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Author Topic:   behaviour
Larni
Member (Idle past 164 days)
Posts: 4000
From: Liverpool
Joined: 09-16-2005


Message 16 of 18 (401818)
05-22-2007 10:54 AM
Reply to: Message 13 by ogon
05-21-2007 4:52 PM


Re: Remedial Reading For MartinV
Do you remember in the 80s when Bluetits started to raid milk bottles in the UK? A very interesting example of behavioural evolution.
Look here
It's a very good site from my uni.
Anyone tell me how to shorten links?
Edited by Larni, : Shortened link.
Edited by Larni, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 13 by ogon, posted 05-21-2007 4:52 PM ogon has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 17 by AdminAsgara, posted 05-22-2007 11:20 AM Larni has not replied

  
AdminAsgara
Administrator (Idle past 2303 days)
Posts: 2073
From: The Universe
Joined: 10-11-2003


Message 17 of 18 (401829)
05-22-2007 11:20 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by Larni
05-22-2007 10:54 AM


Re: Remedial Reading For MartinV
Easiest way to shorten your link is use the url tags.
http://flyfishingdevon.co.uk...
or
whatever you want to link from
Click peek to see how it is done.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by Larni, posted 05-22-2007 10:54 AM Larni has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 18 of 18 (401905)
05-22-2007 6:31 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by ogon
05-21-2007 4:52 PM


Not Quite That Easy
In the light of what I now know about evolution, swallow migration doesn't surprise me as much as it did. Afterall, there are great migrating species in the seas, and overland as well as in the skies.
Whatever the method it has most certainly evolved over millions of years.
When we explained to you about the evolution of the flight of birds, then we knew how birds fly; we understood the mechanics; the laws of aerodynamics are known; we could look at intermediate forms which had feathers but no wings, or which could glide but which can't fly; we could show you lots of animals which glide from tree to tree.
Compare that with spectacular cases of instinct like the migration of the Monarch Butterfly. So far as I know, we don't understand what is happening: what the proteins are, what the genes are, how the Monarch Butterfly differs genetically from relatives that don't migrate, and why the Monarch Butterfly makes this crazy migration.
So I can't say "evolution can explain this" --- because I don't know what this is. I guess that evolution will be the explanation for the migration of the Monarch Butterfly like it turns out to be the explanation for stuff that we understand in depth and detail; but my only argument for this is that evolution is the explanation for stuff that we understand in depth and detail. It's worked fine so far, why should it break down over something we don't know much about?
And let's face it, humans have evolved skills which now enable them to circumnavigate the world and have now taken to navigating outer space! And not so long ago you might have been deemed mad to suggest such a thing.
This is a false analogy. We did not "evolve" ways of finding magnetic north, the latitude, the longitude, and so forth. We discovered them, and passed them down, not in our genes, but through cultural transmission.
Evolution is not that easy. There is a vague poetic analogy with human cultural development, but it's nothing that we can learn from or reason with --- indeed, on the thread where you asked how evolution works, you discovered that this analogy is horribly misleading.
An evolutionary explanation has to be in terms of mutation and selection: the fact that human material culture progresses is not a substitute for such an explanation.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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