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Researchers study the genetics and behavior of elephants born without tusks
- amriksohata 8y agoEvolving?
- maxerickson 8y agoThe language of journalism handles this topic poorly.
- thaumasiotes 8y agoNo language issue here. > Elephants with a rare “tuskless” genetic trait had a better chance of surviving Mozambique’s long civil war, financed in part by poached ivory. About a third of surviving elephants’ daughters have no tusks. That's as squarely central an example of "evolving" as it gets.
- tedunangst 8y agoSelective breeding? If I eat all the green peas and plant the yellow peas, it won't be a surprise that the next generation is all yellow, yet nobody would say the peas have evolved a new color. Same process though. I'm not saying it can't be called evolving, but probably some people assume a more "natural" selection process.
- thaumasiotes 8y agoYes, that process is called evolution. As you note, there isn't a difference in any sense.
- erik14th 8y agoWell, yes there is a difference, evolution works by natural selection since nature is incredibly smart and the only changes that get actualized are those that are beneficial for survival and reproduction and those that do not hinder it. Artificially controlled selective breeding doesn't mean evolution, take for example bulldogs which have been overbred by humans that prioritized looks, so a modern bulldog's health is frail compared to its ancestors, hardly what one would call evolution. But on the elephants case, yes it is evolution as human interference seems to be mostly as a "regular" predator.
- WhiteSage 8y agoIt depends on what you consider environment. We are part of the environment for those animals, and they have evolved to increase survival and reproduction in this environment that contains us. The bulldog health might be frail, but as a species it thrives in this environment containing us, as you can find them all around the world. The wellbeing of the individual is not an objective of evolution, just increasing survival and reproduction in a particular environment.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago> Well, yes there is a difference, evolution works by natural selection since nature is incredibly smart No, this is magical thinking. Evolution works by differentials in the rate of effective reproduction. > the only changes that get actualized are those that are beneficial for survival and reproduction and those that do not hinder it. This isn't correct.
- misnome 8y ago> nature is incredibly smart No, nature is not smart. If some feature helps you survive - even if it would be 'judged' bad in some other context - it is being selected for. That's evolution > a modern bulldog's health is frail compared to its ancestors, hardly what one would call evolution. And yet here it is, survived. The difference between selective breeding and evolution is just nuance and speed really, from the fact that it has some intelligent being with 'purpose' selecting deliberately.
- zorga 8y ago
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- setr 8y agoThis is quite natural, imo. Its well past the vague border of artificial vs natural. Its quite literally nature’s reaction to human presence, with no intentionality from humans, and directly against their wishes (obviously, they want more ivory, not less). If this were a movie about nature v technology, this would clearly be on nature’s side. It’s not even close to resembling the heavy handed nature of selective breeding for eg dogs. Im not sure how evolution would not be appropriate here, unless you considered that anything that touches humans is unnatural, and with transitive property, any third party touching the things humans touched is also made unnatural. If you accept this event as not being evolution, does anything still count as evolution since the 1800s?
- tedunangst 8y agoI would draw the line at direct intervention. Those moths that evolved darker colors in response to soot in the industrial revolution were responding to a change in environment, not some Victorian era Pokémon craze that hunted down all the white moths.
- Double_a_92 8y agoYes it is selective breeding done by nature. So you probably don't see stupid people with rifles as part of nature? On a historic scale what makes them different than just some other random predator?
- maxerickson 8y agoI'm talking about the use of language, not questioning the factual basis of the article. I wonder if we should call it a breeding program though, as that's the usual word for evolution due to human slaughter. (Note that I made a top level comment and dang rolled it into this thread; I forget that when I initially replied here)
- Buldak 8y agoTo me "breeding" means intentionally selecting for desired traits. That's not what's happening here. In a sense, it's the opposite--presumably, elephants without tusks is exactly what poachers don't want.
- maxerickson 8y agoYeah, I was being flip there, not really offering a serious thought.
- amriksohata 8y agoAre they just not a different breed?
- dang 8y agoPlease let's not get snagged by a word. We've changed the title to something less triggery.
- keithwhor 8y agoThere’s nothing wrong with the word. It’s not evolution by natural selection, but it’s a change in allele frequency / phenotype at population scale. It’s evolution. Why in the hell is HN moderating titles based on being “triggery”? National Geographic can publish it but HN can’t?
- maxerickson 8y agotriggery of shitty discussions. Pointless empty squabbling and the like.
- p1necone 8y agoDo we really have young earth creationists here, or is it squabbling by pedants instead?
- shawn 8y agoAh, you seem to have a problem with HN moderation! And you, like me, have no problem asking about it publicly, and calling out logical incongruities. If you persist, then like me, you will be banned. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been here for 12 years, as I have, or if you love this forum, as I do. You mustn’t question decisions publicly here. Friendly warning from a friendly neighbor. You are not dealing with a rational person who cares about justice. This is a day job for them, and they are paid to do it reasonably effectively.
- aaron695 8y agoThis article talks about the issues but agrees there's evolution in certain places. It's harder to prove in others - http://nautil.us/blog/is-poaching-causing-elephants-to-evolve-without-tusks http://nautil.us/blog/is-poaching-causing-elephants-to-evolv... It is very political, because if true, genocide's will evolve races of humans, and not for the better. People don't like inconvenient truths. I at first doubted it was evolutionary from the headline, but it seems true. It's what annoys me about memes about Christians and evolution. Not many people really understand evolution, like morons on a hot day talking about Global Warming deniers, we all just like to be smug, a human trait.
- dec0dedab0de 8y agoI saw an elephant pull its tusk out at the Zoo once. It was just before they moved them to another place. Everyone was asking and the staff didnt even turn around. It felt like they were covering something up, I thought this might be about it. Instead it was about elephants being born without tusks, which is interesting, but not the same thing.
- webkike 8y agoWell, in my brief research, it seems that it is similar to a tooth, so it would just be the equivalent of a human pulling out a tooth?