Quote:
Originally posted by Sebatianos@Mar 27 2005, 05:11 AM
It seems to me, you consider evolution to be something you could see in a cheap sci-fi movie.
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Yes I do believe that.
Based on your story, you just further emphasized that belief.
"The fifth leg of a cow would not be new information - you're right!"
You were correct up to this point. The fifth leg of a cow is not new information.
"But mutation is not just the visable change of form."
Your story below was all about visable change of form.
"The fifth leg would mean that somwhere in the dna "blueprint" there was a mistake - so an extra limb grew. "
I agree with you there.
Then you went on this tangent, that looks like it just came straight out of a sci-fi script. I underlined the problems in your dialogue.. Please see my "Main Point", I posted before.
"This mistake
could be different as well. This cow
could grow fangs. This
would still make it a cow, but it
would probably die - its teeth
would not be apropriate for chewing grass. But
if this cow
would start eating meat (let's say
would start attacking sheep) the fangs
would come in handy. So the next step
would be a fanged cow with the ability to (let's say) jump - to catch the pray easier. This
would change the outlook of the cow. The hind legs
would have to be stronger (if none of the cows
would mutate that way this breed
would die off). Next the cow
would have to become less wounrable (the udder is to exposed). By this point
you'd you would? get a cow able to sit down (because of the change with its hind legs; it
would have fangs;
would eat meat - this
would change it's intestance - no more 9 stomachs; this cow
would have small udders and
would give far less milk - also the calf
could hurt the mother cow
if it had fangs; the tail
would be in a way - so it
would have to disapeare;
probably the shape of the head
would change,...). So in the final stage that
would not be a cow anymore. It
would stop being a cow when it
could not produce off spring with a normal cow - they
would be incompatible. If all the evolutionary brakes
would be in hte favour of the mutated cow - this
could happen within dozzens of generation (and that's extremely fast).
But there are better chances that the first cow
would not survive.
So just mutating isn't enough. It's when a series of small mutations (adoptations) take place and they all benifit a specie that real evolution takes place.
This is fairly common with single cell organisms - every change that happens happens within that cell and the mutation is caried to all the offspring (unless the first cell dies before spliting in two). But with more complex organism this
form of mutation takes that much longer, most of mutations don't contribute to development of the race..."