HHMI: The Making of the Fittest: Natural Selection and Adaptation (Rock Pocket Mouse)

This video was produced by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. HHMI.org. It gives an excellent presentation of recent work done by H. E. Hoekstra and W. Nachman on the evolution of fur color of the rock pocket mouse on lava flows in the American southwest. I am posting it here because of TH-cam's superior streaming technology, and to make it more easily accessible for my students at Fullerton College.
NOTE: The narrator's colorful language in this video reflects Lamarck's processes and undermines the lesson on Darwin's patterns. The content of the science in this video is very useful. Lamarckian comments by the narrator are not.
Evolution = Genetics + Ecology.
I list my comments below...
Narrator says, "...any creature dependent upon camouflage..."
Suggested alternate wording, …”any creature that benefits from concealing colors.”
Implies that living things have requirements and expectations regarding their traits and surrounding environments.
Living things, like magnolia trees and rock pocket mice, neither activate their traits with knowing purpose, nor interact with their surroundings with expectations. Instead, they express genetically-influenced patterns inherited from parents, and conditioned through development. To the extent that those patterns accompany development toward sexual maturity, the related genes may get passed on to offspring. The rock pocket mouse doesn't "depend" on camouflage, but certain color patterns may reduce its visibility to predators.
Narrator says, “In the complex battle of life…”
Suggested alternate wording, ”In the complex interactions of life…”
Life is not a battle. So many things wrong with the narrator’s statement. Implies that living things are engaged in ongoing hostilities with each other.
The maintenance of life-related operations is inherently stressful because of constant depletion of internal reserves by ongoing cellular operations. To the extent that reserves are replenished, operations continue. Patterns in anatomy, behavior, physiology and development result in interactions with the surrounding environment that replenish reserves, or not.
Narrator says, “…the evolutionary game of hide-and-seek.”
Suggested alternate wording, …” the ecological interactions between prey and predator.”
Evolution is not a game, it’s not even a process. Evolution is a statistical result. The actions of “life” fall under the category of ecology. And rock pocket mice are not “trying to hide.” The concept of “hiding” is a complex abstraction that would require the mouse to construct an existential model of its own existence in relation to the dynamic components of its surroundings.
Narrator says, “…a battlefield to find one of the tiniest soldiers…”
Suggested alternate wording, …”an environmental setting to find one of the tiniest mammals…”
The planetary surface environment is not a battlefield. It is a physical setting occupied by self-persisting objects that consume the setting’s resources. As there is variety in the patterns of resource consumption, consumption operations in some individuals continue as a result of interrupting consumption operations in other individuals.
Narrator says, “As environments transform, so must the species that inhabit them.”
Suggested alternate wording, “As environments transform, previously useful patterns may no longer be useful, and newly introduced patterns may be useful.”
Evolution is not a “response” to environmental changes. That would be Lamarck. As environments change, living things either cope with these changes or they don’t. There is no awareness of urgency. Chipmunks in a pine forest ravaged by bark beetles are not pressed to transform themselves in response. If a new gene arrives in the population, and that gene accompanies increased viability, then so be it. But if such a gene doesn’t arrive, there is no summoning it.
Reference
Hoekstra, H. E., & Nachman, W. (2003). Different genes underlie adaptive melanism in different populations of rock pocket mice. Molecular Ecology, 12, 1185-1194.