An example of evolution/natural selection?

Beno_Under · Visitor Joined: 12 Apr 2008 Posts: 6 Local time: 5:48 AM

NOTE: This is been criticized as not being right and should not be taken seriously at this point.

Well here's an example of a theoretical evolution/natural selection thingy I made up (at least I think it is).

So lets say we create an airborne virus that spreads everywhere killing everyone except an isolated area where the virus can't enter for some reason, but this place in particular doesn't have any technology so we're back at the stone age(we lose most of our intelligence as well); this area doesn't get precipitation here either, but from a dammed river to the North gives us the water.
There are three major species in this area: wolves, bunnies, and us.
The wolves are freaking bloodthirsty but only desire bunny flesh.
As the wolves usually can get the bunnies way faster and easier bunnies are rarely eaten by us.

One day during mating season where the wolves are on the left side of the area and the bunnies are at the right side of the area, the dam breaks down leaving an impassible river that separates the wolves from the bunnies and leaves humans on both sides of the river, unable to meet. It also turns out that the place the water was coming from was salty and the dam is what made it fresh. When the trees(the only plants in the area) in the area suck up the water, it also consumes the salt with it, making the fruit salty and thus not the best source of hydration.

On the right side of the river, the bunny population starts to explode because their bloodthirsty predators were replaced with the less bloodthirsty humans. The bunnies also had the ability to flush out the additional salt. The humans however, didn't, and had to drink the blood of the bunnies, thus becoming pure meat eaters. As the humans had no weapons to catch the bunnies, stealth, ambush tactics, quick thinking skills, and communication skills became a virtue for survival. The humans here are at the top of the food chain.

However, on the left side of the river, where all the wolves are, had a worse effect on the human population. With all the bunnies gone, the wolves have no choice but to consume human flesh. Because of this fact, the humans have to climb the trees to avoid getting eaten. Worse, the only source of nutrients and water is from the salty fruit so the people who can flush out more salt are the only people who survive. Being flexible to climb on trees and having strong limbs for jumping from tree to tree and climbing is also a virtue for survival. The humans here are at the bottom of the food chain.

Many years later...(how long I don't know)

The humans of the right side of the river have now heightened eyesight to see the bunnies clearer. They also have gained Digitigrade feet for better stealth technique (this is an assumption from me because when you're being sneaky your usually on your toes, and if you're on your toes a lot...). Their intelligence has also increased; some places in this area have even started rabbit farms. Fire is rediscovered thus killing diseases leading to lower infant mortality rates. The future looks bright for them.

On the left side though, the humans developed increased hearing to listen for the wolves that try to snatch them from the trees. Their heels have started to become more like a big toe so they can grasp the tree better and their body has shrunk a bit to not cause the tree to strain and break. They are now able to flush out salt very efficiently. They produce a lot of off-spring because of high mortality rate by the wolves. Their intelligence and language skills have become almost non-existent except for mating because all they need to know for is to not get eaten by wolves.

There's probably some contradictions (I checked but you never know) and holes in the example but being high on jolt at 2 am can do that to you.

So what do you think? Close? Far? Trash? Gold?

baddogma · Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 7:28 am Post subject:

Sorry bud...trash.

Thats not how evolution works.

TheOne · Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 7:39 am Post subject:

Far. Nice effort though

That's just general environmental adaptation. The variables that changed in the stories are minute, and it's not something that would typically be passed on from generation to generation and eventually become a whole new species.

This should help you out getting on track Razz

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Beno_Under · Visitor Joined: 12 Apr 2008 Posts: 6 Local time: 5:48 AM

Well, thanks for giving me criticism and helping me toward the right path.

baddogma · Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 9:02 pm Post subject:

baddogma · Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 9:06 pm Post subject:

Oh, also. Humans cannot survive on rabbit meat alone. It is too lean. Mountain men died with full bellies because they only ate the meat and not the brains liver etc.
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baddogma · Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 11:04 am Post subject:

"Genes are not improved in the using, they are just passed along unchanged, except for very rare random errors. It is not success that maked good genes, it is good genes that make success. Nothing an individual does during it's life time has ay affect what so ever apon it's genes."
-Richard Dawkins River out of Eden.
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ShadowWulf · Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 1:44 pm Post subject:

Evolution on the surface always seem to the common man to be relatively simple, however it is in fact reflective of such a multitude of variables in the natural world as to perhaps be nearly unpredictable.

You example has to many fundamental flaws and takes into account neither the past of the humans involved, nor the region they live in with any but a very simplistic view.
While one could argue the water and hence fruit is salty, could not the fruit rather than the humans adapt more efficient salt filters? What of fresh-water rain and collection? You do know also that a bunch of humans, pissed and motivated enough, would make short work of the local wolves using wits and sharp sticks?
Also, why do so many people seem to put evolution in a glass jar, with no outside variables? You example lacks the basic tendancy of ANY wildlife population to eventually spread out again despite its limited area. People would, sooner or later (and defiantly MUCH sooner than the mutations you mention!) spread out again into the surrounding wilderness.

Rather than try and examine evolution under a glass jar, try and instead to look at it all the different variables in the course of evolution that can (or could not) produce a "final" (a meaningless term anyways in this case...) creature. Its both wonderfully complex and beautiful in its results, but admittedly outside of my little peanut brain to grasp all the complexities and variables that can go into it.

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What changes is the long programs that natural selection has written using those 64 basic words. The messages that have come down to us are the ones that have survived millions, in some cases hundreds of millions, of generations. For every successful message that has reached the present, countless failures have fallen away like the chippings on a sculptor's floor. That's what Darwinian natural selection means. We are the descendants of a tiny élite of successful ancestors. Our DNA has proved itself successful, because it is here. Geological time has carved and sculpted our DNA to survive down to the present."
-- Richard Dawkins, in "Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder," The Richard Dimbleby Lecture, BBC1 Television (12 November 1996)

Rortykiller · Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 5:13 am Post subject:

Sorry, I don't read posts with the word "thingy"
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Aridiris · Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 6:26 am Post subject:

Rortykiller · Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 6:28 am Post subject:

Australia is the macro-example of that.
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Castaa · Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 6:06 pm Post subject:

http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2008/06/02/a_new_step_in_evolution.php

Evidence for evolution.

One of the most important experiments in evolution is going on right now in a laboratory in Michigan State University. A dozen flasks full of E. coli are sloshing around on a gently rocking table. The bacteria in those flasks has been evolving since 1988--for over 44,000 generations. And because they've been so carefully observed all that time, they've revealed some important lessons about how evolution works.

This is quite cool.
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Mr_C · Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 4:40 pm Post subject:

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