I love how idiots use devolve like it has any real academic meaning.
All changes are called evolution. Evolution is not "to improve", it is simply to change. because the utility of such changes is completely dependant on the environment and outside pressures, the superiority of said change is completely subjective. Therefore evolution is a neutral phenomenon.
The opposite of evolution is stasis, not devolution. In the same way that time can only move forward. There is no reversing evolution, you can only make further changes to resemble the older version but in the end, you're still moving forward and only superficially regressing. It will never be exactly the same as the older model
Also, sorry for the flowery language but I couldn't think of a less douche way to explain.
Ok but what if we reversed the arrow of time by building a machine that reverses entropy? Surely then it would be possible to devolve! Checkmate commies, can't devolve the United States into communism because it never was communist! :(
A perfect example of this, using even more flowery language is duckweed: Its a plant that evolved from the Arum Lily family, but has evolved to fit its particular ecological niche by having greatly reduced physiology, superficially appearing closer to an algae than the Spathe & Spadix inflorescence typical of Arum family plants. It grows as an undifferentiated thallus only several cells thick and a couple millimeters across, and mostly reproduces asexually via budding. Occasionally it will reproduce sexually, with the tiniest known flower of all the angiosperms, 0.3mm with a single stamen and pistil. It may have a highly reduced body plan, but it is a phenomonally successful plant, with a spoonful of plants able reproduce enough to cover a whole acre of pond in under 2 months. Just goes to show that evolution doesn't always necessarily tend towards a more complex design. And sometimes evolution to perfectly fill a niche can look like "de"-evolution from an outside perspective.
I love how idiots use devolve like it has any real academic meaning.
All changes are called evolution. Evolution is not "to improve", it is simply to change. because the utility of such changes is completely dependant on the environment and outside pressures, the superiority of said change is completely subjective. Therefore evolution is a neutral phenomenon.
The opposite of evolution is stasis, not devolution. In the same way that time can only move forward. There is no reversing evolution, you can only make further changes to resemble the older version but in the end, you're still moving forward and only superficially regressing. It will never be exactly the same as the older model
Also, sorry for the flowery language but I couldn't think of a less douche way to explain.
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There's that TNG episode "devolves' so the people return to Monke. Turns out we evolve into weird Salamanders according to Voyager.
Even in that episode it was just technically just activating inactive vestigial genetic code.
Ok but what if we reversed the arrow of time by building a machine that reverses entropy? Surely then it would be possible to devolve! Checkmate commies, can't devolve the United States into communism because it never was communist! :(
Return to :crab-party:
I will refer to comrade Stalin’s Dialectical and Historical Materialism for this. I just read it the other day and took like 100 pages of notes.
A perfect example of this, using even more flowery language is duckweed: Its a plant that evolved from the Arum Lily family, but has evolved to fit its particular ecological niche by having greatly reduced physiology, superficially appearing closer to an algae than the Spathe & Spadix inflorescence typical of Arum family plants. It grows as an undifferentiated thallus only several cells thick and a couple millimeters across, and mostly reproduces asexually via budding. Occasionally it will reproduce sexually, with the tiniest known flower of all the angiosperms, 0.3mm with a single stamen and pistil. It may have a highly reduced body plan, but it is a phenomonally successful plant, with a spoonful of plants able reproduce enough to cover a whole acre of pond in under 2 months. Just goes to show that evolution doesn't always necessarily tend towards a more complex design. And sometimes evolution to perfectly fill a niche can look like "de"-evolution from an outside perspective.