Discussion
Evolution doesn’t look how it’s depicted in pop culture. We often picture the famous “March of Progress” illustration where a series of apes stand in line leading to a modern human.
But evolution is not linear. It branches and branches. Divides in some places and recombines in others. #science
Image: @keesey
(it "only" took a few billion years🌎 for "it"🧠 to begin to understand "itself)
at least parts of (eukaryotic) yeast and human genes are "homologous" and functionally similar enough to function in either "host "
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5525645/
@Sheril the only one who looks happy is at the root of the tree.
It's almost as if we're getting something wrong.
@Sheril For me it seems as if evolution is only a cosmetic thing.
@Sheril
Caricature says "Something something transitional fossils."
(All the fossils are transitional forms, except a few tgst are dead ends. We are a transitional forms. Let us try not to be th3 latter.)
@Sheril Through an amazing quirk of the internet this was immediately followed in my feed by the following: https://mastodon.social/@warandpeas/115605787398586972
@Sheril why does it then become scattered. Is it that we have some people who aren't of our kind?
@Sheril
well - "evolution" is not only "branching", but 'doing' something more weird than being a spreading bush - it's re-branching. that's what's maybe missing in this nice illustration?
I can no longer see an evolutionary chart without this image popping into my brain.
Apparently taken from that other social media place back in March of 2020.
@Sheril yeah it’s so interesting. One thing I like to learn about is how two very similar organisms came to exist on other sides of the planet
@Sheril Sure there are short linear blips, long curvy differentials... all between the Big Bang/Crunch Singularities.
Without scalar differential equations; there's no you, me, or a bird named bee. Now where are those flowers and trees?..
@Sheril Nature did what it had to give us nice buttocks
@Sheril It’s missing sections of crossbreeding. different breeds of monkey were also melded in.and in even earlier splits there were quadrapeds.
@Sheril Down with teleology, I say.
The cladal bush works on a number of scales, but its best message is that context matters, any singular definition in biology is just an artefact made up to group a diverse and varying population into a discussion point.
Also that if you do find a population lacking in diversity and variability, that twig on the bush is not going to last long.
@Sheril
Your right. But who will explain this to Fatboy Slim now?
@Sheril So true. I hate that the march of progress fully implies that humans are the 'best' because of their position.
In reality the evolutionary diagram puts all currently living organisms on the same podium. Modern humans are not the end goal.
@Sheril It depends on the criteria we use to define branching, no ? With a DNA-based criteria, I guess this would be one branch for every born human, but the more the criteria encompass things, the more the tree flattens (up to be linerar) ?
@Sheril
It's also mindless and not completely understood.
@Sheril I think the point of the line is to show just one of those branches.
@Sheril they have the entire “family tree” with all divergent branches up at the National Museum of Scotland. It’s fascinating. There are some tiny primates (tarsiers, lemurs, marmosets, lorises) that I didn’t know much about. https://www.nms.ac.uk/exhibitions/monkeys-our-primate-family
@Sheril What's in the image?
@Sheril It looks like above when you walk back from one species towards its origin (no branching on the way back). It is basically a history graph.
Just saying the top graph also has its purpose.
@Sheril
And also all the multicellular stuff is basically evolutionary outliers. (-;
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