Evolution is Reversible

Started by stromboli, March 16, 2013, 08:53:29 PM

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Jason78



Oh he's cute!

I shall name him George.
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We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real
tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. -Plato

Cocoa Beware

Quote from: "aitm"
Quote from: "Cocoa Beware"Isnt evolution simply change over time?

One can not reverse evolution in the same way that one cannot reverse the direction of time as far as I know.

you are assuming that evolution has a path that can be determined, that would kinda be like against the whole idea of evolution, it has to be able to go in any way it needs, even in reverse, if it helps survival.

Thats kind of what I thought.

Evolution cant really go "backwards" because adaptation doesnt necessarily require that an organism become more complex. Survival is what counts.

NeoLogic26

Quote from: "bennyboy"Isn't "reverse" evolution just evolution?
Exactly. It's all just evolution. In this case, it's evolution to a form that resembles an ancestral organism as a result of evolutionary pressures that were similar to what was encountered before the ancestral line became parasitic. It only appears like "reverse" evolution.
"For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you." - Neil deGrasse Tyson

Colanth

Quote from: "Cocoa Beware"Evolution cant really go "backwards" because adaptation doesnt necessarily require that an organism become more complex.
Well, it kind of does, but in a roundabout way.  (It's called the Drunkard's Walk.)  If the odds of getting more complex and less complex are the same, there's almost no limit to how complex an organism can get, but there's a lower limit - if it gets too simple it's no longer a living organism.  So evolution tends toward the more complex.  (Not an original idea - I read it in Gould.  He may have gotten it somewhere.)
Afflicting the comfortable for 70 years.
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