Mine was just a lucky guess.
farmerman wrote:ros. Weve had 5 major calamities and maybe 10 or more (according to Wylie Poag ofthe USGS) minor ones where weve lost anywhere from 10 up to 90 % of the species that were around at the time. Imagine if those cataclysms didnt occur or , at least were not cataclysms but mere environmental disasters. Subsequent species , who were not rising or dominant species may not have had their "chance at bat"
I agree Farmerman. I was rushed in my posting and I didn't make my point very clearly.
My main point was that while there is almost no chance of things being the same as they are now, we would probably still see some similarities arising over and over again. We see certain structures arising many times in the biosphere even now.
The real determining factor is in how far back you start the process. If we only re-run it from the last 100 million years, then we would recognize more then if we re-ran it all from 2 billion years ago.
Hopefully that says it better.
cicerone imposter wrote:daniellejean, You seem to have a good grasp of evolution. What came first, the chicken or the egg?
The chicken, but he's having relaxtion therapy and a nasal spray to help with that.
Welcome back, CI. Ever body's been just a clamorin' for yer return.
So, getting back to the evolutionary goal (or non goal), Is there anything we can say about the future from the evolutionary course in the past?
ci yo, I thought they booted yer ass offa here again, where ya been ? , wait dont tell me, someplace south. I see warmwater and ships..
NEO-probably not. We can say alot about genetic traits and populational differences in specific refions of genomes. We know the approximate rates at which populational wide mutations get incorporated into the genome.
However , the really big changes in morphology seem to parallel these large cataclysmic events which (although we use a Uniformitarian model of the routine body changes) we make allowances for big bolide hits or ice ages or megavolcanoes that result in massive adaptation and big changes. The return period of these events are only very roughly calculated and, as we all know from investing, past pe rformance is no guarantee of future activity. So, we just have to wait and see. I would say, place all your money on cockroaches becoming the dominant species and they will evolve (within set limits cause they use spiracles instead of lungs)
Id seen an art show of what dinosaurs might have looked like had they lived. The artists were told to assume that dinosaurs became the dominant species on the planet , so the artists had velociraptors with some really cool outfits, pomade on their feathers and shades. Their manual dexterity was limited by the number of digits but they did develop an opposable "Thumb".
Very entertaining. Some paleontologists took it seriously and actually criticized this or that.
Thanks farmer. HMMM. I had a landlady who was a velociraptor; so you must be right about that.
The reason I've been asking these questions about goal driven processes and future speculations is that it seems that there are some who believe evolution to have a mind of its own.
I'm sorry i got sucked in by you, then, Neo. I have no notion that, and sincerely doubt that there is any such intrinsic "plan" to evolution . . . it's like yeast, and largely takes the path of least resistance and most opportunity . .
FM's point about la cucaracha is well-taken, both that their adaptability is proven (350 million years or so) and that their ultimate size is limited because of breathing by diffusion. His comparison to investment is well-taken, also.
No vacuum intended, Set. Just trying to wrap my meager brain around 537 pages of word landfill.
Just returned from a 10-day cruise to the Med. I've started a Travel Forum thread on my trip if any of you are interested. Thanks for the return welcome.
Ooooow!Goody goody.Will you be screening any home made videos of you on the quayside or in front of a fountain etc etc etbloodycetera.
If you go to Knossos on Crete to the old Minoan palace where the minotaur was, You will see some shield diagrams painted on the remaining walls near the thrown room. There the shieldpaintings are really diagramsof the cell under going mitosis. The shield is really an dividing cell or egg. Now the questions remains how did they come up with this over 4000 years ago?
Now this is the same palace that Icarus made his famous wings to escape with. With the home of Zeus a days journey north into the mountains and he could throw fire bolts sounds to me like someone was here before us >???
Aglis, Is this the shield you mentioned? We visited Knossos in August of 1996.
Most of the murals on the walls at Knossos were of people. I don't remember any kind of "shield" in their paintings.
cicerone, I have no idea which came first. But, if I were to venture a guess, I would say the egg, because birds are evolved from dinosaurs. Dinosaurs had water-tight eggs, like modern birds do, and which are similar in many other ways. The offspring that would originally evolve into birds (especially given the unexpected opportunity of the dinosaur extinction) came from eggs. Chickens are birds, and therefore came after the egg.
daniellejean, I've never been sure, but your rationlization sounds about as good as it can get.
Even penguins in the Antarctic produce eggs to continue their species. Looking at the over-all scheme of animal life that produces eggs, other biological similarities also argues for that point.
So, like, what came first then, the egg, or the first oviperous animal . . .
Hi Set, We still haven't really determined what came first, but it would seem that trying to rationalize "what came first" still begs the question. We can only make assumptions from what little knowledge we have.
