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Question about Biological Evolution

Gizmo j

Gizmo j

Platinum Member
How is it that some creatures evolved from fish to land creatures such as Lions but we still have simple fish such as guppies?

Why didn't these fish evolve to be something more complicated after millions of years?
 
Gizmo j said:
How is it that some creatures evolved from fish to land creatures such as Lions but we still have simple fish such as guppies?

Why didn't these fish evolve to be something more complicated after millions of years?
Click to expand...
If you're serious, what have you the idea that all species evolve at the same rate?
 
Gizmo j said:
How is it that some creatures evolved from fish to land creatures such as Lions but we still have simple fish such as guppies?

Why didn't these fish evolve to be something more complicated after millions of years?
Click to expand...
Real animals aren't like pokemon, they evolve to fit whatever is most capable within their evolutionary tract. Sometimes new stuff appears that is hugely advantageous, like eyeballs or arms or fingers.

Guppies (Poecilia reticulata) are already pretty complicated.

1580962539539.png
That chart goes back to the family level, you've still got order (type of fish), class (fish), phylum (types of animals), and kingdom (animals).
 
Gizmo j said:
How is it that some creatures evolved from fish to land creatures such as Lions but we still have simple fish such as guppies?

Why didn't these fish evolve to be something more complicated after millions of years?
Click to expand...

Life does not follow an imperative to get more complicated. The organisms best suited to survive and multiply are the simplest. Bacteria and viruses predate us by hundreds of millions of years and will be here long after we're gone. The evolution of a new species does not extinct everything that came before it, if that was so there wouldn't be anything but complex life. The fish are well suited to their environment and their evolution is primarily adapted to that environment. So what if one outlier grew legs and walked out of the seas? That was not a condition of survival.
 
yep all the order around us evolved from a gaseous belch 6 million years ago....
Order never comes from chaos.....
 
Evolution does not violate the laws of Thermodynamics because there is energy being added to the system (mostly solar energy).

When there is energy being added, things can become more ordered. Consider one of the most common events in the universe: solar fusion. Larger more complex atoms are being built from smaller less complex ones inside stars all the time.
 
Tormac said:
Evolution does not violate the laws of Thermodynamics because there is energy being added to the system (mostly solar energy).
Click to expand...
Er, what? Evolution isn't an object, so it's not bounds to any notion of thermodynamics. Not sure what you were getting at here, nor how it relates to the OP.

Tormac said:
When there is energy being added, things can become more ordered.
Click to expand...
Not always true, setting off a grenade in a room adds quite a bit of thermal and kinetic energy, and generally results in a lot of disorganization.
 
snoopy7548 said:
Who's to say fish didn't evolve into mammals and then back into fish at some point? How else do you explain lionfish? View attachment 16772
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Member of family Scorpaenidae, which includes a pretty large number of poisonous fish. Above there is the Scorpaeniformes order, which are all carnivorous, but not all poisonous. They share common ancestry that doesn't include stuff that went from land back to water, though 🙂
 
IronWing said:
Only if one chooses to make up their own private meaning of the word chaos.
Click to expand...
define order as is applies to ,evolution?
That is not to say that evolution is random – far from it. But the neat concept of adaptation to the environment driven by natural selection, as envisaged by Darwin in On the Origin of Species and now a central feature of the theory of evolution, is too simplistic. Instead, evolution is chaotic.
I don`t think you can use the word "order" when talking about evolution...
 
[DHT]Osiris said:
Er, what? Evolution isn't an object, so it's not bounds to any notion of thermodynamics. Not sure what you were getting at here, nor how it relates to the OP.


Not always true, setting off a grenade in a room adds quite a bit of thermal and kinetic energy, and generally results in a lot of disorganization.
Click to expand...

Hello Osiris,

I am not sure what you mean when you say that “Evolution is not an object, so it’s not bounds to any notion of Thermodynamics”

I never claimed that Evolution was an object. I meant that as a response to JEDIYoda’s statement “yep all the order around us evolved from a gaseous belch 6 million years ago....
Order never comes from chaos.”

but I am having a fight with the quotes.

Anyways, the laws of thermodynamics is applied to systems, usually not just stationary objects. I am looking at Evolution as a system. It generally is regarded as such. The notion that evolution violates the laws of thermodynamics is frequently leveled against it (as JEDIYoda did). I was addressing that criticism.

As far as your statement about energy added to a system increasing order “Not always true, setting off a grenade in a room adds quite a bit of thermal and kinetic energy, and generally results in a lot of disorganization.”

I agree that just adding energy to every system can result in more entropy. There needs to be some agent that selects for order. In terms of Evolution this is natural selection. Once one steps outside of mathematical laws there is almost no universals, which is why I included the word “can”. I did not say that adding energy always results in an increase in order.
 
JEDIYoda said:
define order as is applies to ,evolution?
That is not to say that evolution is random – far from it. But the neat concept of adaptation to the environment driven by natural selection, as envisaged by Darwin in On the Origin of Species and now a central feature of the theory of evolution, is too simplistic. Instead, evolution is chaotic.
I don`t think you can use the word "order" when talking about evolution...
Click to expand...
All the rules of chemistry and physics apply to evolution so it is fairly tightly constrained that way. If you choose to use the words order and chaotic, you're going to have to define them so we know what it is you are trying to say.
 
IronWing said:
All the rules of chemistry and physics apply to evolution so it is fairly tightly constrained that way. If you choose to use the words order and chaotic, you're going to have to define them so we know what it is you are trying to say.
Click to expand...
nice deflection......we will never agree so there is no sense!
So let us agree to disagree! That way we are in bipartisan agreement..lol
 
JEDIYoda said:
nice deflection......we will never agree so there is no sense!
So let us agree to disagree! That way we are in bipartisan agreement..lol
Click to expand...

He's not deflecting--he's asking to establish terms that both parties understand the positions from which they are arguing. In the sciences, it is common to work from the same supported and agreed-upon terms and established rules.

You can't just bring in a different meaning of something like "chaos" that does not fit in established scientific understandings. Further, this is why arguments from science (testable, falsifiable observational argument) don't really hold with that from belief (circular system of logic that insists in its own internal truth, which is impervious to rigorous testing and by design: defies observational evidence).

There is a common definition for such terms, and it serves no purpose to argue that one can choose new definitions simply by virtue of fitting that new definition into a believed truth (which is the same as a refusal to challenge that believed truth)

It is best to keep a system of belief arguing within its own system of belief (inability to falsify) outside of the realm of scientific logic (requirement of falsify-ability)

....speaking simply: When arguing Natural Law, like Evolution, it is inherent that understanding how the system works changes and adapts to greater understanding. It effectively strengthens the system.

with faith, the aim is to often stop asking questions when they challenge the core belief, and to seek only the arguments and explanations that support the chosen belief.
 
[DHT]Osiris said:
Real animals aren't like pokemon, they evolve to fit whatever is most capable within their evolutionary tract. Sometimes new stuff appears that is hugely advantageous, like eyeballs or arms or fingers.

Guppies (Poecilia reticulata) are already pretty complicated.

View attachment 16745
That chart goes back to the family level, you've still got order (type of fish), class (fish), phylum (types of animals), and kingdom (animals).
Click to expand...

Are you sure they aren’t like Pokémon?
 
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