Comment on AND THEY DIDN'T STOP EATING

• Crankenstein@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Not less evolved. Just evolved differently for alternative environmental circumstances.

  There is no hierarchy of evolutionary traits. Just an amalgamation of traits that are or are not useful in the current environment. What genetic makeup is effective in one place and time is useless in another.

  We have no clue how threatening they could potentially be.

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  • intensely_human@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Less evolved as in the product of less evolution. There is such a thing as more and less because more happens over time.

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    • GiveMemes@jlai.lu ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Ok, but evolution doesn’t follow a straight path. The ancestors of whales looked like wolves, while whales look, act, and function much more like fish, which those wolves evolved from way earlier up the line. This is a common misconception about evolution, so don’t feel bad for getting caught in it.

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      • intensely_human@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Nothing about the phrase “more evolved” implies a “straight path” of evolution

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    • Crankenstein@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      To have “more or less” of something implies the effectiveness of the product is directly caused by the metric being measured.

      The amount of time a genotype took to evolve has no bearing on the effectiveness.

      There is no such thing as “more/less evolved”. There is no gradient. Something either is evolved to adapt to its environment or it isn’t.

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      • Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I’m not disagreeing with you here, but wouldn’t it be fair to say there is a gradient, but it is dynamic and defined by the current environment and what it takes to survive it?

        Maybe the goal posta keep moving but we are talking about a very large time scale, so long that, for at least a couple of million years, what could be defined as more or less evolved might seem or be descibed as pretty solid.

        Although i suppose its not fair to say more or less evolved and might be more accurate to say more or less well adapted.

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  • UnrepententProcrastinator@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yes and no.

    Ok my last input was a bit lazy hence all the armchair biologists tuning in.

    Less and more evolved is definitely a thing when alluding to the complexity of the system and since evolution is incremental time helps.

    However you are right that adaptability to the environment is the most important thing when defining the success of your “genetic constitution”.

    I guess my point is that we are more likely to have, in our DNA, evolved adaptation to them than they are to have adaptation to circumvent our immunity.

    That being said, yes there are inherent risks to getting those out there, I’m just saying our propensity for enjoying fictional doom scenarios might make us overstate the probability of those occurences.

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• TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Is the saber toothed tiger is less threatening than the common house cat ?

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  • uis@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yes, saber toothed tiger can’t manipulate humans.

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    • BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      It’d have a fair go at manipulating your arm off your torso given the chance.

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  • filcuk@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    If it can’t survive in today’s environment then yes.

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• StupidBrotherInLaw@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  That’s not how evolution works.

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• Zerush@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  They are investigating it, some million years in the oldest beeings in Earth don’t make evolutive difference to the current ones. The only question is, if they can infect humans or animals or not. The climate change make that all tipe of indesirable things are defrosted, adding more dangerous diseases to the existing ones.

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• lightnsfw@reddthat.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Viruses and bacteria don’t evolve to kill you. They propogate in your system to spread themselves. It’s actually in their best interest to keep you alive, so the more evolved ones would be less deadly because they’ve had more time to dial it in. Not that evolution is something they choose, it’s from mutations that work more or less better.

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