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Selective 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

Selective 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 ago
Yes, that process is called evolution. As you note, there isn't a difference in any sense.
- erik14th 8y ago
  Well, 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 ago
    It 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
    > Artificially controlled selective breeding doesn't mean evolution Selective breeding is still evolution, it's just directed evolution. It's all evolution.
  - erik14th 8y ago
    Clearly I'm at fault here, my comment was pure garbage, I'm sorry(I'm not being sarcastic). But I think there's a valid point there amid the nonsense, I see a qualitative difference between natural selection such as the elephants losing their tusks and selective breeding such as the bulldog example. Mainly due to the fact that on the first case elephants are still choosing their partners and on the latter we're forcing dogs to mate which I see as a conscious interference in the process of natural selection. Yes, bulldogs still exist, but were we to go extinct and they'd probably go with us as our selective breeding made them dependent on our technology which I think is true for some of the domesticated animals at least. I say nature, as in natural selection, is incredibly smart because it seems to be a system to act based on pure, cold, although short sighted logic. The advantage our intelligence have over nature's, in my perspective, is long term planning, but given a bigger context there's no objective base to claim that's actually smarter as we might be running towards our own extinction, and I believe life will survive us.
- deleted 8y ago
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setr 8y ago
This 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 ago
  I 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 ago
Yes 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?

thaumasiotes 8y ago

Yes, that process is called evolution. As you note, there isn't a difference in any sense.

erik14th 8y ago
Well, 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 ago
  It 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
  > Artificially controlled selective breeding doesn't mean evolution Selective breeding is still evolution, it's just directed evolution. It's all evolution.
- erik14th 8y ago
  Clearly I'm at fault here, my comment was pure garbage, I'm sorry(I'm not being sarcastic). But I think there's a valid point there amid the nonsense, I see a qualitative difference between natural selection such as the elephants losing their tusks and selective breeding such as the bulldog example. Mainly due to the fact that on the first case elephants are still choosing their partners and on the latter we're forcing dogs to mate which I see as a conscious interference in the process of natural selection. Yes, bulldogs still exist, but were we to go extinct and they'd probably go with us as our selective breeding made them dependent on our technology which I think is true for some of the domesticated animals at least. I say nature, as in natural selection, is incredibly smart because it seems to be a system to act based on pure, cold, although short sighted logic. The advantage our intelligence have over nature's, in my perspective, is long term planning, but given a bigger context there's no objective base to claim that's actually smarter as we might be running towards our own extinction, and I believe life will survive us.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

setr 8y ago

This 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 ago
I 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 ago

Yes 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?