Re: Evolution by Natural Selection

2025-12-07 Thread Brent Meeker 



On 12/7/2025 6:13 AM, John Clark wrote:


On Sat, Dec 6, 2025 at 7:34 PM Alan Grayson  
wrote:


/> Lately, I've watching videos about the animal kingdom, and I am
beginning to question Darwin's claim of evolution by natural
selection. I wonder; how does this explain the appearance of
defensive horns on some animals, like the Rhinoceros, and not on
others, such as the Zebra? //Does Natural Selection mean that
random changes in an animal's body, such as a very small horn on a
Rhonoceros initially, gives it some minor competitive advantage,
and that horn grows bigger over time, again randomly, until it
gets large as we see today?/


*If a rhinohas a gene for producing a slightly larger horn and that 
gives it a small competitive advantage, either by becoming a better 
fighter or because female rhinos think big horns are sexy (sexual 
selection is the reason male peacocks have such ridiculously large 
tail feathers) then that gene is more likely to enter the next 
generation. The reason the horn on a rhino is not even larger is 
because Evolution doesn't have infinite resources at its disposal, so 
if you do more of one thing then you must do less of some other thing, 
and that other thing may have more survival value that a larger horn.*


/> And yet on other specie of plant eaters, like Zebra, no such
process occurred? /


*Natural Selectioncan only select from among the genes that are available*
That's a little misleading since /the genes that are available/ include 
new random mutations.


*, apparently in horse-like animals such as zebras random mutation 
never produced a proto horn gene, and that's why Evolution never 
produced a unicorn, although if random chance had been slightly 
different it would have. *
Ironically, nature did produce a unicorn.  It's the rhinoceros, which 
Pliny the Elder described in his book "Natural History" which latter fed 
into legends of a unicorn.


*However the ancestors of zebras did have a gene, produced by random 
mutation, that no rino had, that caused a slight variation in the 
color of its fur, and that gave a zebra a slight advantage because it 
turns out thatdisease carrying tsetse flies and horseflies have 
trouble landing on striped surfacesbecause the stripes interferes with 
the fliesvisual systemscausing them to abort landingon them.*


*If you're really interested in this sort of thing you should read (or 
listen to on Audible) Richard Dawkinswonderful book "The Selfish 
Gene", it's one of the 3 or 4 best books I've ever read in my life, 
and I read a lot. *

I second that recommendation.

Brent


*
*
*John K Clark   See what's on my new list at Extropolis 
*

*
*
ax9


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Re: Evolution by Natural Selection

2025-12-07 Thread John Clark 
On Sat, Dec 6, 2025 at 7:34 PM Alan Grayson  wrote:

>
*> Lately, I've watching videos about the animal kingdom, and I am
> beginning to question Darwin's claim of evolution by natural selection. I
> wonder; how does this explain the appearance of defensive horns on some
> animals, like the Rhinoceros, and not on others, such as the Zebra? **Does
> Natural Selection mean that random changes in an animal's body, such as a
> very small horn on a Rhonoceros initially, gives it some minor competitive
> advantage, and that horn grows bigger over time, again randomly, until it
> gets large as we see today?*


*If a rhino has a gene for producing a slightly larger horn and that gives
it a small competitive advantage, either by becoming a better fighter or
because female rhinos think big horns are sexy (sexual selection is the
reason male peacocks have such ridiculously large tail feathers) then that
gene is more likely to enter the next generation. The reason the horn on a
rhino is not even larger is because Evolution doesn't have infinite
resources at its disposal, so if you do more of one thing then you must do
less of some other thing, and that other thing may have more survival value
that a larger horn.*


> *> And yet on other specie of plant eaters, like Zebra, no such process
> occurred? *
>

*Natural Selection can only select from among the genes that are available,
apparently in horse-like animals such as zebras random mutation never
produced a proto horn gene, and that's why Evolution never produced a
unicorn, although if random chance had been slightly different it would
have. However the ancestors of zebras did have a gene, produced by random
mutation, that no rino had, that caused a slight variation in the color of
its fur, and that gave a zebra a slight advantage because it turns out that
disease carrying tsetse flies and horseflies have trouble landing on
striped surfaces because the stripes interferes with the flies visual
systems causing them to abort landing on them.*

*If you're really interested in this sort of thing you should read (or
listen to on Audible) Richard Dawkins wonderful book "The Selfish Gene",
it's one of the 3 or 4 best books I've ever read in my life, and I read a
lot.  *

*John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis
*

ax9

>
>

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Re: Evolution by Natural Selection

2025-12-06 Thread Alan Grayson 


On Saturday, December 6, 2025 at 5:34:48 PM UTC-7 Alan Grayson wrote:

On Thursday, December 4, 2025 at 8:21:03 AM UTC-7 Alan Grayson wrote:

Lately, I've watching videos about the animal kingdom, and I am beginning 
to question Darwin's claim of evolution by natural selection. I wonder; how 
does this explain the appearance of defensive horns on some animals, like 
the Rhinoceros, and not on others, such as the Zebra? AG 


Does Natural Selection mean that random changes in an animal's body, such 
as a very small horn on a RhInoceros initially, gives it some minor 
competitive advantage, and that horn grows bigger over time, again 
randomly, until it gets large as we see today? And yet on other specie of 
plant eaters, like Zebra, no such process occurred?  The process IMO looks 
teleological, that is, intentional in relation to interactions with the 
environment, not random. AG


That is, it seems like a Rhinoceros developed a horn (actually two horns), 
because it needed it, whereas Zebras never developed horns because they 
ddin't need them. AG 

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Re: Evolution by Natural Selection

2025-12-06 Thread Alan Grayson 


On Thursday, December 4, 2025 at 8:21:03 AM UTC-7 Alan Grayson wrote:

Lately, I've watching videos about the animal kingdom, and I am beginning 
to question Darwin's claim of evolution by natural selection. I wonder; how 
does this explain the appearance of defensive horns on some animals, like 
the Rhinoceros, and not on others, such as the Zebra? AG 


Does Natural Selection mean that random changes in an animal's body, such 
as a very small horn on a Rhonoceros initially, gives it some minor 
competitive advantage, and that horn grows bigger over time, again 
randomly, until it gets large as we see today? And yet on other specie of 
plant eaters, like Zebra, no such process occurred?  The process IMO looks 
teleological, that is, intentional in relation to interactions with the 
environment, not random. AG

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