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The surviving lizards are the ones who are capable of holding on through hurricanes. The title almost implies that the lizards as a whole trained to get better
by timerol 8y ago
The surviving lizards are the ones who are capable of holding on through hurricanes. The title almost implies that the lizards as a whole trained to get better at holding on. The article explains it well:
"He found that, on average, the post-hurricane lizards had toe pads that were 6 to 9 percent bigger than those of pre-hurricane individuals, and front legs that were 2 percent longer. This wasn’t because the bodies of specific lizards had changed; there’s no evidence that the toes of adult anoles can grow by that amount. Instead, the storms had simply wiped out all the lizards with small toe pads. By selecting for individuals that were better at clinging to surfaces—and presumably at withstanding high winds—the storms had changed the average proportions of the population."
- stronglikedan 8y agoI hope all of the Knight Anoles had small toe pads. They are mean and bitey.
- overcast 8y agoI mean, do we have to state the obvious here? Titles are created to attract readers. We all know this. Obviously lizards don't wake up and organize every morning to engage in crossfit strength training.
- nasredin 8y agoI can just picture one lizardbro going: "crossfit?! please! do you even lift bro?"
- LeifCarrotson 8y agoThe title is how a lot of people understand evolution, though. As if the lizard's genes or evolution itself has intent and makes decisions based on stresses. This misunderstanding often involves a misunderstanding of epigenetics, as if an organism can concentrate really hard and change its genes (insert X-men movie special effect with the camera zooming in to the sub-cellular level and seeing helices go from blue to red) and produce larger toe pads. Selection is an unfortunately overused euphemism for death.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago> Selection is an unfortunately overused euphemism for death. Sure, as long as you consider "failure to reproduce" or "managing to reproduce, but not at a very high rate" to be synonyms for "death".
- nasredin 8y agoNatural selection is very cruel. But humans are still dead set on trying to beat it...