• IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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    10 months ago

    One of reasons why some biologists suggest that one of the most evolutionarily successful animals on the planet is the farm chicken.

    At an estimated global population of 35 billion, it’s definitely doing a lot better than our 8 billion.

    And evolutionarily successful doesn’t mean you get to be the best, fastest, strongest and have the best most comfortable life … evolutionary success just means that there are more of your species creating more generations of your kind everywhere. The hope being that the more there are of your species, the more likely your kind will survive in the future.

      • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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        10 months ago

        The turnover in generations is all that evolutionary success is. It’s the mechanism that’s been driving life on earth for three billion years. It doesn’t mean that the individual life form is happy or comfortable … it just means it lived long enough to create another generation.

          • Everythingispenguins@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            They never said natural selection. But that doesn’t matter. Evolution happens regardless of whether the selection is natural or artificial. All they were talking about was reproductive success and how that is the driver of selection. They even made it clear that evolution cares not for the quality of life just that the genes are passed down.

            Spelling

            • killeronthecorner@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Then call it reproductive success instead of dishonestly causing it evolutionary success. And I didn’t state that evolution requires or doesn’t require anything, you brought that up - we’re talking about whether it’s considered successful, which is a philosophical question.

              Artificial selection is not a reflection of a species’ ability to survive in the natural world and to me that is not an example of success over the longer, think-billions-of-years, term.