Probably wouldn't do that if they knew what they were talking about. Evolution isn't over. It isn't something reversible. It doesn't mean the end product is, in all ways, better from the one it evolved from, and it certainly isn't "proceed among this path to become teh l33test creature evah!!!!!111". And we do see creatures "half new form, half old form" all the time, we just don't realize it because we think that new/old form IS the end one. We can't help thinking that, it's what we see. We don't think of a dog as being "half wolf, half dog-descendant", we think "dog".
This could possibly be changed if people kept in mind the actual definition of evolution. It's simple. It's just "gradual changes through time". Not changes of an individual, because that's NOT THE SAME, but changes of a species through reproduction and death. All species have children to keep from dying out. If you don't have kids, you count as dead, simply because you didn't send your genes on. The ones most capable of getting food or getting laid have the most kids, so there are that many more chances for the "good hunter" and the "be sexy" genes to be passed on. The ones least capable of this die young, or don't have many children. The genes don't get passed on. And in that one generation, there's a change. We just don't see it because it is so tiny. We won't see it until the desencents of the sexy hunter outreproduce the descendants of the dead one, for several generations.
*hopes this makes sense*
This could possibly be changed if people kept in mind the actual definition of evolution. It's simple. It's just "gradual changes through time". Not changes of an individual, because that's NOT THE SAME, but changes of a species through reproduction and death. All species have children to keep from dying out. If you don't have kids, you count as dead, simply because you didn't send your genes on. The ones most capable of getting food or getting laid have the most kids, so there are that many more chances for the "good hunter" and the "be sexy" genes to be passed on. The ones least capable of this die young, or don't have many children. The genes don't get passed on. And in that one generation, there's a change. We just don't see it because it is so tiny. We won't see it until the desencents of the sexy hunter outreproduce the descendants of the dead one, for several generations.
*hopes this makes sense*
no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 11:15 am (UTC)