Natural Science Forum / Biology / Paleontology / March 2007

No. You don't seem to know what devolution is, nor do you understand
that evolution is not directed in the sense you imply.

I drove to Chicago and back last summer. On the return trip, I turned
the car around and drove forward.

That's how evolution works. It just goes forward. Forward does not
mean progressive or teleological.

What you might call "devolution" is indistinguishable from
"evolution". Therefore, "devolution" isn't a useful term.

Cetaceans evolved from land creatures which evolved from aquatic
species. It was all evolution, not devolution.

--
Greg G.

Trees never hit automobiles, except in self-defense.

Just the opposite. The reason "devolution" ever became a word was
because people wanted "evolution" to be synonymous with betterment and
progress. If the changes were perceived to be negative, they wanted a
negative word.

The view that evolution has no directional arrow has won out, so there
is no need for a pair of words anymore.
KWW

No.  A common misunderstanding about the "fitness" idea is that there
is some sort of built in "Progress", in the way politicians use the
word.  Any shift in gene-pool averages for a population is evolution.
Whether in our eyes it improves things or makes them worse.
Humans could evolve (it'd take a while, and very unusual
circumstances, but for the sake of arguement) into jellyfish, and this
would be Evolution, not devolution.  From the cellular level we'd have
some serious work to do to catch up with them poison barb cells.  The
point is, it doesn't matter what the change is, it's still evolution,
not devolution.  And, it wouldn't happen unless it made us better
suited to reproducing in the environment that we were in.
<tongue-in-cheek>
Lets look at the US theocracy.  There's an active selection pressure
on selecting stupid+pretty+religious people.  Stupid people breed
more, go to church more, etc etc, while the more intelligent people
aren't breeding.  From a "Rest-of-the-World" perspective, US people
are "devolving".  They're becoming less fit to live in the world.  But
it doesn't hamper their reproductive potential in the US, so it's
actually evolution.  It frees more brain power to assist in getting
into each others' pants, etc etc...
</tongue-in-cheek>

Because it's a one way process.  You cannot undo evolutionary
changes.  The best you could do is "dig up" a gene from the clutter in
our DNA, and activate something that has not been active in a very
long time...but that would be genetic manipulation (intelligent
design, if you will..or moronic, depending on the specific gene).

Evolution, in a way, is like acceleration.  There is no real
devolution in the same way that there is no real deceleration.  Both
are meaningless without a reference point as well.  You could
accurately say that mankind is devolving, if you define your reference
point as "aquatic adaptation".  You could also say "evolving away
from".  Six of one....  For the concept of evolution vs devolution to
have any meaning, you need an external reference point.  That point is
completely arbitrary.  It applies only to our interpretation of the
process, not the process itself.

A real life example you are probably familiar with is in
conversation.  Since the meaning of conversation is generally assumed
to mean the exchange of ideas, with the assumption the more effective
the exchange of ideas, the better the conversation.  This gives us the
outside point from which to measure the evolution of a conversation.
You may have noticed that when you become involved in a conversation,
the nature and content of the conversation changes.  You probably look
at the process as evolving to a conversation of your preferred type,
though you would never actually use those words to express the
concept.  However, since the rest of us are using the reference point
of a conversation being the effective exchange of ideas, with the bias
towards responses that indicate that the ideas sent were at least
invited in for a beverage before a coherent responder rings my mental
doorbell and requests reciprocation, most of us consider the process
to be "devolution".  The conversation itself has no bias as to which
way it goes.

Aha! Evidence of independent thought! Or is it a case of 'you can't
get me I'm part of the Union'?