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I don't understand how they can say this shows an evolutionary link between human and octopuses at the neuronal level and not something that evolved independent
by jugg1es 8y ago
I don't understand how they can say this shows an evolutionary link between human and octopuses at the neuronal level and not something that evolved independently in both genetic lines. How did they eliminate the possibility of convergent evolution? It doesn't seem reasonable they exclude convergence as a possibility.
- poizan42 8y agoI was thinking the same thing. Our last common ancestor might have been something like [0] (the sister clade to Nephrozoa which is the latest common clade between us and octopuses). They just have sortof a nerve-net spread out over their body, nothing like a brain. The nerotransmitters affected existed before the split, but anything complex like social behavior affected by them seems like it must have been the result of convergent evolution. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenacoelomorpha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenacoelomorpha