lilschuh

It had to be adaptable to become the 'fittest animal', not in the world, but in its ecological niche.

I will agree with that.

Okay, so I'm curious as to what you think about the "survival of the most adaptable, no fittest" convo I've been having with Skaffen.

All life is defined by it's ability to reproduce, from the bottom up. DNA to Pimp Daddy

 

'Fitness' infers a purpose to be fit for - Evolution has no purpose/design. Adaptability incurs a relationship to a changing environment.

 

If an asteroid was going to destroy 95% of life we would live underground, we adapt to survive - I don't incur any meaningful sense of fitness in this except fit to survive which is clearly adaptability.

 

Many animals adapt by lying dormant through extreme drought until the rain comes - fit to sleep? (which I can relate too )

 

If it was physical fitness the dinosaurs would still rule but conversely it is the big ones that have the hardest time.

 

 

 

 

 

from wiki (Adaptation) - Main Darwinian Evolution article is terrible IMO

 

Adaptation is the evolutionary process whereby a population becomes better suited to its habitat.^[1][2] This process takes place over many generations,^[3] and is one of the basic phenomena of biology.^[4]

 

The term adaptation may also refer to a feature which is especially important for an organism's survival.^[5] For example, the adaptation of horses' teeth to the grinding of grass, or their ability to run fast and escape predators. Such adaptations are produced in a variable population by the better suited forms reproducing more successfully, that is, by natural selection.

So it sounds to me like you are looking at adaptability as a means for survival, therefore giving the individuals a better chance to reproduce. Is that correct?

What about say, speed of an antelope. The antelope doesn't decide to run faster or slower based on the lion chasing it. It runs as fast as it can because that is how it is programmed.

"Fit to survive which is clearly adaptability." What if there is not a need for adaptation in a particular instance. Say, the antelope never gets caught and never has to be faster. It doesn't adapt if it doesn't need to, so it is still going to survive without adapting, because it is the most fit to survive. Its possible for the animal to never change and still be the fittest animal in the world. This 'fittest to survive' animal does not need to be adaptable in order to survive.

It is survival of the most adaptable, not fittest. This immediately confers recognition of the environment as the driving force and is why all life is a composite of smaller scale organisms. The volume of non-human dna which is responsible for our digestion is well catalogued. In this context punctuated equilibrium is a 'bolt on' attribute that fits well into the lower order (microbial) and increases adaptability on the macro scale.

 

Consider the Caucasian ability to digest animal milk. As humans migrated into different environments they come into contact with different microbes, due to uncertainty in environmental changes in higher latitudes this ability 'had' to be found or there would be no Caucasians....but humans would go on.

Isn't fitness defined as the capability of a certain genotype to reproduce? So, isn't it the fittest that survives? Adaptability is the ability to change to fit certain circumstances, which I think may lead to increased fitness. But, I thought it was survival of the fittest. Many things contribute to whether an organism will be relatively fit, and I believe adaptability is one of those. I don't feel like adaptability is the end all be all for survival.

I do agree with your point on 'all life is a composite of smaller scale organisms' though.

Has anyone ever been able to describe how evolution seems to know of the surroundings of an animal? For example how is it animals whose natural fur color matches that of their surroundings? Or how did the eye come about? How would it know to make an organ that picks up light waves and how to even translate the information?

All of natural selection and evolution are random. The mutations in genotypes and then to phenotypes are completely random. The reason that natural fur colors match the surroundings is because, at one point, the mutation caused the fur to be a little bit more like the surroundings, giving that animal a better chance to survive and pass on that mutation.

The eye is the same way, small random mutations that built upon each other.

Or you can argue it is a study in futility to try and judge somebody's 'adult' height. There are no charts, doctors, specialists or graphs that will determine your height when you stop growing.

This is something we cannot and probably will never be able to answer. What will be, will be.

It's like you planting a seed in the ground and when it germinates and breaks the surface soil, you tell me to the inch what height the plant/tree will peak at. It cannot be done as there are too many unknown variables.

The growth charts come from somewhere though. They are not made up. There may be a lot of variability, which it appears there is, but the chart was most likely formed using statistical data. There is a given amount of variation in the chart as well.

There are many, many things that affect height. It is an additive process of genes, and there is some knowledge as to how those interact and what the end product will be.

And, to say that we will never be able to determine someone's adult height seems to me to be a long shot. I doubt that there is anything we can not accomplish.