Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => Science and Technology => Topic started by: Nearly Sane on January 07, 2017, 09:36:45 AM
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Early days but still fascinating
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38519299
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Indeed.
Darwinian processes at work.
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Are the scientists very sure that Lamarckian (or neo Lamarckian) processes are not at work here?!
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Indeed.
Darwinian processes at work.
Indeed, but not a particularly new idea. The idea of both modifying and evolutionary influences playing a part in urban settings is well known. See this 2007 report, for instance.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1852758/
I would suggest that urban centres are a little like islands where flora and fauna either become extinct, manage to cling on or manage to flourish, either because of a successful modification of behaviour or useful evolutionary modifications or both. Hence,for instance, on islands, species often become smaller or larger in adjusting to local conditions(e.g. St Kilda wren, Darwin's finches), while in urban areas, adaptation of birdsong, for instance, seems to be phenotypical. In Minnesota, it seems that small urbanized mammals(shrews, voles, mice etc.) have experienced a jump in brain size.
One big difference, of course, between islands and urban areas, is the tendency for urban areas to change at a much faster rate than island environments.
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Indeed.
Darwinian processes at work.
That doesn't always mean a good thing. Our urban environments are not diverse enough to create a rich and viable setting.
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That doesn't always mean a good thing. Our urban environments are not diverse enough to create a rich and viable setting.
They seem to be diverse enough to create evolutionary change, albeit very incrementally, within a number of birds species - especially in their colouring.
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They seem to be diverse enough to create evolutionary change, albeit very incrementally, within a number of birds species - especially in their colouring.
Of course they will because they are an environment and species will try to adapt to them, because that is what they do, that's all they do, they will not stop!!!