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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.ย. 2024
- Turns out evolution isn't always slow. Scientists in Nebraska have discovered a bird evolving right before our eyes.
Read More:
"Evolution via Roadkill"
news.sciencemag...
"Cliff swallows that build nests that dangle precariously from highway overpasses have a lower chance of becoming roadkill than in years past thanks to a shorter wingspan that lets them dodge oncoming traffic."
"Evolution Before Your Eyes"
news.discovery....
"Darwin invoked the Latin phrase: "Natura non facit saltum," which means, "Nature doesn't make jumps." What he meant is that evolution happens very gradually with lots of transitional steps along the way."
"Where has all the road kill gone?"
download.cell.c...
"An estimated 80 million birds are killed by colliding with vehicles on U. S. roads each year [1], and millions more die annually in Europe and elsewhere."
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Well... we are animals too.If we are not selecting traits on porpouse, but just doing our human things, like the ants do theirs, others animals adapting to them is natural,isn´t it?
I think people forget too often that, although we are significantly different in many ways from all other living things, we ARE all just another species on this planet. People place us in this separate division from other animals, for example... If a bird can spot the brighter coloured insects more then the darker ones, thus finding it easy to hunt them for food, then eventually the insects would all become darker in colour with the rarity of finding a brightly coloured one until they don't exist at all, leaving only the dark ones (natural selection or survival of the fittest). When this happens, people say this is "natural" selection, but when humans do something to affect the world in this way, it's "horrible" and we are told we should not interfere with nature but yet, like you said, we are animals too.
Jye Watson Exactly.We sometimes cause too much of an impact, but it is because that is between our range of action, just like when hords of locus eat too much and devastate a place...That doesn´t mean we should do whatever we can do,because it can ,and will, hurt us in the future,but it is still natural and, in the cases where other species are just adapting to us,it is completely normal and natural.
RanguGamer
Yeah, I guess people just forget what we really are.
Jye Watson Very true. We think of ourselves of some sort of non-natural being... yet we are living off of the Earth's materials.
Ultron IV
I agree, perhaps a lot of it comes from the arrogance of humans, we think the universe revolves around us. Not to bring religion into too much.. but I think religion gives people the perception that ALL of this is here, just for US, instead of viewing ourselves as just another little piece of the puzzle in the endless universe that we still barely understand. We're just another creature among the other millions of creatures, that's how I see it anyway.
Our ability to change the environment around us is perfectly natural. What we call artificial is still a natural part of evolution, so no, I don't think it's unnatural selection.
Of course, I've thought of humans being a catalyst to sentience in other species for a while now. We've domesticated other animals, and those animals are now freed up from the need to survive by scraping just enough food for themselves. They will become healthier and smarter, probably starting to do things for there own amusement (skateboarding dogs ;) ).
Did anyone else besides me notice that he has a shirt that shows a tiger... holding a machine gun...that has flames coming out of it like a flamethrower...
Omg, he does!
It could be muzzle flash, not a flame thrower. Tigers are an endangered species, in part due to hunting. If tigers developed the ability to fire SMGs, then that would improve their odds of survival. Humans could be causing tigers to evolve.
Blood Angel lol yess xD
They're evolving thumbs so they can our weapons against us!
If you live in or near a suburban neighborhood, you may also notice that squirrels tend to dart back and forth less when crossing the street as a car approaches.
It use to be next to impossible not to hit a squirrel crossing a road because their instinctive reaction to a threat was to try to confuse it with random darting.
Now, in areas with high to medium traffic, they just duck their head and run full out to the other side.
We are part of nature. BTW have they done a similar study on squirrels?
exactly. it would only be artificial selection if the change was intentional - also, google 'urban squirrels'
they must be using way too many rare candies and evolution stones XD
All that won't effect your IV base. Looks like they are sub par for this world...
wonder if we can get them to mega evolve meanwhile I'll be staring at an all own poetry that just flew by
A few years ago birds used to smash into windows and fly inside of the school, hardly happens now. A few years ago snails used to fill the footpaths, hardly happens now. Really makes you think...
A few years ago we had bees everywhere and insects crashing into carwindows, not at all anymore. That explains why there are no more birds flying in your school, they don't live where they can't eat insects anymore.
Enty Ropy this is probably more likely than ascribing it to evolution
You're absolutely right- I think I was more trying to articulate that our presence is more quickly disruptive than any other animal's- while everything else tends to grow and change in tandem over time, we tend to just plop down that 7-11 all at once. -Anthony
"That's not evolution, that's adaptation" is equivalent to saying "that's not math, that's algebra.
Brutalized Soul Adaptation and evolution are one in the same
But species can adapt without evolving? Take a mouse for example, imagine that it lives in a controlled environment with doors. It needs to open doors to get from room to room. It can learn how to do it without evolving.
Alex A so im guessing adapt knowledge,Evolution physicall?
Alex A true. But in this case, birds with longer wings can’t avoid cars, so they die. So the birds that can avoid cars live, and produce offspring. These birds happen to have shorter wings, as it improves turning speed, so the next generation will have a shorter average wingspan.
To refer to your analogy, it would be like if the mouse couldn’t open the door, it was killed, until finally one mouse IS able to open the door, and you breed that mouse over and over until all the future mice are now able to open the door.
More like "that's not algebra, that's math"
YES!!!!!!!!! WOOHOO!!!! SOMETHING ACTUALLY HAPPENED HERE IN NEBRASKA FOR ONCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WEEE ARE THE CHAMPIONSSS!!!!!!!!!
if pretty late on this 😮
lol
Now, I may not know the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow, but now I DO know the average wingspan of a cliff swallow!
I think it is still 'natural selection'. We (as predators) are adapting, so therefore our friends on the lower end of the food chain must adapt also. When you say 'unnatural selection', then you are talking about humans modifying/creating a species based on a change or creation in a lab (specifically messing with their genome). Good stuff, DNews! Keep it comming :)
Humans need a little natural selection.
70 Creationists found this video.
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Gigz Lopez
Lawl
This is a very good sign actually. It tells me that humans are truly incapable of wiping out life on earth, whether intentionally or accidentally. As the great mathematician Ian Malcolm once said: "life.... will find a way."
***** So i was correct. I said we cant wipe out ALL life on earth intentionally or accidentally. You said the exact same thing "First of all we, can't wipe out all life on earth in the first place". So you called me an idiot for thinking the same thing you are, which makes you an idiot as well.. Gotcha.
I was making a point to the alarmist crazies who think we have somehow caused some terrible damage to the world. Humans arent the worst things to happens to the planet, we aren't the biggest threat the planet faces. The things our antics hurt the most is us. We use up metal and fossil fuels, but that doesn't hurt the planet, it hurts us. when we use it all up our way of life will end and we may go extinct, our warmongering may scar the earth and cause a nuclear powered ice age. But come a few million years in the future our metal shall be a part of the earth and out bodies will leave a layer of fossil fuel and the cultures of the future generations of the earth will reap the bounty of our passing just as we have reaped the bounty of the Dinosaurs and the ancient forests and coral beds that turned to our fuel. If we make the atmosphere mostly carbon dioxide and hot we will wipe out the sensitive oxygen breathers who cant stand the heat and those who can will proliferate and strengthen the future denizens.
Or we change our ways, and survive long enough to see either the end of the earth, or the colonization of other solar systems. Either way, we don't really make a difference.
I always wondered about this (birds and other animals adapting to avoid becoming roadkill). Hope you guys do more stories like this in the future. Natural Selection is awesome and I find it hard to find enough fresh content on it to satisfy my interests.
NYC dogs and cats have evolved to crossing the street. They wait at the light with the people.
That's actually really awesome. They're evolving intelligence to combat their environment. Maybe one day several thousands of years from now, we'll live alongside cats and dogs as intelligent as we are now.
To be fair, regardless of how high we hold ourselves, a Human is still an animal. And natural selection can be caused by other animal populations, so no I wouldn't say that this is "artificial selection". Distinctly survival of the fittest.
Yeah, this isn't the first I've heard of this. I'm not 100 percent on the specifics but some spices of Wolf are mating with Coyotes in Canada and they are actually migrating to the US. The hybrid looks like a small muscular wolf that avoids human interaction. Crazy stuff!!!
jayson franklin That looks very interesting
I'm getting pretty tired of seeing these "DNews" videos in my "Featured" section.... and what he just explained was not evolution... if anything that's just adaptation..
Adaption is a change in behaviour.
Evolution is a change in composition of the body of a species.
As far as I know.. correct me if I'm wrong.
The definition of evolution is ambiguous..
When Darwinists use the word evolution all the time, to explain everything, they are using a method known as “bait and switch” (define a term one way, but use it in a completely different way later).. So the definition of evolution has become complex.
Evolution means change. When explaining change in species, it is called "Evolution through the process of natural selection". You may be thinking of macro-evolution which refers to huge changes such as Speciation (the formation of new species). However, what was shown here was micro-evolution (changes within a species): Shorter wingspan. Both micro-evolution and macro-evolution work through the same mechanisms, but macro-evolution requires more time.
I understand what these terms relate to... but where as one can be observed in present time, the other is a massive assumption... Adaptation / natural selection has been hijacked and wrongly used by evolutionists as the underlying mechanism of evolution... Rather, it is a mechanism that allows organisms to adapt to their environment in a fallen world.
Nate Nexige adaptation/ natural selection IS micro evolution, and thus evolution exists. as for macro evolution, through carbon dating we can find the age of fossils up to 185 million years, and the fossils we find have small changes in them as we find newer versions.
hey dnews its not just us in the past millions of years animals change (evolve) because of other animals ans ecosystems. prey got to fast so preds had to get fast. preds got to dangerous so prey had to change . run,defend they had to evolve get bigger faster ecosystems change got colder so they had to adapt evolve a white coat to blend in the snow. so in this case these swallows had to adapt to there new ecosystems via oncoming traffic so when you say are we the reason for there changes .. yes we are but something has always been a cause for something else to change,evolve,and adapt .if everything was perfect then why evolve why change if there is no need to change. like take the polar bear dna studys show they are grizzly bears that adapted to the life in the arctic but if there was no such thing as cold freezzing weather or snow we wouldnt have polar bears. so everything has an impact on something
I think "artificial selection" implies a design, like when we breed dogs or corn for certain traits. Which makes this still pretty much natural selection, in that they're simply adapting to their environment, even if that environment includes us.
But that doesn't necessarily mean all change is for the better. Like any evolution, the environment could change making their new adaptations harmful.
"Survival of the fittest" does mean the strongest survive, it means those most fit to change do.
I always liked to think that there may relic populations of passenger pigeons tucked away in dense forests in North America, or even South America. The birds that traveled in huge flocks were such easy targets for humans and their guns. The pigeons that lacked instinct to travel in huge flocks would have lasted longer and had better chances of reproducing. Also, by preferring to stay put in deep forests they could avoid humans better, thus surviving.
It is evolution. They are adapting to their environment as it changes. Evolution can happen a lot quicker than one might think. It'd have to with all of the mass extinction events that have gone on is earth's history.
Adaptation is not evolution, rather just a vital segment of it. Evolution happens when speciation happens over time... lots of time. Many more lifetimes than single human lives can map and keep track of. That being said, the shifting of wingspans from a larger average to a smaller one is not an example of evolution, rather adaptation. The entire being of the animal, including the population it comes from and following generations, in all of its complexities would have to be almost entirely different to constitute as evolution.
Furthermore, what happens after even more time passes (perhaps 30 years or so)? At some point, if environmental pressures don't change (i.e. traffic remains the same), average wing spans will stabilize and adaptation will slow back down. This is because the need to adapt from the example environmental pressure will have fixed itself.
Bottom line... this is not an example of true Evolution, or humans increasing Evolution. Evolution is far more complex and is the culmination of millenia of adaptive changes through natural selection, stabilized mutations, and genetic drift.
Actually evolution is defined as " the change in the inherited characteristics of biological populations over successive generations" which definitely fits this story. So even though there's a lot more to evolution, like speciation, this is still an example of it. Just like, say, neuroscience is just one part of biology, but it's still classed as biology.
The evidence provided in the video does not support the title of "humans speeding up evolution". This is not an example of such a case, this is just an example of humans causing a species to adjust one aspect over time.
Here are some reasons why humans have not sped evolution in this example. The rate at which the birds breed has not increased, so genetic variations are happening at a more constant rate. This was data that was collected after a good number of years; all that was shown is that human influence can bring about a shift in genetics. It does not identify a factor which "speeds" evolution.
The wing size is only a single factor that has been linked to heavy traffic; If traffic is removed, a separate factor may influence the birds over time to have larger wings once more (i.e. size intimidation for predators, higher top speeds, etc.).
tl;dr Humans (traffic) are the cause of the resulting shift of wingspan; however the evidence provided does not identify a real factor that "speeds up evolution", just a cause in shifting a single trait within the population.
What it DOES show is that adaptive change occurs through human influence, thus humans have the ability to influence change. I suppose it could be argued that the adaptive stress that humans are applying are causing a population to change in ways it normally would not have done. In that case, humans could continue to bring about different alterations at a pace quicker than a stagnant or slow changing environment does.
An example of how quickened alteration has worked is through selective breeding. Dogs have many different breeds, a large number of which were bred through human intervention. There are now breeds that cannot interbreed through normal means (i.e. a large-sized dog like a great dane cannot physically mate with a small breed like a chihuahua). And even with these drastic alterations, speciation has not happened.
My ultimate point is that while the data collected is interesting and significant to scientists in the ways of learning how adaptation occurs, which factors can cause what, etc., the title of the video is misleading.
Yeah, I agree with all of that.
Scott Ostrander
so you don't believe that chemicals and waste in water that they may drink from is not effecting them..including many other odd things that have been happening to many other animals?
Actually I am saying quite the opposite, that in fact chemicals and human wastes DO have an impact. I am not denying that humans have an impact, but how is this video an example of humans increasing the rate at which evolution is happening? It could be argued that humans are currently the greatest pressure on many species to adapt, but claiming that evolution is speeding up is an extraordinary claim. Such a claim requires much more data than an example of bird wing span changes over generations.
Thankyou for not giving bias interpretation or overexageration of evolution.
No its probably not natral selection, but similar pattern.
the only thing HUMANS are "speeding up" is how dumbed down we're becoming
I blame the media.
Xenos and Hollywood
pyramidhead138 Definitely the media and Hollywood.
Xenos I blame Obamacare.
Torguish ppl were becoming dumbed down before Obama was ever in office
Pretty awesome, its survival of the fittest against us humans, there adaptation is revolving around us in my opinion.
-Alex
POKEMON SWALLOW IS EVOLVING PRESS B TO CONTINUE
Presses B. Swallow did not evolve. You a**hole.
lol
We aren't changing an entire species. There are still swallows building nest under rocky overhangs. Some birds have moved into concrete overhangs in territory that, until us, had no overhangs. This is, therefore, a new branch.
A more relevant question might be "what happened to the species that made way for the building of the road?"
take that creationists
+Kyle D yeah you tell em
Such a cool video! It's amazing to me some people still consider evolution fictional, especially after examples like this!
Animals only evolve for the better, never for the worse. The presenter is a bit of a dingus.
Dominic However, the presenter is still a dingus. He stated that the evolution was 'artificial', because we caused it. But, we are animals and we're a part of nature, and everything we do is natural, as it is our innate behavior. We build homes and skyscrapers, and we synthesize chemicals and stockpile on nuclear weaponry, enslave poverty of the 3rd world, embezzle tax money and go to war for profit. It's our nature.
Dominic That's not to say that can't change, though, that's what evolution's all about!
Dylan Parrott The technology is unnatural. The car, unnatural. When a person dies of 'natural causes' it's disease and old age. 'Unnatural' would be gun or being hit by a car.
Ultron IV kinda animals mutate the benificial mutations are considered evolution
Thank you! This is true that we are just another agent of evolution like any predator. Yet, we have evolved so far that we understand the process of evolution, maybe enough to speed it up or slow it down. The concept of Natural selection can be turned into "our own selection" of who lives and who dies. Now is this a good thing or bad thing?
humans are natural so everyone ever needs to shut-up
yes, but the things that humans are creating and bringing to the world every year, is nothing like anything that has been on the earth before. the things we are making aren't natural at all
So if I force you to drink a gallon of mercury it is natural for your genome to do so ?
I like where you're going with that idea. I think we can speed up our own evolution for sure as well as animals because we know the process and can manipulate it easily, yet is it ethical to do it?
I wouldn't think it's amazing it happened in 30 years. The avearge life span of a swallow is 4-6 years, each summer the females will have 2 "litters", and in Texas I imagine they simply wouldn't stop breeding, and they would have even more. If the longer winged birds died because of cars more often, then it only makes sense (un-amazingly) that in 30 years the more nimble traits would be past down. This is the very definition of evolution -adapting traits more suited to the lived in environment-
ev·o·lu·tion
/ˌevəˈlo͞oSHən/
Noun
The process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the...
The gradual development of something, esp. from a simple to a more complex form.
Synonyms
development - growth - progress
Antonym
catholicism
Okay, I added the antonym part, but if birds can evolve shorter wingspans to increase their survival rate in 100 years time, who's to say what can happen with another 1 million years?
I think this just proves that humanity is pretty good at killing things. *contributing to natural selection every day*
I wouldn't call it evolution, but i would definitely call it adaptation. Its the same species of bird, just adapted to it's environment.
The Feels That is precisely how evolution works - adaptions becoming the norm of a species IS evolution. How 99% of humans are incapable of understanding something so simple while also believing in imaginary friends (Gods) is beyond me.
The Feels Adaptation leads to evolution. It's evolution because it is happening on a population scale, if it is just one single individual that would be adaptation, but it's not.
That percentile is an arbitrary number I threw out to underline the fact that the majority of people out there believe religion over science. The majority of humans on this planet are either too dumb or ignorant to understand how rain works, let alone complex interactions between living systems in the biosphere. Then again, not everyone is a scientist either. I am proud to be one of the few on this planet that does not believe in Gods and other fairy tails. I am humbled more often by science on a daily basis [by living in reality] than a pious man will be over their entire misdirected life.
Anyone else that can understand and appreciate such beauty in our existence is okay by me.
There are two causes (or meanings) of adaptions, that through natural selection and that through mutations. We are not affecting populations of animals via mutations obviously, but *we are* causing natural selection to happen in the animal kingdom by our conjoined human actions.
We can see natural selection causing the tiny changes in animals, but is that evolution? No, because evolution is a collection of adaptions not a single one. It is like pointing to a couple of wheels in my garden and saying 'that's my car'. And by changes, I mean that nothing new is being produced either - like the wheels in the garden, they may increase or decrease in size, but I'm not seeing a chassis or some brakes develop.
The feathers of the birds may get larger, but how did the feather itself come about? In animals we either see feathers on animals, or not, there is no point in between like some sort of half-feather. The same goes for their beaks, even their specially designed feet.
Until we see the development of limbs and new body parts growing, rather than existing parts ever-so-slightly changing, can we label what we see and observe as evolution.
This has been an awesome comment string. I'm a firm believer, but wasn't so sure about this instance.
No, traffic just kills swallow's with bigger wing span. There are probably many mutations, but the ones that provide certain advantage can spread.
I'm very interested in what you have to say. Please elaborate.
My Dad told me 20 years ago that all birds in the USA have evolved since he was a kid. When he was a kid in the 1940s and 1950s he told me that when his family went on long drives in the car almost every time they hit and kill a bird. Now a days it is pretty rare to hit a bird with your car. I have only hit one in the 30 years I been driving. Birds are now flying higher on average then they did 60 or 70 years ago because of cars and trucks.
I don't consider artificial selection, because humans are not directly select the birds for personal benefit (unlike breed of dogs or horses) but it is a natural selection pressure by other life forms (like how the cheetah and the antelope co-evolved for millions of years).
The idea that we are somehow qualify as "above" nature and animals confuses me. Yes, it's still natural selection, and it doesn't matter if we're setting them up for something more harmful if the only way they can survive in the first place is having those shorter wings.
Regardless of what's shaping their environment, they're just adapting for better (longer, more offspring) life in their environment. It's still natural selection, because it's still unguided selection for advantageous traits in their environs.
It's exciting that we have figured it out, and that some animals are actually able to adapt to us. Hopefully, many more animals are adapting rather than dying out completely...
Also, this is evolution. Agriculture and domestication is the actual artificial selection...
"Could we be causing other changes to them that are actually harmful?"
No. If the new Highway Swallow has other notable differences from the Cliff Swallow, those differences are not harmful to the birds any more than any other change. It's the new normal.
If this lowers their life expectancy or makes them migrate differently, that's just the way this new species behaves. The harm was done to the old species.
Species always affect each other's evolution. we're animals, too, animals affecting the ecosystem. I think this just tells us evolution moves faster than we thought.
Scan complete. Grox iniatiation test complete.
Data: 100% Correct.
Life form: Unknown.
Intelligence: 2% beyond genius level.
Download Complete.
---
Congratulations, TheShadeboi. You are the first intelligent human I have seen on youtube in several years.
why is the tiger firing at earth in the tv behind him?????
I don't see how this is bad since the birds aren't really being harmed. I think it's incredible how they evolved!
How do explain the extinction of animals and species ? Are humans really speeding up evolution ? Or is this a case of survival of the fittest i.e rats and cock roaches thrive in wasteful man made environments ?
rapid evolution happens a lot during mass extinctions (nature kinda needs to lol) its happened before threw out history and humans are the cause for the next mass extinction so it makes since that along with all the species we kill of theres others that adapt
This isn't evolution "sped up". If you take the life of a typical swallow, say 7 years over the 30 year study you are looking at over 200 generations of swallows. That is a very reasonable rate of physical change for a species to go through. Since the birds aren't dying off from some other factor related to their shorter wing span I believe this is a perfect example of natural selection. The birds are adjusting to their environment to benefit their species.
Whether or not animals adapting to us is a good or a bad thing depends on the specifics of each case. If birds develop so as to not become roadkill as often, I'd say that's positive. Equally, if, let's say, tigers evolved to get dull grey fur coats, or if elephants evolved so as to not have tusks, it would be good for them (no hunter would be interested in those). On the other hand, our expansiveness have displaced or driven countless species to extinction, which is obviously bad.
B96blademaster, evolution is fact. The changes in the traits of a species over time is in response to a selective pressure which forces that species to evolve. E.g. The development of the human foot was a response over time enabling predecessors (primates) to travel longer distances efficiently. There is such extensive evidence not only supporting but PROVING this theory of evolution through homologous structures, embryology and DNA homology
First.. what made those particular swallows choose manmade structures over natural cliffs in the area? So.. yes we're affecting their evolution and they're increasing their own survival rates.. However, they choose to be near us.. egardless of the shaking of the structures and wind currents from traffic below and above.. cooler temperatures known to circulate below bridges/overpasses..
It isn't artificial at all since we are NOT TRYING to affect the swallow's evolution. Not all human interactions are artificial
What is the difference between natural and artificial? Is a beaver's nest natural just because it isn't human, though it serves the same purpose as a human home, even in that the materials are collected and gathered from surrounding trees and what have you, same with bird nests. Is a pistol fish's attack any more natural than a gun?
The differentiation is really not needed. Selection is selection. Those that survive survive.
Natural selection as I understand it is: the most capable survive. Most of the time predators have a small population, so it is usually environmental factors that drive mutations. In my opinion humans have so much an effect on our environment that we can and do effect other species. An earlier video described elephant not growing tusk anymore because they were being hunted. All this makes humans an environmental factor and predators. It is both fascinating and scary when you think about it.
If I may recall, artificial selection has some kind of intention behind it. For instance, farm animals that have certain characteristics are selectively breeded. This is not the same thing as natural selection, which has no will. I can't see how this example counts as artificial selection; the only difference I can see is that the environment is different, one in which is driven by humans and the other being the Earth's natural forces.
The title was ambiguous, the content is technically valid, however it would have been more interesting to look at how fast recent human evolution was.
this is selective breeding not of evolution. we're just narrowing the natural variation of wingspan in the species.
Natural selection occurs because of other organisms, not just climates and environments. Just because we happen to be the organism forcing this selection, it doesn't make make it unnatural.
as humans we adapt to the enviroments so if thigns get colder slowly we will get hairy if food gets harder to catch we get faster to catch it
Let me correct myself. What artificial really means is a synthesized version of something original. For example, human manufactured honey is artificial in the sense that it is a synthetic version of the original bee-made honey. But it is not artificial in the sense "Because we acted upon it."
So is that good or bad
Artificial Selection has to be on purpose though. It doesn't matter if the environment is artificial, it matters if the changes are brought on naturally. If humans bred the birds specifically for shorter wings or put the trucks there on purpose to make the bird's wings shorter, then it would be artificial. As it stands, it's on accident and thus natural.
I was about to write something, and then you wrote it for me. Awesome. :D
We are a part of nature, not above it, not under it.
They are just evolving to survive to their environment. Selective breeding is used in plants and animals to improve the particular trait that we desire for our own purposes.
People need to remember that WE'RE also part of nature. We use the words "natural" and "artificial" to distinguish ourselves from nature, but at the end of the day, we're just an advanced species, and just a part of nature as a common housefly.
So is it natural selection? Yes. It'd be artificial if we intentionally tried to change the species.
Well we do know life on Earth have gone through greater changes than some petty human intervention, like volcano's, meteorites, ice ages etc... So I stay positive.
And thanks, this picture has been with me for years since I first discovered it.
What you described is exactly what evolution is.
I don't like excluding humans from nature. We are as much a part of nature as the birds are and our creations are just as natural as a bee hive. This is natural and it's happening fast because it needs to happen fast, that's how nature works!
the amount of snout nosed butterflies on the front of my bumper hasn't changed in over 30 years.
Well, as humans we are changing the earth so it can benefit us and we tend not to see the creatures we affect with these changes. If we and to preserve/sustain all life in this planet then we have to look at all the variables that affect every species and changes the way we live life, even if it means to slow down our evolution.
So, the longer-winged birds are dying out because they can't survive in that environment (and obviously aren't reproducing), so over time more and more shored-winged birds will be born, live and thrive because they can. It's not the emerging of a new species, it's the decimation of a particular characteristic labelled as progress.
That tiger on his shirt has adapted well for survival. :3
If you subscribe to Einstein's theory of relativity, there was no such thing as time before the big bang; there was no "before." If you could reverse time and travel backward 13.7 billion years, you'd experience time grinding to a complete halt as all the matter in the universe condensed back into a singularity. Massive objects slow the passage of time, so all the mass in the universe would contain enough heft to cease it entirely.
I love you. I wish the entire world could read this comment. People get the notion that humans are some kind of monster breed, but everything we do is naturally ingrained within us. From our desire to protect our families to our desire to take things apart (living, machine or whatever) and learn.
I agree, the extended mind thesis is pretty cool and all, but thats just us making tools to serve new and multiple needs or uses. A tool is still a tool even if we have extended our perceptions and abilities while using it. We adapt to our technology more than we realize and we become powerless without it. I have an android phone, google maps and gps in my pocket is bloody handy but I'm stuck reading an analog clock at work if I forget it at home.
If human beings are part of nature one could argue that everything we do is an extension of nature and therefor natural. Even before humans, species died out due to over-consumption and environmental ruin. Just because we are a conscious species that can observe this change, in my opinion, does not make it any more sinister or any less natural.
The basic premise is correct. The surviving birds are naturally evolving as if affected by a natural predator, absolutely, But the car is unaffected by this interaction.
what specific assumptions are you referring to?
So how did they evolve just because the dead swallows have longer wings and the ones they find that are alive have shorter wings I don't see how this means they evolved, just like we are all different animals have minute differences maybe the ones with shorter wingspan were the only ones left to mate and thus this generation of swallows are descendants of the swallows with shorter wingspans that doesn't mean they evolved.
I don't think we're in the wrong for this. Animals are always forced to adapt to keep up with prey, predators, and the environment. Someone keeps thinking we're some kind of disaster to the world.
we couldnt be causing changes that are harmful to the birds or any other animal in their current environment. (which now includes us) any changes that occur will occur because the changes are helping the animals survive. That's how evolution works. No animal is going to evolve a disadvantageous trait. The bad traits for the current environment are "weeded out" . before the cars arrived the birds with longer wingspans probably could glide better letting them use less energy.
We are not bending them to our whim. If beavers building dams sped up natural selection, we would consider it natural. Therefor us building highways should not differ.
My dad's house has a weird new bird proliferating there too, but it's weird. Their tails have switched to look more like plane tails where they are turned 90 degrees.
think about it this way. those birds chose to nest there. 18 wheelers and other vehicles are a natural occurrence in that type of location. i say it still counts because of what natural selection is. in that environment if a bird cant get out of the way it shouldnt breed more birds that cant either.
"Are we causing changes that are more harmful?" well, obviously the longer wing span didn't work out to well for them. Being alive was less harmful than being dead last time I checked.
two hours tell the live hangout , awesome
We are part of Earth therefore natural selection.
Predators control prey population size . And that is natural . Prey adapts to avoid/hide/escape predators .
Why do people keep forgetting that, though we are radically different from other animals in nature, we are still animals, and still part of nature? When animals evolve adaptations to better survive alongside humans, that is still natural selection, same as any adaptation they might make to survive alongside, say, wolves. We tend to think of ourselves as something apart from nature, but we aren't.
We created roads and vehicles, and are selecting for the species that can adapt successfully to them, albeit unconsciously. Since the traits gained would not have occurred without human interference, they are artificially induced traits.
If vehicles were natural in origin it would be a different story.
Assuming that Selection is somehow less natural and more artificial because it‘s caused by Humans, misunderstands the role, Humans play. We are still Nature. Everything we build is still Nature. Everything we know is Nature. We are not separate.
How are humans somehow separate from "nature" and natural selections? How are our highways "artificial" while a bee's beehive is "natural"? We are part of nature and our technology and habitat is a natural product of our evolution. Birds and other animals have to adapt to us the same way the impala had to adapt to avoid becoming prey for lions and cheetahs. We're all in this together.
It wouldn't surprise me if cliff swallows who still nested int he cliffs were more like their pre-highway ancestors. We might actually be seeing the evolution of Cliff Swallows into Overpass Swallow.
The change in natural selection being human cars, a new predator, a change in climate, a volcano etc... does not really matter to me.