Wow.

[theweaselking]

"Children take energy and time! Wouldn't it be an evolutionary advantage to eat them instead? Eating your children would mean you live longer, so the lack of animals doing that disproves evolution! Duh, I eat poop!"

EDIT: Best answer yet is on page 2: "Having children is hereditary. If your parents had no children you probably will not either."

Comments

[misanthrope-mom.livejournal.com]

I have no interest in following the link, but I wish to commend you on your eloquent and expressive signal phrase.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Why eat them when with a couple years' work they're free labor? That's evolutionary advantageous.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

You owe me for the braincells reading that killed.

[catsidhe.livejournal.com]

This. I want my IQ points back.

[sanityimpaired.livejournal.com]

Typical creationist, almost three centuries behind the times. Also, forgot entirely about the satirical social commentary.

[ben-raccoon.livejournal.com]

Having read the post.. wow. What a textbook case of completely and utterly missing the point.

It must hurt to be that intentionally stupid.

[shiffer.livejournal.com]

Quite the opposite. If ignorance is bliss, truly these people must live in the Kingdom of Heaven.

[botia.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, it only hurts OTHERS :/

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Then there's also this one:

The human body is designed to give us dignity. These specific designs and abilities point to a Creator who cares about even whether we are embarrassed or not. There's no evolutionary advantage to not drooling. It's the gift of dignity.

[catlin.livejournal.com]

How is peeing dignified, or pooping?

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

'Cuz you learn to do it in private, duh.

[kalieris.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha - my body clearly did not get the message to give me dignity, as I spent a goodly portion of the day peeing out of my butt. Also, who doesn't drool?

[stormfeather.livejournal.com]

Damn you for forcing me to read that. Twisting my arm behind my back and everything!

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

"Sex is hereditary. If your parents haven't had any, chances are you won't be, either."

Never trust a religious forum to get the quotes right.

[zenokarasu.livejournal.com]

Wow, logic fail all around. I hope that's satire. I bet it is. Reminds me a bit of A Modest Proposal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal).

[botia.livejournal.com]

...

Without reading it, I will say that MANY animals DO eat their own young in certain circumstances. In felines, mothers will eat their babies if they do not feel that conditions are conducive to the survival of the young--conditions that include anything from a new dominant male taking over the territory, a congenital defect in the young, or food scarcity.

While some people find this horrifying, I try to explain that she is doing the best possible thing to ensure she will survive to produce viable offspring in better conditions, and there is no reason for her to sacrifice the protein (of young that would die regardless) to some other animal, when it could go toward her future survival.

Since she WILL die someday, though, she will do her best to ensure the survival of her genes by producing viable offspring and putting energy into making sure they survive to the age of reproduction, both by taking care of them and by teaching them the skills they need to do so.

Guppy parents will chase and eat THEIR young as well. Studies indicate that guppies whose parents did this were better able to evade predators than guppies who did not have this harsh upbringing. Of course, in captivity, aquaculturists often seek to raise as many guppies for sale as possible, so they remove the cannibal parents to optimize population. This results in "dumbed down" guppies. Not only do guppies learn to evade predators by parental cannibalism, but the weaker, slower ones are weeded out. And why, in this weeding out, should that protein go to some other predator, when the parents do the job just as well, and regain the protein to put into further reproduction?

Okay, now I'll go read it, but if my brain melts, it's YOUR FAULT.

[botia.livejournal.com]

W. T. F.

It's like saying 2 + 2 = 4 and having some numbnuts yell out, "BUT WHAT ABOUT WHEN 5+9=0.3? WHAT ABOUT THAT? HUH? WHERE IS YOUR FANCY MATHEMATICS NOW?!"

And just how the fuck do you respond to that?

[hel]

With a Very Large Club with which you hit them until they are quiet, that's how.

[jagash.livejournal.com]

I was just about to say this. Occasionally cannibalism is beneficial and thus it does occur in nature. It is more common for genetically unrelated members of the same species to be on the dinner plate though.

[frith]

Cannibalism does not have to be beneficial. The net impact of cannibalism on fecundity in a population has to be low enough to not reduce recruitment below a sustainable level. The same goes for the costs associated irrelevant structures such as the human appendix and the gross morphology of the tree kangaroo. There is no intelligence and there is no design in morphology and behaviour, there is only the result of billions of years of genetic arms race. There is no God, there are only dice.

[botia.livejournal.com]

Not to derail your point, but some folks at Duke University have done research indicating that the appendix in humans is not irrelevant, as was previously believed :)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21153898/

Which is why science is awesome; it is not dogmatic! When faced with information that conflicts with currently accepted ideas, instead of defending those ideas to stupidity, it is possible for scientists to take on new information and say, "Look, we know more now, and yay!"

(Although that doesn't always happen. But it can! And it does! And we haven't been relying on the same small set of information for 1000 years that cannot ever never NO WAY EVER be changed.)

[mejoff.livejournal.com]

That article was great, up until the end when it became highly amusing.


“I’ll bet eventually we’ll find the same sort of thing with the tonsils.”

I don't know if this has made it to the US medical profession, but over here in the UK they don't remove the tonsils routinely anymore due to their well documented contribution to both the immune system and the metabolism.

[frith]

Interesting speculation. Thanks! 8-)

[jagash.livejournal.com]

There are only dice, yet you can get a higher result by rolling more dice then fewer. Any behavioral trait which decreases the number of viable offspring will be selected against unless there is a significant benefit increasing the quality of the viable offspring. Cannibalism additionally selects for physical aggression which can harm social bonds and generally lead to a less successful population.

Your point is indeed applicable in bottom-up regulated populations of predators, preferably solitary ones. I tend to default herbivores (where cannibalism is less of an issue) and top-down regulated populations in general.

[frith]

It was my impression that top-down population regulation is a romantic view of self-farming nature that has been largely abandoned? Have things changed again since I graduated? Wolves, lynx and hawks tailoring fecundity in anticipation of prey density still sounds absurd. Thus, I would expect bottom-up regulated predator populations to be the norm.

With all the time that has been allowed for natural systems to increase in complexity, yes, there are many competing strategies at play (or dice), even within a given species, usually with a pay-off. But my point is that a deleterious behaviour does not need to have a pay-off to exist as long as sufficient members survive to compete. I'm making a parallel with the impact of mimics such as viceroy butterflies and sabertooth blennies on their models. As long the mimic densities remain below a threshold 'X' they don't impair the fitness of the models.

work time, gotta go.

[jagash.livejournal.com]

Yes and no; the wolves, lynx and hawks don't tailor their fecundity in anticipation but rather there is a 1-2 year time lag. Peak of rabbits in 2004 means a peak of new wolves around in 2005 and 2006 as the only limit to the wolves is bottom-up regulation of food supply. While bottom-up regulated predator populations are the norm, top down herbivore populations are equally common. If the world was solely bottom-up regulated the world would be brown rather then green which is definitively not the case.

Slightly deleterious behaviour and traits can indeed persist, however the more deleterious they are the less likely it is that those specific individuals will breed due to to that disadvantage and the less likely that the genes will persist. I am talking about net advantages; peacocks feathers are accounted for as an internal trade-off rather then simply being a single adaptation in a void.

I suspect that Monarchs are slowly adapting to change their colour combination or exhibit pheremonal cues to be more distinct from their mimics as they _must_ have higher predation in areas with mimics then in non-mimic areas.

Ditto on the work front.

[frith]

Plants protect themselves with tannins and other secondary compounds, thereby avoiding the brown-earth scenario. I remember lovely research on the availability first-year growth in woody plants and its impact on snowshoe hare populations. The hares starved and crashed without killing off all the plants. What was left was forage that had accumulated sufficient protective compounds to be rendered indigestible by the hares. Thus, the plants persisted and control of the hares is bottom up. North American porcupines are reported to follow an eleven year boom and bust cycle as well. Still, I grant you that there may well be many top-down regulated prey populations, I just can't think of any.

Some deleterious characteristics are selected for, first and foremost being senescence. 8-) Snuffing it and making room for the next generation as soon as you've popped out enough healthy offspring is a definite advantage, genetically speaking. Producing very many offspring displaying a wide variety of phenotypes and having most of them die is also a winning strategy. Perhaps cannibalism in r-selection species can help give speciation a little extra push by providing both population and selective force in one neat package -- the ultimate do-it-yourself organism, no waiting around for starvation or predators to weed through your ranks. Eugenics without loss of resources.

I'm always talking about net advantages. The individual is irrelevant. 8-)

Monarchs are a bit tricky. The two North American populations migrate, generation upon generation, all summer long. Their area is all of North America. That makes small population/bottleneck conditions difficult, except in their wintering grounds. Thus, I don't see monarchs reacting to viceroys. Viceroys, on the other hand, may respond better to selection pressures, assuming they don't migrate.

[jagash.livejournal.com]

I could continue the conversation, but we shouldn't keep babbling at the weasel. Thank you for one of the more engaging evolutionary ecology debates/discussions I have had in over a year.

[frith]

You're right, though I suspect the Weasel might be learning something. *evil grin* And thank you too, I've also had fun wrapping my brain around these favorite terms and concepts. 8-)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Dude, there is not a branch of science with which I cannot keep up.

Which is not to say that I know everything, but *do not* confuse that with the idea that I might not understand what you're saying.

[frith]

Hee hee! Got your goat! X-D

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

My goat is is an awesome goat.

[frith]

Yep. 8-) I have it trimming the lawn right now. 8-D

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

MUST CLICK AWAY FROM THE LINK!!! INTELLIGENCE VACCUUM SUCKING MY BRAIN INTO THE COMPUTER!!!


AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHH!!!

[gebkivistik.livejournal.com]

The OP was from Texas. 'Nuff said.

[ursulav.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's...special.

[faeriemuriel.livejournal.com]

I love that when people post good proof, the thread dies out there and they get ignored.

"Oh yeah? Can you SHOW me a gene that 'produces behavior'?"

"Um, yeah. I'm a geneticist. It's the super-scientificy-and-numbers gene, and here's three articles from independent sources that all talk about it in great detail, and here's lab results that show what happens when you remove the gene,etc.etc.etc. good response."

*crickets*