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
@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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@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) ?