Thank you.
Would these examples be similar to the regional variation in moth colouration? I’ve noticed that some moths in Eastern Canada have a different appearance than the ones further west. Same species, though.
I see comments that the tongue is a chameleon tongue. Is it? I don’t know much about toad tongues vs. chameleon tongues so just curious how to tell. This photographer seems to have quite a few pictures of frogs/toads sitting on mushrooms and/or catching insects on stock photography sites. To me a lot of them look possibly staged in a terrarium and maybe with the background swapped out. I found another picture of the same toad on the same 'shroom from a different angle, so at least that part of the photograph is probably real. They also clearly have used this fella for some photo manipulations. So yeah, whoever picked that image for the article probably just grabbed something eye-catching from a stock photography site.
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Those creationists quote that very writing of Darwin’s, out of context, in such a way as to make it look like he had doubts. But as exegetes will tell you, “a text without a context is only a pretext.”
Growing up homeshooled, I was exposed to a series of cassette tapes which tried to refute evolution using the well-known logical fallacy, “argument from incredulity.” Essentially, “I can’t imagine how this could have evolved; therefore, it didn’t.”
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I have a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology, have read extensively and published on the subject, and I must say I cannot find any new, notable, or controversial claim made in the linked article. Evolution is far more complicated than Darwin knew, far more complicated than the new synthesis guys knew, far more complicated than we currently know, and everyone going back to Darwin has known this. The idea that evolution and natural selection are equivalent has never been claimed by any scientist who anyone else took seriously, but ‘discovering’ that evolution is far more than selection is a time-honored publicity stunt.
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I think the other part that is important is the battle of prey/predator. Evolution also involves a constant dance of adaptation to either better avoid predation or better enable it, in a complex web of interactions among trophic levels.
But is Betteridge’s law just Davis’s law? :D
The other part to what? It’s just basic natural selection. If a cheetah is too slow to catch some prey, it will just be wiped from the population. Same for a gazelle that is too slow to avoid predation.
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an erudite discussion of … clickbait. Sells newpapers, and now traffic to websites.
@annkatrinrose my favourite - find a photo for this - was in Zurich, for a cruise around the capital M Mediterranean. Nice scenery? Tick. But, it was my Cape Town with our little m mediterranean climate.
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Haha, yes, geography is another challenging concept. Every fall color season I see social media posts and memes purporting to show peak leaf color just around the corner here in the Southern Appalachians that were taken along some of the more famous scenic mountain roads in Japan. Species misidentifications in particular run rampant on stock photography sites, and it doesn’t exactly lend credibility to an article if the picture is wrong. I’ve seen countless online articles on monarch butterfly migration illustrated with pictures of viceroy butterflies or queen caterpillars, for example.
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An addendum to the original article: Scientists are still fleshing out Darwin’s theory of evolution | Letters | The Guardian
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I’ve read ‘On the origin of species’ . I’ve not looked into ‘The Modern Synthesis’. I’ve read a couple of books by various authors.
It is known that people have been debating for more than 160 years on the theory and its implications. The theory of evolution is likely subjected to the rules of evolution too. At the time it is described in 1859, DNA is an unknown. There was much religious influence in many people’s thinking. I think people may try to incorporate religious elements into future new synthesis, and the future generations will have to be careful what they are reading. It hasn’t happen yet, but just saying.
Yes, they are curiously arguing about whether evolution is slow or fast. I’ve since decided that evolution can be slow or fast. There are mechanisms of how a population protects itself from genetic drifts, and possible reasons for “fast” evolution. In our eyes, it is slow/fast, but not relative to earth’s time scale. One book author, a critic who seems like a troll, wrote that Carbon dating is inaccurate. I’ll agree that carbon dating is not very accurate.
There are ideas of Junk DNA segments or some virus material in some parts of human DNA. Scientists thought that the virus may influence mankind and other animals and plants too. If they look into that , they may find something. I’ll just decide if those theories can be believed.
The improvements made to the idea of evolution can create a mess in future, so I’ll keep to the original ideas of evolution for the time being. Theories and hypothesis can be debated on as according to scientific protocols.but if the inclusion of god, there will be no room for debate as the idea definitely cannot be proven or disproved by any means.
Side Note: I urge all of you never to say, “The Theory of Evolution” without appending “by natural selection,” or at least “by” something. Evolution is a fact, not a theory. How evolution happens is the theory. One of the great problems of science communication to the public is lazy scientists who use local jargon. This may seem like a small quibble, but it’s not. The public (and lazy scientists) constantly use the term “theory” when they mean “hypothesis,” and “theorize” when they mean “hypothesize.” This gives the impression to the public that the fact of evolution is contested. Please remind them that it’s how evolution happens that’s contested, as described in this article with the lousy headline.
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I’ve heard it said that evolution is both a fact (it definitely occurs) and a theory (in reference to the means by which it occurs), but I get your point.
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Point taken!
Oof. I’m glad at least that we are still in the stage where some photoshoped images can be detected by eye. I knew something was off with the image of that insect, but I couldn’t say what exactly. I imagine in a few years, the tech will have developed to a point that bypasses uncanny-ness.
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The theory of evolution has been expanding for decades. The incorporation of genetics and population genetics was a huge expansion/clarification. Since then, a lot of new information seems to challenge Darwin’s basic concept of natural selection acting on random genetic changes. (Random changes include both mutations and unselected changes in allele frequencies, which can reach 100%/0% more easily in small than large populations.) However, once the challenge is thoroughly understood, the new stuff fits in the original theory, expanding it but not contradicting it.
Sexual selection, variable rates of evolution, interactions of behavioral changes with selection changes, neutral evolution of DNA sequences and some phenotypic traits, the huge amount of junk DNA in genomes of most eukaryotes (and the little present in a few species), processes that can lead to sudden speciation (e.g. polyploidy and chromosome rearrangements), unequal mutation frequencies at different points in the genome, epigenetics, variable selection pressures, processes that can increase the frequency of harmful alleles in a population, possible variation in the level at which selection acts (genes? individuals? kinship groups? populations? species?), the evolution of consciousness, horizontal gene transfer, cultural evolution – all were and some still are viewed as challenges to basic evolution theory. However, they all fit with the basic theory of selection acting on changes that do not happen because the organism “needs” the changes.
Personally, I think that the call for the EES or other basic rethinking of evolution theory usually results from a wish to make it more intentional, often with us humans (or at least intelligence) inevitable. We’d be more comfortable with a theory of evolution toward something. But we don’t (and I think can’t) have that; it’s just not true*.
*except in the case of cultural evolution by an intelligent species such as us, and even there we see that many effects are not well planned!
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Your comment appeared directly after mine, so I’ve a strange motivation to reply. The Theory of Evolution as we know it. The article mentioned the word - “mainstream”. That is the Darwinian one. The article is a 20 minutes read at least and that few extra words may make it a 30 minutes read, considering that the phrase is repeated through the article. So your urging may not be taken up readily unless the authority says so. hahaha…I’m aware the debate is 160 years long, and someone is bound to join in that debate which I read the word “vitriol” appeared in the literature. Let’s not use incendiary words. Acronyms is the norm these days in Scientific articles, a few words less won’t matter. Not everyone is a scientist, and I think it is great if Science is inclusive to the man from every corner of the world. I was about to say “the man on the street” when my mind switch to this phrase. Again, I’m perfectly calm. This is not my fight, as the article is where the term comes from and we just assume.
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