Comment on Fingies

• applebusch@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  because it was never vital to survival to have fewer bones. evolution is a term that does a ton of conceptual heavy lifting but has sadly been warped by ignorance and a lack of understanding of the nuance of what is really happening.

  somehow, life existed. we dont really know how it got started but it did. due to the laws of physics and thermodynamics, some life died and some life lived. that went on for a long ass time until today we see the stuff that has survived to now. evolution just says life changes over time because some life dies without reproducing and some life reproduces before dieing. thats it. its a statement about the effect of survivorship bias over the long term existence of life.

  so why didnt animals evolve to have fewer bones? because it never mattered enough to happen. things kept on surviving with the number of bones they have. we can look at them and say their body would function better with more or fewer bones, or different chemistry, or different soft tissue, or whatever you like. but none of those things mattered enough to happen, or if they did happen they werent better enough to change anything at the time. but also animals do have different numbers of bones, just not so different.

  i wish i could describe this better, but evolution isnt an active process. if you have to think of it as a thing, keep in mind that it produces only what barely works. every adaptation we have was developed by the deaths of countless individuals, so we only have it because at some point it was necessary, or so benefitial it couldn’t help but propagate. having way less bones was never either of those things.

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  • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Tl:dr = Because they haven’t. Yet. Maybe. As far as we know.

    I think you’ve described it quite well. That’s just evolutionary biology. Any adaptation requires some kind of pressure behind it.

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    • WildPalmTree@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Not pressure, just absence of negative effects. Pressure might help but is not required. And I use “absence” quite loosey-goosey.

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      • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Yes, and ‘pressure’ is used similarly. Think atmospheric pressure. It can lower and heighten, so a lack of pressure is low pressure, not the absence of it.

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  • hirihit640@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Though it’s crazy that there can be such dramatic variation in bone structure and shape (eg humans vs horses vs bats), yet such homogeneity in the number of bones and their connections (arms connect to shoulders, which connect to spine, etc).

    Perhaps the genetic code for the number of bones and their connections, is more resiliant to mutation?

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• MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  If you’ve evolved joints, one more or less is basically free *. Might fail sooner in old age, but everything after procreation is an afterthought.

  * my aunt has a long neck, 3 vertebras more.

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  • mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    * my aunt has a long neck, 3 vertebras more.

    Apparently it’s really rare for mammals to evolve that without getting somthing else that’s really nasty like cancer. There was a recent video about it on SciShow or HanksChannel

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    • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Wha, really? She’s fine.

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      • mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I’m not trying to invalidate your experience. Just pointing out it’s apparently really rare. It’s theorized to be one of the pressures that results in all mammals having only 7 neck vertebrae, including guraffes

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• kazerniel@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Evolution is not an intentional process. It’s just statistics compounding over time. Simplified example: By random chance this bird grew a 5% longer beak than its peers, which means it can catch 5% more food and raise 5% more chicks than the others. If its descendants have similar success, over time it means that their long-beak trait will become more prevalent in the population, and projected over thousands of years, the whole species will end up having this long-beak trait, simply because those who had it, had more kids grow to reproductive age than those who didn’t.

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  • Evil_Incarnate@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Meanwhile somewhere in the same time, worms that the bird feeds on start to die more because of that beak, except for those that were genetically wired to burrow a bit deeper.

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• prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Because evolution doesn’t “learn” anything.

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• MohamedMoney@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Whales have a tiny remnant of a pelvis left

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• MohamedMoney@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Whales have a tiny remnant of a pelvis left

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