Comment on brain blowing orgasms
JayDee@lemmy.world 1 week agoI think the point the other guy is pointing out, is that good and bad evolutionary traits are often connected - or more helpfully stated, evolutionary traits can have both benefits and drawbacks which don’t immediately seem related to the same trait.
It’s quite possible that octopi sex dementia is just a drawback to another trait which is very beneficial, so the dementia was just a bad aspect of a good trait that propagated forward. This happens all the time in different animal biologies.
KeenFlame@feddit.nu 1 week ago
No, that’s what I am saying. They are saying that it’s a random effect.
stray@pawb.social 1 week ago
Everything about biology is a random effect. Even a mutation that’s selected for wasn’t planned; it just happened by chance. Like if you’re an aquatic species maybe you’ll end up being a strong swimmer over generations, but the water doesn’t pressure you towards that on its own. You have to coincidentally develop flukes that make you a stronger swimmer before those traits can be selected for.
Sometimes traits that get passed down aren’t beneficial at all because they don’t make an impact on reproduction. Think of an animal that comes in many colors like a house cat or certain fish species. In such cases it’s clear that the color of the animal doesn’t have any bearing on its ability to reproduce, so a variety of colors are passed down for no particular reason.
KeenFlame@feddit.nu 4 days ago
No, what we call random is when it’s unpredictable. The more unpredictable, the better “quality” of the random. Any generative process, and huge amounts of systems you use every day use random but systems emerge from the chaos. And no. Traits that aren’t beneficial are extremely rare and we think it’s because we are missing why it was useful.
JayDee@lemmy.world 1 week ago
That is not how your comment reads. It reads like you think every trait exists as an advantage and propagates because it is a benefit. Plenty of traits propagate as side effects, which is how their comment read to me.
KeenFlame@feddit.nu 4 days ago
Not really, and I think it’s because any unnecessary trait is an extra cost. But you can have your belief or even think we were magiced by an all powerful entity
zeca@lemmy.eco.br 4 days ago
unnecessary traits might not always lead to extra cost, and even then, the extra cost might not always lead to extinction.
the extinction usually happens when a trait that represents a disadvantage in a sufficiently heavy competition for survival. If the competition is low enough, the trait may survive.