Comment on Has the time since the invention of agriculture been long enough for any evolutionary changes to occur, and if so, what are some of those changes?

• squaresinger@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I don’t think so, at least in the context of natural selection.

  GMOs for example are certainly not part of natural selection.

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  • superkret@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    That’s exactly what I mean. Bears are part of nature, everything they do is natural.
    If you count humans as part of nature, everything they do is natural, including GMO.
    Which means, if you count humans as part of nature, the term nature has no meaning.
    It’s only meaningful as the opposite of “man-made”.

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    • squaresinger@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      That’s true if you talk about nature as such. I was just talking about the selection part.

      The thing is that there are quite a few species that “domesticate” other species. And while doing so, they conciously select for the specimen that best fits their needs.

      Bears domesticated apples, selecting for the biggest aand sweetest, thus apples evolved from small and bitter to a bit larger and sweeter.

      Ants farm aphids and also there they select for those that yield the most milk.

      The big difference between humans and animals is that we form much more of these symbiotic relationships.

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