphins and whales breathe through a blow hole. Supposedly their ancestors where land mammals that returned to the sea after having had developed for land. At first they held their breath and breathed like every other land mammal, meaning they stayed near the surface. How does their breathing tract move from their mouth, to another orifice? That isn't something that could have been done incrementally.
Granted evolution makes a lot of sense when you look at it and say "it had X million years to change from this to that", but when you get into individual generations, there are a lot of things that COULD NOT have developed because the change from one generation to another would not have been reproductively advantageous. A pig with a nose
Re:Humans (Score:3, Insightful)
Option #3: The creator used evolution as a tool to create existence. Existence demands conflict.= Without bad, there is no good. With good comes desire to strive for good. Striving for good leads to competition.
Where the fuck did you pull this one?
Competition is created because of scarce resources, not a desire for good.
A desire for good creates a desire to share your resources with those who to not less.
Without competition, existence is stale. A perfect world, free of conflict, can not exist, as it would be stale and, therefore, not perfect. Therefore, existence must be flawed; it demands imperfection. Therefore, the toolset of existence - evolution (for living creatures) - must be flawed. If the creator used a perfect tool, existence would be null. Thus, a flawless creator must use a flawed tool.
Therefore must be evil in heaven, and conflict with evil must continue on for eternity. Because without conflict existence itself would become stale and imperfect.
This fails, please refer to a book in your bible called Genesis, where the world was created in this manner. And because the alleged creator did create perfect world, the so called "Garden of Eden", this conclusion is wrong.
Re:Spartan Giraffes (Score:3, Insightful)