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To deter predators...
(lemmy.world)
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
It bothers me how many people think that evolutionary traits are in any way chosen or designed for a specific purpose.
Same here. Evolution doesn't work that way. It's basically the opposite. Species don't evolve to solve a problem, they evolve randomly and sometimes that solves a problem for them. Or sometimes, it pushes the species into a very narrow niche where its survival is ensured as long as the current extremely precarious situation they find themselves in doesn't change.
Eh... they mutate randomly, and then selection acts. If there is variation that solves a problem, selection will promote that variation.
Evolution is very much not random, it is a direct consequence of variation and selection. This does not mean that they evolve to solve problems, but problems often drive evolution.
My God thank you
Selected through continued survival and reproduction. Maybe a more accurate template would be something like, "Awesome, I've evolved with [trait] which deters predators!"
Who designed the process of evolution?
(Jk)