Explain this to me regarding evolution?

Question

Animal X lives in a forest with very tall trees. While he can survive the best fruit grows at the top of the tree. Over time his descendants have long necks well evolve long necks. I can accept its not chance the long necked ones survive and take over short necked. But the fact the neck grew in the first place has to be chance unless the animal genome is intelligent and can past down the next one has to have a longer neck.

Mutated genes fair enough but is the mutation not down to chance. If there was a long necked mutation surely there could have been other mutations what a stroke of luck to evole the correct mutation where in fossil record are mutations that went wrong

in my example we start off with only short necked animals long necked ones come along later. Lets say it takes millions of years for the long necked version to be perfected if the mutation is chance would there not be evidence of the mutations that went wrong

Answer 1

Any environment can favor more than one phenotype (expressed trait). Therefore, if one organism has more than one phenotype (you gave the example that short necked organisms fair well in the environment as do long necked), the selection pressure of the environment will allow both to survive.

This is called divergent evolution and is the reason both apes and humans exist on earth.

Any environment can favor more than one phenotype (expressed trait). Therefore, if one organism has more than one phenotype (you gave the example that short necked organisms fair well in the environment as do long necked), the selection pressure of the environment will allow both to survive.

This is called divergent evolution and is the reason both apes and humans exist on earth.

With regard to Fontofall's question, what Fonto fails to understand is time and the rate of positive mutation as OBSERVED by scientists.

Life has existed on Earth for 3,550,000,000 years. That amount of time is inconceivable to those of us who exist for less than 100 years.

Scientists have observed, via direct observation and fossil evidence (fossils exist for more than just dinosaurs, fossils exist for bacteria, too) the rate of positive mutations. Positive mutations also become part of the pattern of variation to which Darwin and Hugo DeVries (DeVries, in 1901, recognized mutation as the true cause of variation) so accurately described.

The rate of positive mutation over 3.55 BILLION years is great enough to have provided far more life forms than currently exist on earth.

In addition, the greatest evidence that all life on Earth came from a single bacterium (or, as Fonto, in a typical effort to diffuse the science of the issue, so negatively and with denigrating implication describes as a BLOB) is that of DNA.

You see, every single organism on Earth has some DNA in common which means, since we get our DNA from our ancestors, that all life on Earth has a common ancestory. The DNA common to all life is for a process called cellular respiration.

Let's also consider that without evolution, there is no ecology and without there being an ecology, there is no life. So, evolution is the glue that holds all of biology together.

Finally, the process for all life having a common ancestory goes back to my original answer regarding divergent evolution.

Answer 2

Natural selection works by developing differences in a population by chance, then selecting those that survive best and using them to generate the variety for the next generation.

In this example, the descendants of animal X acquire their long necks through this process. Over time, random mutations occur in the population that causes some animals to have longer necks, others to have shorter necks, and others to have medium necks. The animals that have the longer necks have a higher chance of acquiring the fruit necessary to survive, and therefore more of them will survive than animals with shorter necks. Then, in the next generation, only the animals that survived (i.e., the longer necks) can have offspring, and their characteristics will be based off the current generation due to heredity. Again, the process is not perfect, and more random mutations occur in a few individuals that may change their neck length. The process repeats. As you can see, no intelligence is involved. (Eventually, the growth of the necks will have to stop, because it takes energy to grow such large body parts, and if growing the neck eventually takes more energy than the individual gains from eating fruit, then they will starve from burning up too much energy, and natural selection will have to switch to some other trait in order to determine which individuls survive in the next set of generations.)

However, the way new species develop may depend on more than one kind of mutation. Take your example, and suppose the animals with the shorter necks developed an ability to climb trees. Then they have a better chance of surviving, because they are now able to reach the fruit without having to grow long necks. There are many ways to solve the same problem, and only the randomness of mutation and the decisiveness of natural selection direct which way the species goes.

In short, mutations provide the species "choices" on how to approach a problem, and natural selection picks which individuals have the highest chances of survival based on these "choices".

Answer 3

Judging from a couple of answers, some humans have evolved a neck so long and flexible that they can actually stick their head up their own rear end!

As the old saying goes, "There are no stupid questions."
Bob K's snotty comment to the Asker reminded me of my own attitude when I was in 7th Grade. When the new and understandably nervous science teacher introduced himself and asked if there were any questions, I piped up with, "What is the distance in angstroms between the D1 and D2 Frauenhofer lines of the Sodium absorption spectrum?" I also carried a around a book of "Von Neumann's Theory of Games" so that people would be impressed, even though I couldn't understand more than the first chapter, and winked at the girls I liked in the hallway as if I knew something about that subject, too. . These memories are still painful 40 years later.

So, I guess there are stupid questions. And answers. They share the quality of being both blind and smug. Time to wake up. Look at the other answers here: there's something about evolution -- animal and human. Whatever theory one believes in from Creationism to Darwinism to Alien Intervention; it's sure that NO evolution takes place in an environment of complete isolation.

Answer 4

For animal X to 'evolve' a long neck, it has to gain the genetic information for growing a long neck.

Information is the key problem for evolution - whee does new genetic information come from? The alleged mechanism is mutations, but all observed mutations are info neutral or lossy. Mutations are typically removed by natural selection, and where not removed lead to devolution.

You are perhaps mistaking evolution (really a philosophical idea, which is controversial and is certainly not proved), for Natural Selection (which can be observed and is not controversial).
Unfortuantely many people confuse the ideas, and quote examples of NS as proof of evolution. They are not the same.

NS is what happens when we breed (say) dogs to get a variety with long legs that can run fast - like a greyhound.
Note there is no new genetic information in the greyhound. Certain characteristics have been selected (actually by man not naturally, in this case), but the greyhound has less genetic information than its dog ancestor.

With all selective breeding we see that there are in built limits: you can increase the sugar content of sugar beet so far and no more; you can increase the speed of a dog so far and no more.

So for any animal there is an inbuilt potential variability for (say) length of neck. Natural (or artificial) selection may result in a longer neck but there will be a limit.

The giraffe has a very long neck because it was designed that way. An antelope living in the same place will never develop such a long neck.
(Note that together with a long neck, the giraffe has many other special design features to go with it, to enable its heart to pump blood to the head for example. It's not as simple as just having a long neck!
See here for an interesting article about the giraffe's neck and its allaged evolution.
http://www.creationontheweb.com/images/pdfs/tj/j16_1/j16_1_120-127.pdf)

Check here for lots of clear articles on NShttp://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3035/

Answer 5

In any population of individuals there is variation in size, shape, color, etc. (Just look at humans, there are black, white, tan, reddish, etc. skin colors and tons of variation in size and shape.) Anyway, if the habitat favors the ones that have naturally longer necks, and they can reach the best food, live longer and healthier, and have more babies, the chances that their young will also have longer necks is very good. Young usually resemble their parents. Over time, as these longer necked babies have young, and the habitat is favorable to those with the longest necks, THEIR young will have even longer necks. It takes a long time but eventually, if the habitat stays the same, the animals will have longer and longer necks.

Answer 6

I don't know anything about genetics, though I should think short necks would starve and long neck not. So whatever fluke has the long neck by the basic rational, should not by fluke be the only ones left around, so eventually mating season would only find long necks, and so the cycle would in simple process of elimination delete shorty.

Answer 7

In this specific environment the animal with the longer neck is more likely to be healthy and therefore more likely to breed more successfully. Its offspring will be better fed and healthier and more likely to survive. Its offspring are more likely to have a longer neck because it is in its genes. That is why it is called the survival of the fittest.
.

Answer 8

i'd tell him the certainty. In our physique we've DNA. while little ones are born they get some DNA from mom and dad. This DNA combines and might even exchange slightly. those ameliorations are generally small, yet after a protracted quantity of time and numerous different generations they'd bring about a clean species. interior the path of the loads of thousands of years in the international existence stepped forward from rather common organisms to the complicated existence types you spot immediately. i'm specific a 4 3 hundred and sixty 5 days previous ought to understand that. in the event that they're clever sufficient to ask how they have been given there they're clever sufficient to appreciate that.

Answer 9

The long-necked ones that exist randomly have a better chance of getting the best food and reproducing, skewing future populations towards long necks

Answer 10

You are right that longer necks must have arisen by chance in the first place.

Natural selection can only act on heritable variations that are present in a population. Variations in a population arise randomly by chance mutations.