FAO Chakka

[sherminator]

on another thread you claimed 'Evolution has no aims, intentions or necessities. It just happens.'

I thought *(now as having never read a book on the subject Will freely admit i'm very naive on evolution)
that evolution was about adapting to your surroundings to make you a better species? i thought that was the aim of evolution?

please correct me if i have misunderstood!!?

[LazyGun]

@sherminator - i think you have to be careful when using a phrase like" aim" in connection with evolution, because it can conjure up an image of some sort of external direction. The reality is much more mundane.
At its most fundamental, evolution is about the change in inherited traits over time in a population.What effects the inherited characteristics are changes at a genetic level.One of the drivers of such change is mutation, a random, non directed process, with no aim or agenda.
These mutations can be described in terms of their effect on the animal, altering its fertility, attractiveness to potential mates, longevity, efficiency of food conversion, etc. These effects can be described as neutral ( the vast, vast majority), beneficial or harmful.
Those that confer a benefit to the survival or reproduction of the animal will gradually come to dominate the species gene pool.Such a process, repeated and concentrated over generations, can lead to diversification and possibly speciation.
So, although randomness underpins everything -, natural selection acts as a positive, non- random filter, ensuring that changes conferring a survival or reproductive benefit will come to predominate within the species - this may lead to diversification and, ultimately, speciation.

[chakka35]

Lazygun got in before me. If a random mutation (most of which, obviously, would be harmful to the organism) just happens to make it fit its environment better (which is what is meant by 'survival of the fittest') then that strain will have a slight advantage which will be reproduced in its offspring, often spreading eventually to the whole species.

But nobody planned it, as witness the countless numbers of random mutations which must have occurred and got nowhere. In any case, who or what could have done the planning? Once you have a planner you've got a god of some sort - in which case you don't need evolution.

Why haven't you read books on evolution if you're that interested? Richard Dawkins is very lucid on the subject. Try The Blind Watchmaker. Or his latest: The Greatest Show on Earth.

[woofgang]

Try the "Science of the Discworld" series, by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen..riveting stuff and funny too

[sherminator]

Thanks guys-I will def have to get a book on it because i really cant get a handle on it yet!

It sounds to me like some kind of genetic trial and error test!
"lets try this for a change!...any better? yep lets keep with this and dump the rest of our ideas"
but thats my verrrry basic grasp of it!