I Have An Evolution Question...?

Question

I was watching this Time Travel movie and these guys went back in time to the Dinosaur Age and accedently stepped on a bug.
When they went back into the future, There were Dinosaur Apes.
Like, Monkeys mixed with Dinosaurs.

It makes no since to me, does it to you guys? And if so, explain to me how that happened.

Answer 1

Small changes can become very large changes. Imagine a chain of decisions.
IF x GREATER than y Then w Else do z
say w is HUMANS and z is Dinosaur Apes.

Now consider the part x GREATER than y
imagine x is 1.12 and y is 1.11

now by stepping on that bug you changed the state of these numbers ever so slightly and the number 1.12 becomes 1.10 now when you execute the rule you get a Dinosaur Ape instead of a Human! I am trying to simplify this for you as much as possible.

You have probably heard in the media about the theory of chaos that leads to the ultimate unpredictability of the weather. Even if you knew all of the conditions and measured weather everywhere, then a small imperceptible change would grow and grow in time to result in HUGE difference if you had assumed a different slightly different measurement initial state.

So for example, if that butterfly moves an inch or it it does not it may be the cause of rain in 10 days time and no modelling program for weather could predict that this would occur no matter how big was the computer.

This is probably the basis for the logic of the Time Travel story you saw on TV.

Chaos theory was discovered not very long ago, a few decades ago just, there is a lot or research in chaos theory.

It is not currently possible to travel back in time but if somehow some physics could advance that then it is not so far fetched that you could move to a parallel reality when moving forward in time. There is a school of thought in Physics that believes in the multiverse or parallel universes. They say that this explains many things such as quantum mechanics.

Answer 2

That was a great short story and movie... if you were watching what I think you were. The point was, if the smallest thing is changed from the past, the entire future can change. Evolution changes completely (since that butterfly that the man stepped on was probably the first of its kind). It leaves a lot of holes in the story (such as the one: man changes past, therefore man is changed completely or wiped out, therefore man never existed to change the past, which leads to the problem never happening). It makes a good story with a good moral though it isn't plausible.

Answer 3

Evolution is simply random mutations in DNA leading to certain physical traits. Most of these are harmful to the organism, but sometimes a mutation is helpful. This creature tends to be successful, and breeds more, leading to more creatures with the certain trait. The successful mutations are "selected" by environmental factors like weather and abundance of food. For example, if the climate grew hotter, organisms with more effective sweat glands would tend to live longer, so over time, you would see more of that species with the bigger, better sweat glands, and less with the inferior sweat glands.

Forward time travel is easy. You are always traveling forward in time. Backward time travel may not be possible. One theory is that you connect two points with a "wormhole", a sort of tunnel through space-time. Then, you accelerate one end of the wormhole at near the speed of light. This end experiences the passage of time much more slowly. When that end of the wormhole comes back to Earth, years may have elapsed on Earth, but only minutes for the traveling end of the wormhole. When you jump in the current end, you emerge from an end in the past. This is only a theory.

Traveling backwards in time before the time you created the device is generally not thought to be possible. If it was possible, however, all kinds of paradoxes arise. For example, if you went back in time and killed your parents before you were born, would you exist? If not, who killed your parents? It is because of paradoxes like these that many think that if backwards time travel is possible, it simply creates alternate futures. Once you go back in time, the future you came from ceases to exist. Going forward in time does not "undo" the changes you made. This is the premise your movie is based on.

Answer 4

The reasoning here is that the insect played an integral part to getting things to turn out a certain way.

The dino-ape thing may be a bit far fetched but it is true that one small change could have significant consequences. It reminds me of the question, if you were to go back in time and remove one grain of sand from the beach, would it change how the world is today?

Who knows.

Answer 5

that movie was a huge heap of sh*t. there were occuring some "reality tsunami waves" there, weren't they? the main trouble of that movie was the fact that the reality was changing in layers, first the climate,then the flowers, then animals and finally humans. the evolution does not work that way. NO WAY.

the key idea might be working, but more probably other scifi authors are right when saying it might change something big, but most probably it won't change anything. think of it as of a wall. a small hammer strike might smash the wall, but most probably it won't it would need to hit proper place at proper time.

Answer 6

Its called science fiction. Its the old science fiction idea that if you change one tiny thing in the past, like killing a bug, it has the potential to lead to vast changes in the future. But no one can travel back in time and change the future. This movie was just a work of imagination and in no way displays real evolutionary processes.

Answer 7

A Sound of Thunder, right? (Short story was much better than the movie...not enough budget to do it right). It's not so much about evolution as it is the butterfly effect on evolution. Who can say with any certainty how organisms would have evolved over time by diminishing by one the population of a particular prey species or pollinator? Interesting thought experiment, though.

Answer 8

that entire movie was sort of stupid. basically they messed up a tiny thing in the past and that caused a great change in the future. There wasn't a whole lot to the movie.
If you do like sci-fis stargate is the best! it is way more thought provoking but better written so that people can follow along easier. = )

Answer 9

It was just science fiction. It is for entertainment purposes only. Watching tropical fish swim in an aquarium will help you get over it. Or listening to your girlfriend's stomach gurgling; that's very relaxing, too.