What causes living things to evolve?
We all know that living things evolve to adapt to their surroundings, but what exactly is telling our bodies to do so and in such an efficient manner? If you think back to the first and simplest form of life, what exactly told these extremely simple non-conscious things to adapt themselves into greater beings? There has to be something guiding the way? I guess with more advanced forms of life you could explain this method of evolution as an unconscious storing of information to pass onto future offspring. But if we go back to the first living organisms, they lacked even the slightest bit of intelligence to achieve such a thing. So who or what told them it may be a good idea to grow legs etc? Take plants for example; they’ve evolved to use other animals to their advantage. A bee will come and transfer pollen from one plant to another. But how can such a simple form of life even acknowledge the fact that bees’ exist in the first place? Something has to of helped it come to that conclusion, surely? I know it would be simple to say that it must be a God performing these acts, but I personally don’t believe in a God as such, especially one that could stand by and allow innocent children to die of horrible diseases. I do, however, believe in Mother Nature - a non-living force that doesn’t care about individuals, only life as a whole. It doesn’t answer to prayers or care if you sin. Its only purpose is to ensure all forms of life thrive. You could say I’ve answered my own question, but that isn’t enough. Where did this force come from? Why does it want life to thrive? Are we in less control of our bodies than we would like to think?
How did some species of insects evolve to mimic other species of insects (without knowing what they look like)?
Answer evolution. Evolution does not involve the species trying to do anything. It simply involves the genes (and thus charecteristics) of those who live to reproduce being passe on to the next generation and just as importantly the genes (and thus charecteristics) of those who don’t live to reproduce not being passed on. Let’s consider a million butterflies of a species. by chance variation Some of these butterflies look more like a poisonous other butterfly species that predators avoid and some look less like the poision species. The ones who look a little more like the poison ones are slightly less likely to be eaten before reproduction than the ones that look less like the poison ones. the next generation of 2 million butterflies is descended more from poison resembling than non poison resembling and proportionately have more poison resembling than the prior generation. This happens over and over for a thousand generations. Slowly over time with slight shifts in the make up of each next generation the species begins to look more and more similar to the poison species. This does not require any knowledge on the part of the butterfly’s.
Can insect elvove into the bugs in Starship Trooper?
No. Well, not really. There are two fundamental problems with insects evolving larger bodies:First, their respiratory system relies on oxygen diffusing through tissue. The bigger you are, the longer it takes and less efficient it is.Second, because they have an exoskeleton, their life cycle involves periodically shedding their armour and going through a soft phase where they inflate their body and wait for it to harden again. As you get bigger, gravity starts having an exponentially larger effect and a large soft bodied creature would need strucural support to fight gravity.This has so far limited them to small sizes. In the past, when the atmosphere was much more oxygen saturated, there were giant bugs, but it also depends on coevolution with other species, and now mammals and birds and reptiles fill most niches available to larger creatures. Insects are the perfect size for their niches, at the low end of the non-microscopic, where vertebrates cannot compete.However, it might be feasible if they are restricted to water, or perhaps return to the water just to moult. And it's not unrealistic to think that their respiratory system could grow more fractal-like, similar to our lungs.
How does evolution explain how something can go from not flying to flying, and other examples like this where it seems there is no mid-point, it either can or can't?
You’re confusing “evolution,” (an observed fact of nature) with “Natural Selection,” the theory that provides a sound and testable explanation for the observation.There are tons of examples, but let’s just start with what we call “birds” today.Many early reptiles, yes dinosaurs (including T. rex!) , had feathers. Feathers are great for lots of things like camouflage, insulation, mating or dominance displays, and many modern birds—some flightless, as it happens—use them as such.Here’s what T. rex probably looked like:Yeah, still 10 m long and faster than you.Early feathered dinosaurs didn’t fly. You might have even thought them “shaggy” rather than feathered. But they were good at running and climbing. And since feathers are really light, if you run and jump, or leap out of a tree, feathers are going to help slow your fall, maybe even extend it.Sidebar: the hair we mammals are so proud of? Yeah, probably evolved from feathers, or feather-like structures.That there is an advantage. Organisms with advantages tend to pass on those traits. So, climb a tree (they had trees then), wait until some food-looking thing walks by obliviously underneath, then jump/fall/glide and pounce. Dinner is served.If that seems unlikely, check out this guy, name of Archaeoopteryx (c. 150 MYA):Like modern birds, this fella’s feathers were asymmetric, meaning fully adapted for flight…but it’s unclear if it was capable of powered flight or long glides.After a few million years (and I’m not saying they’re directly related), we get things likeAn artist’s conception of Microraptor gui, a flightless reptile with feathers and two sets of wings! (c. 120 MYA)Microraptor was probably pretty great at climbing. No way could it “fly” any more than a paper airplane. But if it dropped out of a tree, it could probably glide a goodly distance, even swoop up to land on another tree.Just remember, feathers didn’t evolve for flight. Feathers evolved for insulation, camouflage or display. Feathers were adapted for flying, over millions of years. Natural Selection is slow, but it’s not random: it’s a ratchet, and it only works towards success (= “more babies”).Hit up Wikipedia and read up on Evolution of Avian Flight. It’s pretty comprehensive…Origin of avian flight - Wikipedia…and remember: what works for wings and flight works for everything else.
Atheists/Evolutionists: If we have gone from single-celled slime to human beings... ?
what exactly do you mean by "isolated cases"? like trolls, or what??
Why is bacteria and insects becoming resistant to pesticides?
Because of evolution! Pesticides are poisons that kill the bacteria and insects they are used on. Those dead bacteria and insects do not manage to reproduce. When a bacterium or insect manages to survive the pesticide, it will go on to reproduce and pass its genes on to its offspring. That means the resistant individuals will produce a new generation of resistant individuals but the dead individuals do not produce anything.
Why did female mammals evolve to produce less eggs than insects or other type of animals? Wouldn't it be more advantageous to have as many offspring as you can and then try to take care of them?
This is an evolutionary biology concept, so I will use an example from a different species evolution. Fish populations of the same that are separated only by a small waterfall between two lakes display this, because they have different predatory fish in their respective lakes. Predators in the upper lake are able to eat smaller fry (baby fish) but can’t consume bigger fish, therefore the fish evolved to produce a smaller number of fry, but they are larger, so they can safely reach the size the predator can’t consume in a more condensed time frame. The fish in the lower lake have predators that can eat any size fish/fry, so they make the most fry possible, leading to smaller fry, but much much more of them.With mammals, it was unreasonable to produce many offspring that were so small they’d be eaten by insects or other potential predators (reptiles, birds, mammals etc). So they evolved to produce a smaller number that could reach a relatively safe size faster. With humans, we evolved to produce only the one (sometimes two naturally, triplets are very very uncommon naturally) because of the attention necessary to provide the offspring. Most mammals come out of the womb walking, and running within 24–72 hours. Human babies can’t even lift their own head for months, and this is because we had drastically larger brains (and larger heads that couldn’t be pushed out of a vaginal canal) so we evolved to continue development that could potentially take place in the womb, outside of the body. This led to the most successful (i.e. smartest and largest offspring) reproduction for humans.
There are no mammals with more than 4 limbs, and no insects with less than 6. Any theories on this?
There is no inherrent advantage to 4 vs. 6 limbs. But *on land* a mutation that would change the number of legs from 4 to 6 ... or from 6 to 4 limbs requires a huge change in how the animal *walks* ... i.e. how the animal supports its body weight between steps. So on land, any such chance mutation would probably be immediately lethal. This is less of an issue in aquatic environment where limbs are used for swimming, not walking, and thus the issue of supporting the body weight against gravity while moving is not a problem ... so going from 4 to 6 limbs, or from 6 to 4 would be far less lethal. So the answer is that this is evidence that all land vertebrates evolved from the same aquatic ancestor vertebrate, which had 4 limbs ... and all land arthropods (insects, arachnids, miriapods) evolved from the same aquatic arthropods, none of which had fewer than 6 legs. Once on land, any change to the number of legs would be lethal, so they have kept their original number of limbs. Incidentally, not just mammals, but *all* land vetebrates are tetrapods (four-limbed creatures). Besides mammals, this includes birds, reptiles (including snakes, many of which have vestigial leg bones), amphibians, and dinosaurs. This is evidence that all land vertebrates are descendants of the same ancestor ... specifically the lobe-finned fishes (class Sarcopterygii), which includes coelocanths. This is independantly verified by genetic and molecular evidence. (Incidentally, this also include aquatic mammals, such as whales and dolphins ... they have leg bones in their flippers, and the flukes are skeletally fused legs ... evidence of evolution from land mammals.) (Also, this includes legless reptiles such as snakes and the legless lizards, many of which have vestigial leg bones. Going from 4 legs to *0* is not a sudden mutation and does not require a sudden change to the method of locomotion, and is thus not lethal ... the change from walking to slithering is not sudden but *gradual* over *many* generations, until legs are not only superfluous, but get in the way.)