/sci/ - Science & Math

Why should I care to ask an evolutionary biologist anything?

If the second law of thermodynamics is always taking us towards a state of higher entropy or disorder, how come evolution is continually creating systems of higher complexity and order?

>>2055829

You shouldn't.

>>2055831

Evolution doesn't always take this into a more "complex" state. Complexity is an ill-intended consequence, but not the case at all times.

Also, closed versus open systems; by your logic a fetus can't gestate.

why do you worship darwin if all hes theories were inaccurate or just plain false?

How can physical descriptions of how something operates determine if there is or is not a higher consciousness involved?

Why is my penis 8 inches?

>>2055820
Do you believe taxonomy is still useful in principle, or should it be abandoned completely?

So where does the entropy go in this open system?

i am the OP of that thread: >>2053565

what's your answer?

>>2055852
The 'named' taxons will probably be abandoned as genetic research reveals more resolution, but taxonomy itself is everything that biology is based on. It <span class="math">is[/spoiler] evolution (or at least our best guess at how it worked out).

>>2055844

Pic related.

>>2055845

The phenotype is the amalgamation of genetics and environmental interactions. tl;dr some luck and genetics

>>2055852


Pic related.

>>2055849

Taxonomy and systematics are vastly different. Both change rapidly with new genetic/morphological evidence and are still useful in higher-order organisms. In lower-order organisms (bacteria, etc) changes are so rapid the system is near inutile.

>>2055852
you mean linnean taxonomy vs cladistics?

>>2055820
Do you study abiogenesis?

>>2055860
The first vertebrate diverges from the invertebrate at the root of the tree. Subsequent vertebrate discoveries are added to that branch of the tree. It's no different than what we do.

>>2055860

With just those data and the symplesiomorphies present one could only infer adaptive radiation, not much more.

>>2055866
With all due respect filenamefag, sir, I would certainly love taxonomical loopholes that place me apart from furfags.

>>2055874

I specialize in lizard systematics and CytB diversity.

>>2055887
Meh. I've come to terms with them.
Graph to the left is everything that's wrong with that internet subculture.

>>2055883
yeas but can one define that easily what traits are homologous and what are analogous having such a limited knowledge?

>>2055894
>lizard systematics.

One of my professors would love you.

Also, I bow before your greatness.

>>2055902

Certainly.

Invertebrate anatomy is vastly different morphologically. Finding "just skeletons" reveals morphology; it would be easy to see that the structures arisen are from different embryonic tissue (analogous).

>>2055905

What's his last name? I may know his work.

inb4 Losos.

Do you focus at all on human evolution?

If so, what recent(3000 years and less) evolutionary change has occurred besides immunity? I think this is more anthropological imo.

>>2055922
Pianka

...yeah.

How does evolutionary biology answer how, given the number of species today is thought to represent only 1% of all species that have ever lived, the human species seem to be the only species that have such a high level of consciousness and intelligence to form abstract thoughts?

>>2055928

see >>2055894

Human beings have been getting taller on average with larger feet.

3000 years for an organism with a generation time of 20-25 isn't much time to do anything.

Could god create the universe 6k years ago and hide all these fossils in the rock just to mind-fuck you - and if he did, could you PROVE he did?

>>2055935
Lucky i guess.
HAVE YOU HAD YOUR DAILY DOSE?

>>2055894
Have you ever heard one of your professors say the word "abiogenesis".

>>2055894
in your opinion... don't you think keeping Varanidae as a monotypic family is kinda retarded?

should not we split Varanus' subgenera into genera?

>>2055935
Intelligence isn't always adaptive.
Having a brain that sucks up 20% of your daily energy usage is kinda expensive considering you could put that energy toward making more of you. Babies matter (and their babies); not intelligence. Intelligence just happened to be adaptive in our case.

>>2055894
what your opinion in the toxicofera hypothesis?

also IYO about: hyperoartia or cephalaspidomorphi for lampreys

>>2055931

I know of him, yes.

>>2055935
Methodological naturalism rules this case out.
Also, if this were true you would believe in a deceitful god.

Have fun with that; I'll stick to atheism.
Evolution only creates what is needed to pass on alleles. "High intelligence" isn't needed and a large component of of our knowledge is stored in culture.

If you were simply born in the jungle with no one to teach you language, etc. you would be as "primitive" as humans 100,000s of years ago. Our knowledge base has simply built up; we aren't necessarily smarter.

>>2055937

>>2055953
>Intelligence just happened to be adaptive in our case

Explain how, please

(srsly.. not a troll)

>>2055931 >

I know of him, yes.

>>2055935
Evolution only creates what is needed to pass on alleles. "High intelligence" isn't needed and a large component of of our knowledge is stored in culture.

If you were simply born in the jungle with no one to teach you language, etc. you would be as "primitive" as humans 100,000s of years ago. Our knowledge base has simply built up; we aren't necessarily smarter.

>>2055937 >

Methodological naturalism rules this case out.
Also, if this were true you would believe in a deceitful god.

>>2055944

No, I have not.

>>2055947

I feel keeping it a single group is the most parsimonious route.

>>2055967

I find it to be a superfluous add on, personally.

I don't know a lot about the second part of your post, sorry.

>>2055970
We don't know if that is how it is or not. Many people overestimate the power of NS and use post-hoc "just so" stories to explain things (mainly evolutionary psychologists).

I find Gould's ideas more appealing.

>>2055970Explain how, please

Think about it. You have a finite amount of energy. If you could spend 10% less on intelligence and 10% more on making eggs do you think that would be selected for or again?

In an environment in which intelligence helps you make babies the intelligence would be selected for. In an environment in which intelligence doesn't cause you to produce more offspring, it will be selected against in favor or doing something else with that energy.

>>2055935
I blame the anthropic principle.

And also I doubt intelligence could arise any earlier. octapi, corvids, simians and delphinids developed high intelligence rather recently in the upper cenozoic so I think there is some teleonomic pattern into this... Apes were just the lucky ones or the oppossed thumb gave them some serious advantage in developing primitive technology (inb4: then why are there still apes?)

>>2056002

This is an example of a post-hoc "just so" story.

State conditions and then fill in the rest. No empiricism used here.

>>2055937
Even christians agree that Loki is probably not real.

>>2055970
Well, given the situation we're in today, being more intelligent meant that our ancestors had more surviving children, right? It's not so much "why?" as it's "that's just the way it is". In our case, being more intelligent meant that you left more kids, probably because you were a better hunter or you invented agriculture. So, long term, it just happened that intelligence was a fitness advantage for our species. Other species took different routes, even other fairly closely related species took different routes. Paranthropus boisei was a much more robust species. Granted, they died out; it turned out that this wasn't the most well adapted strategy.

Then again, look at voles or lemmings. Not smart, but massively good at making babies. An old evolutionary design that continues down the path that's working for it.

Also, you should probably listen to Charles more than me...

I have a question OP, be prepared to answer it, it might take me a minute to write though so give me a minute

>>2056004
Scavenging omnivorous apes who hunt in packs and have thumbs.

>>2055980
>I feel keeping it a single group is the most parsimonious route.
Since we are able now to group them into taxa with distinct apomorphies verified by moleculars why should we?

>>2056018
In terms of absolute biomass you're hard to find an animal more effective than ants.

Using a better tripcode now.

What's your favorite sexual position?

is natural selection causally inert?

>>2056004octapi, corvids, simians and delphinids developed high intelligence rather recently in the upper cenozoic

Very interesting. It isn't that surprising that the mammals and even birds aren't that far off, but the octipi is odd. Do we really have fossil or genetic data that suggests that octopi had smaller brain sizes fairly recently?

luv your trips

how did you find these? chance and natural selection?

>>2056040

You can do the same thing with Bufo and Rana. It's pointless in my opinion because it is going to change anyways.

I take a lot of stances similar to Hillis with respect to divvying up groups when cladistically leaving them alone results in just as suitable answer.

>>2056051

Reverse cowgirl.

>>2056053

NS is the non-random, differential reproductive success among individuals within a population.

>>2056063

Downloaded a program.

>>2056020


OP, do you believe it is possible that alien life may end up not looking so physically different because of the way evolution works? To be more specific, consider this: Did humans get 4 fingers and a thumb on 2 hands because that's all we needed? If it is, could it be true that other, sentient alien species might have humanoid characteristics because "That's all they needed to survive"? Humans don't have the strength of a silverback gorilla or the claws of a lion because our ability to think made up for this in terms of helping our survival, right? Then, is it possible, that because other alien species will be sentient, they will not have claws, or be extremely muscular, etc, because like us, they did not need those things to survive? Then is it possible, if not likely, that they may also have the same amount of arms as us, the same amount of legs, the same amount of eyes and ears because evolution (And I apologize for making evolution sound like a person, but its hard for me to describe this without doing so) did not grant us more than we needed? We did not need 3 arms, so it gave us two. We did not need 10 foot high legs, so it gave us 2-3 foot ones. Can we expect that because sentient alien life has to survive many similar obstacles as we have, like resources, shelter, and predators, that they will be given many of the exact same parts as us?

you can give me what you know, what you think, whatever. i just want insight

pic is to help illustrate - i'm asking if sentient alien life will look more humanoid, like the thing in this picture, as opposed to some kind of strange non-humanoid creature.

>>2056018Then again, look at voles or lemmings. Not smart, but massively good at making babies. An old evolutionary design that continues down the path that's working for it.
>Not smart, but massively good at making babies.

An evolutionary path that will always remain popular...

>>2056059
no

just some paleontology and phylogeny

though all modern coleoid cephalopods are somehow smart only octopodidae seem to be comperable to "higher" land vertebrates

not sure but I think given their phylogenetic tree my geuss they diverged from other octopoda somewhere after the eocene

Nautilus is a retard.

>>2056079

I doubt alien life will be a bilateral biped with cephalization near the anterior end.

Life on another planet in my opinion will not look like our life does.

Also, evolution does not give one what one needs, but what one can pass on its genes with.

>>2056079
I'm not Charles, but so far as exobiologists seem to think: No. Convergent evolution only goes so far and may depend upon the underlying genetic code all life on Earth shares in common.

There's no reason life somewhere else would bear anything other than a superficial similarity, and intelligent life could evolve ways of interacting with its environment that we can't even imagine.

>>2056064
>You can do the same thing with Bufo and Rana.
and give cladistic hell?

Bufonidae and Ranidae are far from monotypic families you know...

>>2056108
>>2056113

i see

thank you guys

>>2056088
ALLAH HU ACKBAR!!!

>>2056125

Monotypy doesn't mean shit to phylogeny.

Do you mean monophyly?

Could the Zerg have evolved chitin and adrenaline indepedently to terran organisms? or do you think the Xel' Naga utilized Earth's organisms' DNA for engineering the them?

>>2055999
>Many people overestimate the power of NS and use post-hoc "just so" stories to explain things (mainly evolutionary psychologists).

>>2055980
>Evolution only creates what is needed to pass on alleles.

"High intelligence" isn't needed and a large component of of our knowledge is stored in culture.


>If you were simply born in the jungle with no one to teach you language, etc. you would be as "primitive" as humans 100,000s of years ago. Our knowledge base has simply built up; we aren't necessarily smarter.

I suppose that makes sense. To try to avoid going into the realm of 'evolutionary psychologists', would it be our creativity rather than our intelligence a better advantage to survival?

As in >>2056018
>or you invented agriculture

tools to survive, knowledge gets passed down, that knowledge gets expanded upon... we live fat comfortable lives breeding like lemmings?

>>2056140
I'm speaking about more traditional taxonomy. Since phylogeny on that is not contested I just don't see the reason to keep a family with only one very large genus when there are rather distinct clades within it.

>>2056147

Many of the Zerg do not appear to be too chitinous (see zergling, mutalisk), nonetheless they do have chitin.

Many appear to have features of the group Chelicerata.

>evolved chitin and adrenaline indepedently to terran organisms

Implying chordates use chitin.

>do you think the Xel' Naga utilized Earth's organisms' DNA for engineering the them

I think the Zerg arose due to natural processes.

OP, please give an honest answer, as this question may seem dubious in sincerity.


What do you believe to be the evolutionary cause for "negro rage" and the intelligence disparity within human races?

>>2056158
Wasting energy on excess intelligence is no longer disadvantageous enough to make it difficult for us to breed effectively, so there's no evolutionary pressure to exclude it.

>>2056147
These aren't exactly highly complex, improbably molecules you're talking about. A fucking plant could have evolved them by chance for an entirely different purpose.

>>2056166

On the taxonomy I prefer one group because it is easier to keep things straight.

But if others use the split groups' names I know what they are talking about (if it's an area I know of).

Taxonomy is not my thing; I like phylogenetics. Renaming things pisses people off.

>>2055820
How come Charles Darwin is a 33rd Degree Freemason?

>>2056002
>If you could spend 10% less on intelligence and 10% more on making eggs do you think that would be selected for or again?
interesting since cephalopods were brought up in the conversation

Ammonites during the Mesozoic were way more succesful than nautiloids due to massive planktonic egg production. But during K-T extinction event were conserving nutritients and increasing chance for individual survival became more important Ammonites went extinct while the large and few sinking eggs of Nautilus ensured their survival.

>>2056181Wasting energy on excess intelligence is no longer disadvantageous enough to make it difficult for us to breed effectively, so there's no evolutionary pressure to exclude it.

There are plenty of other reasons high intelligence is selected against in humans. For example being religious significantly increases fecundity.

>>2056177

>What do you believe to be the evolutionary cause for "negro rage"

I do not think there is an evolutionary cause to this. If this arose evolutionarily, it would mean "angrier" blacks reproduced more for some reason. I find that notion laughable.


>and the intelligence disparity within human races?

Races are easily demarcated on the morphological level but not the genetic level. Genetically it is impossible to tell a white from an asian or black. IQ does have some correlation to it (heritability) but a large component is simple drive to succeed etc.

Studies do show mean IQs being different in different races. I feel that this needs to be looked into more; I do not think the genetics of asians or blacks makes their IQs different but rather the socioeconomic statuses and cultures they are raised in.

Also, this logic assumes there is only one kind of intelligence.

>>2056202

>For example being religious significantly increases fecundity.

No, it doesn't. Secular women are just as physiologically prone to have children.

Behaviorally they have more children, but that is not fecundity.

This is me being a pedantic dick.

>>2056171Implying chordates use chitin.

Quick search suggests it's the same molecule that's used in the cell wall of many bacteria.

>>2056218

How is that relevant? Bacteria aren't chordates.

>>2055820
If man were descendant from apes, how come 15% of man are RH negative?

>>2056215Secular women are just as physiologically prone to have children.

[CITATION NEEDED]

Show me a single study that persuasively demonstrates there is no link between religiosity and ovulation.

>>2056185
Have you noticed that Starcraft was somehow prophetic in the religion (Protoss) vs evolution (Zerg) "controversies". Though there is some role reversal here with the religious people being closer to massively unintelligent individuals relying on sucide tactics and numerical advantage for serving a hivemind that intends to assimilate all sentience within it.

>>2056205

Well, trans-racial adoption studies with high IQ parents have shown the incongruity to be innate. The deficits were still apparent, although all the children had significant gains in IQ test performance. In contrast to what would have been, at least.

Perhaps it isn't specifically the genetic differences within race, but the differences populations may have on the hereditary aspect of cognition?

A constituent of intelligence is not a direct aspect of racial genetic differences (the ones that cause oneself to be identified as a particular race genetically), but only an aspect of certain populations that happen to be a majority of the same race being genetically inclined for low intelligence?

Much like if I painted a bunch of fast cars blue and gave them better brakes, nether of these modifications would be why this "population" of cars performs so well.

>>2056228
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

you are asking him to prove a negative, please don't.

>>2056171
>Implying chordates use chitin.
by Terran I meant "from earth" not Koprulu's Homo sapiens colonists.

>>2056236
>>2056236
>>2056236

Performance being defined by speed, of course.

>>2056232Though there is some role reversal here with the religious people being closer to massively unintelligent individuals relying on sucide tactics and numerical advantage for serving a hivemind that intends to assimilate all sentience within it.

Going to be ironic when evolution creates a species of human that no longer is capable of believing in evolution.

>>2056236 I painted a bunch of fast cars blue and gave them better brakes, nether of these modifications would be why this "population" of cars performs so well.

Bigger brakes do result in better performance. Shorter stopping distance means later braking in corners. This is me being a pedantic dick.

>>2056205
>it would mean "angrier" blacks reproduced more for some reason. I find that notion laughable.
Google British-Zulu war...

FUCK YEAH SHAKA!

>>2056228

This is nonsense. "Religiosity" can't even be quantified.

You want me to find a study that finds no correlation between a parametric statistic and a qualitative covariance.

At best you can correlate the two. But like you should have learned in grade school: correlation is not causation.


>>2056227

Humans are apes.

>>2056261
>Going to be ironic when evolution creates a species of human that no longer is capable of believing in evolution.
[spoiler] All shall serve the Swarm [spoiler]
Evolution wins.

Okay, I'm just going to go out on a limb and suggest something crazy.

Do you think that, very early in evolution, there could have been community-level selection? Let's say, for example, that there are several layers of differing temperature water and each layer has a predator organism and a prey organism. These organisms are barely bacteria. Now let's say that a small change in the predator of one layer makes it VERY efficient. It's been proving that efficient predators destabilize communities. NOW, let's say that the predator drives it's prey to extinction and subsequently goes extinct. I know that the actual selection effects only the individuals, but can't we say something more about the collapse of the community than "Oh, trophic cascade."? Anyway, finishing the story, the entire layer is opened up because the entire community was destroyed and is subsequently, slowly colonized by neighboring layers.

I mean, I know it's still just selection at the level of the individual, but I wonder sometimes if we've lost entire communities do to mechanisms like these. We'd never know they existed.

>>2056264

What makes you an evolutionary biologist?

>>2056205
>Genetically it is impossible to tell a white from an asian or black.
Just check the eumelanin transcripting genes, mate.

You probably mean that you cannot discern clear phylogenetic lineages and solid apomorphies between human "races". amairait?

>>2056236

I find the IQ test to be contentious. It has its uses but I do not feel it is a great model of human intelligence.

See Richard Feynman.

>>2056300
>>2056300

Irrelevant, you didn't address my question.

Oh no. I'm detecting large quantities of /new/ in this thread.

>>2056290

I have published in the field and am finishing up a PhD in evolutionary biology.

>>2056295

The genetics are nearly the same; the degree they are "turned on" is different.

>>2056280
Ignore misspellings; I'm tired.

Also, I know it's still just at the level of individuals, but it bothers me that the reason we see systems with inefficient predators (stable systems) is because the ones with efficient predators already crashed (unstable system). Could an unstable system ever develop in order to crash? Maybe that's the answer...

>>2056309
Fuck your question. Let's have him answer the most important question:
What makes you an evolutionary biologist? Are you a PhD, or just some bored grad student?

>>2056309

Your questions could have 100 different answers. My answer would just be an opinion.

>>2056314
>>2056314

Save the "negro rage", I was asking a serious question about racial intelligence and genetics that is relevant towards this thread.

>>2056309
He can't. Neither is he a psyfag, nor are you.

You both have naive concepts of and on intelligence.

>>2056329

See >>2056318

I will be done in April with the PhD.

Post-doc hunting atm.

>>2056330
>>2056330


Mmk, understood.

How do you feel about pre-meds?

>>2056171
>Many appear to have features of the group Chelicerata.
Did not notice that. Why specifically chelicerata?

Segmented chitinous exoskeletons and joints are one thing but... how can you see specifically chelicerata's traits in them?

>>2056280

I only recognize selection on the gene level or individual level.

I do not support higher levels of selection.

>>2056318
>The genetics are nearly the same; the degree they are "turned on" is different.
so... epigenetics are wacist?

How can you believe in evolution if it's just a theory (a geuss)?

>>2056350
that's very hard cladistics right there dude

chill out, taxonomy is nice (fits my aspenger's)

How old are you? Would you be surprised to see a 26 year old ex-accountant in one of the undergraduate courses you TA? I say this because I refuse to be a bean counter any longer.

>>2056339

Here is a good question.

FUCK THEM.

They are terrible, petty things; if ego could be represented as space-time, they would be black holes.

The only attend office hours to argue over a half point and think they are better than their classmates.

I hate hearing "I am in your bio xxx class; my name is xxx I am pre-med and want to know what I need to do to get a B... blah blah"

I TAed the first semester of biology. 80% of the class was pre-med; half of them failed the course. Failed.

Only a handful got a B+ or better.

>>2056346

I was thinking of a hydralisk with the modified mouth parts. Made me think of Chelicerata.

>>2056356
Yes, good food, health care, social response and receptiveness are racist.

Also, intelligence is not the field of OP.
You might as well ask him about his feelings on the colour of a gannet's feet.

>>2056350I only recognize selection on the gene level or individual level.

What about clade selection or body plan selection? Surely massive extinctions of a whole variety of related species are part of evolution.

>>2056356

They must be!

>>2056370

??

>>2056372

I am 27. I would not be surprised. A grad student I know is in his 50's for his PhD.

>>2056323
I do think that natural selection favours ecosystems that collectively have some sort of homeostatic mechanisms and a climax-circle as a backup. We would have to rely on hippy-neopagan esotericism to rationalize natural balance otherwise.

>>2056387

I do not support those ideas.

Clades can be disparate (see anolis or mulluska) and would have different selective pressures within the clade.

Body plans are heritable along with the rest of the individual; this is nothing more than looking at individual selection in a different light.

Also getting tired of CAPTCHA.

>>2056387
No, he's right. Even I (the guy who posted the question he responded to) stated that individual is where it stops ( >>2056323 ). Even if the results are big, the selection still happens at the level of individuals.

The main thing I was getting at was that is bothers me how stable ecological systems are.

>>2056415ecosystems that collectively have some sort of homeostatic mechanisms and a climax-circle as a backup

What mechanism could create this sort of homeostasis?

>natural balance

>implying there is a natural balance and earth's life isn't just riding some evolutionary bubble that's going to burst

>>2056394
>I would not be surprised
That's refreshing to hear. A lot of my family and friends are pushing me to do it, but it just feels a bit frightening to go through college again, this time as an adult with clear-cut ambitions (not vague or distant ones, and certainly nothing pre-professional). Thanks.

>>2056364

I do it to torl teh christains

OP, why biology, and not another science like mathematics or physics? How did you fall into it?

>>2056417Clades can be disparate (see anolis or mulluska) and would have different selective pressures within the clade.

But events that cause an entire clade to become extinct do happen. Or is that considered outside the scope of how evolution is studied?

captcha: church) rentid

>>2056432

At my university there is always 1 or more "non-traditional students" (not 18-23) in the class.

>>2056420

Then you are falling prey to confirmation bias and reading selectively.

Ecological systems as well the niches they need to function are neither stable nor fragile, that's just you attributing bias.

>>2056441why biology

Because OP wanted to talk to a female in his field more than once in his lifetime.

>>2056441

I do use mathematics. I use diff e q and linear algebra in ecology and game theory in evolutionary biology.

I didn't do physics because I frankly don't have the mind for it. Conceptually I would not be a good physicist.

>>2056445

A selective force can act on more than one population at a time; that doesn't mean those separate populations are one selective unit.

>>2056463
I know how you feel. I chose not to enter physics because there wasn't enough ass-pounding in the department. Engineering turned out to be a good, tight fit for me.

Nice and tight.

>>2055999

>I find Gould's ideas more appealing

Thanks, doc, for the great tip towards some interesting reading. I still have many, many questions but will study moar.

>>2056415
Yeah, I don't want to invoke Gaia either (please never bring this up /sci/). I just like to think about what keeps ecosystems stable. Some of it appears to be species richness and/or diversity ( http://www.eeescience.utoledo.edu/Faculty/Gottgens/Conservation%20Biology/Hans%20papers%202010/Tilma
n%20and%20Downing%201994%20Nature.pdf ). If this is true, is the far North inherently less stable? Are systems with migratory populations that are only present part of the year more or less stable?

My earlier example is just an extreme of this stability concept. It's a system with extremely low richness. Forget about the other layers, that was superfluous. Just forget that stupid example.

Anyway, thanks for chatting. I have to sleep.

>>2056480

I don't agree with Gould about the levels of selection. But I do agree that NS is not as potent as people think and there is more randomness in the system than we think.

See "the neutral theory of molecular evolution"; I find those ideas very persuasive.

>>2056380
>I was thinking of a hydralisk with the modified mouth parts. Made me think of Chelicerata.
though unique (lower-jaw "bones" forming three separate mandibles) it clearly looked moar like a gnathostome vertebrate to me... considering that jaws came from branchial arches I would say that Slothiens (the base organisms for Hydralisks) seemed to have evolved convergently to gnathostomes (serpentine tail for example could indicate an eel-like locomotion like in basal fish and amphioxus).

>>2056495

A gnathostome or eugnathostome?

Also, the lower jaw does look like the group Serpentes with the separate sections for "jaw walking"

What do you think of consilience?

Pic related.

>>2056430
sorry bro but ecology do real

>implying there is a natural balance and earth's life isn't just riding some evolutionary bubble that's going to burst
seems to go fine for the last 1500 million years since cyanobacteria fucked up the anaerobes with their oxygen.
Only major events from external sources (meteorites, tectonic activity etc) seem to have a radical effect on rearranging the global ecosystems.

>>2056517

I find it more appealing than the reductionism I often see on this board.

Charles, how did you do as an undergrad?
How did you get into grad school?
Last question before I sleep. Sorry it isn't really field related.
Sorry for the rambling posts earlier, I'm pretty tired.

>>2056514
>A gnathostome or eugnathostome?
seriously of no importance since we are speaking about a convergent alien organism (isn't one of the main dinctinctions between eugnathostomes and the rest the implications that their jaws might not be homologous?)

>the lower jaw does look like the group Serpentes with the separate sections for "jaw walking"
indeed it looks like a viper's dentary and seems to have a similar articulation splitting in into three instead of two parts

>>2056553

Undergrad I had a 3.6 GPA 1350 GRE (800Q 550V 5.0W) with one publication.

To get into grad school I hauled ass in research and found a prof who did similar work. Research matters the most. My friend was "accepted" into a university because the prof liked his research so much. He took the GRE as a formality.

>>2056585
Thank you.