Mangling evolution by natural selection (can't blame Creationists for this one)

[norseamd]

Also regularly see a lot of complete assumptions passed as fact. i.e. the King snake benefits from looking like the coral snake, it must have changed to look like the coral snake.

This is complete speculation and also strongly implies one existed before the other. We have no idea which of the two was extant in it's region first. Since the King snake eats other snakes including poisonous ones, it might be the coral snake that is benefiting from being confused with the King snake. That's a coin toss we have no idea which is even more likely.

I see a TON of this from within science, not limited to biology nature shows. FAR too many assumptions with little to no support or evidence passed off as fact. I get that it's leading or most credible hypothesis (based on what is known at the time) but then introduce or discuss it that way, not as accepted fact.

Again, we should be getting our own house in order on poor science presentation, especially the 'decently plausible hypothesis without hard evidence' automatically becomes hard assertion phenomenon.

There is not that much responsibility or accountability in the science community. Everyone believes their petty wants and whims are far more important.

 

[StrangerGuy]

There is not that much responsibility or accountability in the science community. Everyone believes their petty wants and whims are far more important.

Also the virtually unreadable wreck they call scientific literature.

 

[Jeff7]

Bit off topic but the mimic octopus blew me away. Hard to believe that it learned all the different animals by sheer trial and error.

Bad parlor tricks get you eaten. Some things might get woven into instinct over enough time.
Humans may pee themselves or throw up in response to certain types of stress. Maybe it served some purpose in the distant past, or maybe it's just an anomaly that hasn't been enough of a problem to go away.

We have big brains, so we could see such a solution as ingenious, because we know what it would take a life form like ourselves to come up with that solution.
They don't have nearly that much mental processing capability available, so the mechanism for acquiring such behavior would need to be much simpler.

 

[zinfamous]

It has always bugged me since a long time, but yesterday I was reminded of it in a nagging way. Watched a "science-nature" program that aired on some cable channel, with the subject being "mimicry" where some organism or another supposedly "mimics" something else to avoid being eaten, gain advantage in mating, etc.

The entire show at multiple points used explanatory language that strongly implied if not explicitly stated an intent or purpose in outcome. e.g. (paraphrased by me) "the hope of the king snake is that it will be left alone because it looks like the venomous coral snake."

The picture that emerges from the expository language used implied that some 'intelligent' or 'sentient' mechanism or force was at work with the following chronological implication:

1. some species (or sub-species) did not have the advantage of another
2. an 'intelligent' force inherent within noted a difference in coloration or morphology was linked to this advantage
3. it changed IN ORDER TO look like that other thing so it too could benefit by deception or misidentification

NO THAT'S NOT HOW EVOLUTION BY NATURAL SELECTION WORKS. These were biologists explaining or narrating, too. I've also seen this expository approach used by science educators and educational materials that were blessed by strictly secular organizations or auspices.

It's very pervasive and we can't blame the loony Creationists for this one.

Eh, no. You are having a comprehension issue. Animals naturally freeze/hide/make displays to avoid predation--whatever has worked best for them. Of course the snake "hopes" it will not be eaten. That is all the narrator has said. Whether the snake is or is not aware that it's coloring independently evolved to mimic a coral snake (hint: it very likely is not), is not related to its natural behavior to freeze. Those king snakes are more successful by virtue of the added protection of mimicry.

Now, in the case of those mimic octopi, that both alter their coloration and pattering, and their behavior to mimic other creatures, there is a lot more going on. It's pretty clear that they have learned how to change behavior and patterning to mimic other creatures that they have observed, but we also know that octopi are extremely intelligent creatures. Still the same thing--their behavior isn't any different from other octopi, they just have a different, or more advanced set of tools to play with.

Also the virtually unreadable wreck they call scientific literature.

Also the virtually unreadable wreck that is IT/Engineering/whatever highly-technical claptrap field with its own disaster of a language that your average laymen can not possibly comprehend.

At least in science literature there is a well-regarded secondary source of popular-science writing that caters towards translating that work to the general public.

 

[zinfamous]

Bit off topic but the mimic octopus blew me away. Hard to believe that it learned all the different animals by sheer trial and error.

heh! you brought up the mimic octopi and it was the first thing I thought of in response.

 

[Jeff7]

...
Now, in the case of those mimic octopi, that both alter their coloration and pattering, and their behavior to mimic other creatures, there is a lot more going on. It's pretty clear that they have learned how to change behavior and patterning to mimic other creatures that they have observed, but we also know that octopi are extremely intelligent creatures. Still the same thing--their behavior isn't any different from other octopi, they just have a different, or more advanced set of tools to play with.
...

I wonder what instinctual drives they've got though. Something along the lines of mockingbirds or parrots, perhaps: An innate urge to imitate things in certain ways. A mechanism must exist to do so with a brain that, while capable for a mollusc, is still quite small when compared with complex primates.

 

[zinfamous]

Also regularly see a lot of complete assumptions passed as fact. i.e. the King snake benefits from looking like the coral snake, it must have changed to look like the coral snake.

This is complete speculation and also strongly implies one existed before the other. We have no idea which of the two was extant in it's region first. Since the King snake eats other snakes including poisonous ones, it might be the coral snake that is benefiting from being confused with the King snake. That's a coin toss we have no idea which is even more likely.

I see a TON of this from within science, not limited to biology nature shows. FAR too many assumptions with little to no support or evidence passed off as fact. I get that it's leading or most credible hypothesis (based on what is known at the time) but then introduce or discuss it that way, not as accepted fact.

Again, we should be getting our own house in order on poor science presentation, especially the 'decently plausible hypothesis without hard evidence' automatically becomes hard assertion phenomenon.

Look at it this way:

"King" snakes currently and have always existed in a wide variety of colors and patterns.

All snakes are recognized as a predator species (but they are also prey to many other top predators; there are only a few snake species that are not considered prey--at least as adults...and I would say only a giant Anaconda would be avoided by all creatures).

So, there is a default natural avoidance provided to all snakes by some percentage of lower tier creatures. For predators, certain snakes are avoided on top of those that they would normally prey upon: coral snakes being one of those due to their high toxicity.

There are, by comparison, only a few species of coral snakes.

In NA, all types of coral snakes have a nearly identical banding pattern, whether venomous or not. So, not only does the king snake take advantage of mimicry, but so too do other coral snakes.

It can be reasonably accepted that while King snakes continue to exist and thrive with all sorts of patterns in a diverse array of environments in the world, the "king coral" specifically evolved as an identification advantage afforded to the distinct patterning of coral snakes.

Perhaps there are studies out there, and further why this has been a long-accepted story, that shows where these species overlap you will find "coral-patterned" kings more prominently than you will other Kings, as local predators are well aware of the local venomous snakes.

Just because you see something is "complete assumption passed as fact," doesn't mean that it is. Perhaps you want an entertainment show like Nature on PBS to include citations after every single comment and wait for you to address every dozen or so articles before progressing to the next segment? Probably not; and like that fellow in the thread above, it would make for reading "the horrible wreck that is scientific literature."

Or perhaps, you could appreciate these shows for their intent: Educating the general public on accepted scientific fact in a lucid way that does not bore the laymen viewer with the hard language of basic science that is the foundation of the presented topic.

But I would bet that if it is already in your nature to distrust something that conflicts with a stone-encrusted belief system, exposure to the base facts wouldn't actually change your skepticism.

 

[zinfamous]

I wonder what instinctual drives they've got though. Something along the lines of mockingbirds or parrots, perhaps: An innate urge to imitate things in certain ways. A mechanism must exist to do so with a brain that, while capable for a mollusc, is still quite small when compared with complex primates.

I'll try to find the reference if I remember to do this later, but there is a group at I think, the national Aquarium in Spain, which happens to be built next to the world's only known population of non-prey octopi.

I forget the specific species, but the advantage here is that you can observe the "full potential" of a species that has only ever been known to spend most of its time avoiding being eaten. ...and it's a bit scary (kinda like when we humans crawled out of the trees and learned to fight back).

The octopus has always been smart, but with very short lifespans (I think the female great octopus dies after nurturing her first brood of eggs; so there is never potential to pass on knowledge). What this mediterranean population has shown, however, is that octopus not only pass on knowledge to others, but will patiently observe and reapply new behaviors. That puts them up there with dolphins and chimps, crows and dogs. In one experiment, the researchers captured a wild individual and as has become common, presented it with several puzzles: opening a jar with food, opening a more complex puzzle box to get food, running a trap-laden obstacle course, etc.

The kicker here is that after this octopus was fully trained, they later captured another wild octopus, presenting it each test only 1 or 2 times. After it's failure to figure it out (which I think takes several attempts, usually), they placed the noob into an adjacent aquarium with the vet octopus, so that it could observe the pro octopus in action with full Raid gear. That little fucker clung to the side of its box and watched every trick, then aced it on the first try after observing what the other octopus did.

 

[CZroe]

Now, in the case of those mimic octopi, that both alter their coloration and pattering, and their behavior to mimic other creatures, there is a lot more going on. It's pretty clear that they have learned how to change behavior and patterning to mimic other creatures that they have observed, but we also know that octopi are extremely intelligent creatures. Still the same thing--their behavior isn't any different from other octopi, they just have a different, or more advanced set of tools to play with.

I think their behavior is different from other octopi and that this is what drove their development as mimics.

Think back to how they developed those tools. They started using the tools they and other octopi and cuttlefish had to mimic what they could out of necessity and only those most successful at mimicking survived. It further developed the brain and instinctual behaviors for their mimicry before more evolutionary tools were developed to improve their mimicry further.

It seems obvious that something else competing with or predating on them was learning right along with them to drive development of more and more mimicry-aiding features.