Is Evolution The Best Answer?

Originally posted by Mountain Man As for the dinosaurs, they reached the end of their evolutionary road and became far too specialized to have survived even without the Chicxulub or the Declan Traps events.  They had evolved to great sizes in order to survive more efficiently, and had become dependent on very specific diets.  Climate change alone would have been enough to eradicate them eventually. Just my thoughts...

My guess is that events conspired to defeat adaptability for most of them. Those close enough to an impact from a meteorite wouldn't have known what hit them, and this would include anywhere a mega tsunami might have reached. Then there would be a monumental loss of life from the inhalation of particles causing major lacerations to the lungs, asphyxiation from gases caused by huge areas of seismic activity, starvation from a major loss of food supply, and being caught out in something like a very long extended winter. Saying that, it does come to mind that some dinosaurs did adapt and their product survive even to this day.   

Originally posted by Mountain Man Wait...don't call the guys with the rubber tuxedos with the extra long sleeves quit yet. Is "evolution" the best answer for any species, including ours? The Darwinian Model holds that evolution is a mutational process that favors changes leading to enhanced survivability, but to what end? Imagine, if you will, that a species, any species, becomes perfectly adapted to it's environment.  What happens then?  The usual answer is inevitable extinction, because becoming highly speacialized within an ecological niche eventually becomes couinter-productive.  There are a few exceptions, of course.  Cockroaches and sharks come immediatley to mind, but so do all those species listed as endangered, which is merely a PC way of saying that they cannot cope with environmental changes. I used to live near Palmer Lake, just south of Castle Rock, CO.  Along the freeway, bounded on the north side by a quarry, the south side by a former landscaping business, now a ranch, on the west side by four lanes of constant, noisy traffic and on the east side by the tracks of the Union Pacific Railway (trains every 20 minutes 24/7), lies a small park. Not much of park, scrubby, full of things you don't want to hike through, and home to rattlesnakes, coyotes and the occasional bear...BUT...it is sacred ground - it is the home of the Preeble's Jumping Mouse, an endangered species. I lived up there for about twenty years, hiked through there and geocached there a lot, and never once saw a Preeble.  Talked to the park rangers, and they never saw one either, but it's still sacred ground.  My suspicion is that the Preeble's primary function in life is to feed the rattlesnake population and the raptors that abound, hawks, owls, falcons, etc.  Maybe the coyotes, too. Now, if I could tak to Darwin, I would ask him what gives with the Preeble?  It can't survive across the highway where there are hundreds of acres of lush grassland and forest, or anywhere else but that scrubby patch of land, maybe ten acres total.  It is that well adapted to that environment, and that cannot be a good thing.  If people were that adapted, we would all be dead the moment we left our immediate neighbrohood.  Same for the animals we depend upon to feed us. So when does "evolution" stop serving a useful purpose and become instead detrimental to life?  We know that it happens a lot, because we can look up the list of "endangered species" and count them up., but Life doesn't seem to favor highly efficient adaptation.  Instead, Life seems to favor non-specialization, such as humans and cockroaches.  Live anywhere, eat anything, and able to relocate on a minute's notice.  Is this a flaw in Darwin's Theory, or something else?  Is non-specialization a form of specialization after all?

50 years after today we can intervene inside DNA creating modifications as we want!We are going to compete with DNA Engineer of ours!Competition makes the market!First one we'll choose:Very rich man
with implanted possibilities of flying&underwater diving.Males will be with newest Pfizer online adapter controlled by man minds and females will have similar mind controlled silicon chests&shoes by choice.

Originally posted by Toltec Originally posted by Bobby First of all 98% of all species that ever existed have gone extinct.  Species continually mutate, these mutations can be positive, negative and neutral, most are neutral and a minute minute amount are positive, which explains extinction. For example the mutation on Sardinia which makes many Sardinians dangerously allergic to broad beans, and the mutation in a village in northern Italy which makes them resistant to collesteral. Is the latter a positive mutation? All the girls are slim and pretty, but wait till a famine comes along and they'll be the first to die.