4 ms·
Do you have any basis for the claim the 760k years would not be enough time for such a feature to arise? After all, some surprisingly complicated things (http:/
by hyperbovine 16y ago
Do you have any basis for the claim the 760k years would not be enough time for such a feature to arise? After all, some surprisingly complicated things (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye) are believed to have evolved (more than once) over shorter periods.
- philwelch 16y agoNumber of years is mathematically irrelevant. Number of generations is mathematically relevant. Bacteria produce new generations prodigiously. Consider: antibiotics were invented less than a century ago, and bacteria have already evolved a resistance to penicillin. That's probably more than humans have evolved for 100,000 years. 100 years is like five generations for humans, but billions of generations for a bacteria. 760,000 years? That's tons of time for bacteria. Especially since bacteria are pretty simple; more complicated life has a much harder time evolving.
- Jabbles 16y agoAssuming bacteria reproduce once per day, a century would be ~30000 generations. Not billions. 760,000 years ~ 3e8 days, whether that is "tons of time" I can't comment.
- philwelch 16y agoAssuming bacteria reproduce once per day I think that's an underestimate, by at least an order of magnitude.