Learning Evolution

@DocSavage [quote]Once again, eh ?
Ok, try this. You are aware that living organisms tend to reproduce, right ? It’s how they pass down their genetic information to the next generation. Nature’s version of a xerox. However each time the information is passed down, the copy is not identical to the parent. There are variations, mixing , changes. Enhancement, and defects. Depending on the conditions. These differences, allow the organism to thrive in it’s environment. When this is the case, it allows them to pass down the advantages to future generations. Those without the advantage leave , or die out, no longer able to reproduce. This is natural selection. Those best suited, will continue.
That is the basics. One becomes two, they go their separate ways two becomes four, four becomes eight and so on. By the time you reach the thousands , and millions, they look nothing like the twos, tens , or twenties. That is why you have so many different specie. They are related, but no longer the same.

You get it yet. Life grows and changes as it goes. As simple as I can make it for you.[/quote]

I'm having a problem with enhancement. How do enhancements take place. How can something passed down be enhanced? Defects make sense but not enhancements. Why would those not possessing the advantages die out once they appeared suddenly in others when they hadn't died out prior to those advancements?

@newjaninev2 Okay. Thanks for the answer.

@AkioTsukino The environment is constantly changing.

A defect in one environment is a defect only in light of, and because of, that environment. Change the environment, and the defect can become an advantage... for now.

Genes operate in several environment e.g. the ever-changing natural environment, and the ever-changing set of other genes with which they operate. They cannot know what those future environments will be.

Genes march backwards into the future... which is why evolution isn’t teleological.

@AkioTsukino
What she said. It’s in the genes

@newjaninev2 Now I'm going to do a sort of word (or concept) association exercise I like to do to advance my thinking in any possible direction. Don't get upset if I say something which is wrong because I'm playing with possibilities, whether right or wrong. Sort of like Paul Atreides with future paths before him. A puzzle. Does this piece fit? No. Okay, set it aside . . . .

Random defects and advantages are defined by the outcome after the fact as we perceive them.

The environment is constantly changing. Can changes be varied in length of time. A dramatic change or more subtle, again, as we perceive them. It's not like clockwork.

A pathogen doesn't leap from animal to man in a short period of time. It would take a greater period. Say, 400,000 years as opposed to a trip to the wet market.

A new breed of dog can be manipulated in a short period of time. Are genetically modified foods accelerated evolution?

If humans created AI that for whatever reason decided light skinned people were useful or not useful and began either using them like we do cattle or destroying them like we do pests, would the rapid advantages to dark skin people be evolution?

Can the changes in the environment themselves be regarded as evolution? (I think it was you who, in this thread, bring up nature and natural selection. Hopefully I will get to that later.

Of course, genes can't "know" anything. Could you briefly elaborate on what you mean by "know"? No objection there, of course, just need clarification.

Teleological: relating to or involving the explanation of phenomena in terms of the purpose they serve rather than of the cause by which they arise.

Excellent. Okay, I don't know if I've already mentioned this, but so far it is pretty much clarification of what I knew and excepted about evolution. No need to comment on that last statement.

Thanks for the information.