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Put this in context of a lot of other species who were not able to evolve a mechanism like that. The way I understand this there was likely a very small popula

Put this in context of a lot of other species who were not able to evolve a mechanism like that. The way I understand this there was likely a very small population of elephants already without tusks, maybe some kind of genetic defect that happened to be an advantage once you add greedy people into the mix. Or what else is possible is that there was one off mutation that produced small family of elephants that poachers wouldn't touch and these spread over decades. Think about this, if today Covid mutated to kill almost all people but spared 0.1% with a certain gene, you would suddenly observe entire human population becoming immune to Covid. This does not necessarily mean any new genetic material or "nature responding". Maybe nobody noticed the gene and it suddenly became very visible and comprising large part of population (while it declined dramatically as elephant population did). We may have missed elephants without tusks because they were just freak of nature but now they become proliferating because it becomes an advantage. EDIT: Selective pressure is part of evolution process, but it is not enough for evolution. Evolution requires both mutation AND selection. So, if the mutation was present BEFORE poachers happened, you can't really say that Mother Nature RESPONDED to poaching by evolving new mechanism. The word "response" implies causal relationship between poachers and mutation+selection of better equipped elephants. But if the mutation has already been present then there is no causal relationship and this wasn't a new mechanism.

jalgos_eminator 5y ago
> This does not necessarily mean any new genetic material or "nature responding". But this is exactly how evolution works. There are always mutations in every generation, and sometimes those mutations are beneficial. These genes are being selected by the organism's environment, and if the environment changes, then the genes that are selected will be different. That is "nature responding". Elephants without tusks (or very small ones) are more likely to survive and produce offspring.
KiranRao0 5y ago
I would argue what you describe is Evolution as broken into the two pieces: Genetic Drift and Natural Selection. Genetic Drift is always occurring randomly. Some elephants had a "genetic defect" to live without tusks before poaching. Some humans had the 0.1% resistance to the hypothetical super-covid before the disease. As new environmental conditions emerge (human poaching, hypothetical super-covid, etc), some genes are far better adapted to the new environment (tuskless, covid resistance, etc). Those genes then thrive in the new environment and consume the available resources left by those killed off.
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- addicted 5y ago
  > What I mean is that it is possible (and I think very likely) this isn't feat of nature suddenly evolving some new defense mechanism as response to poachers. That's not how evolution works. Evolution doesn't ever involve a "feat of nature suddenly evolving defense mechanisms". I don't understand this comment, unless it's a way to say the above, that evolution does not involve sudden spontaneous changes in response to an external stimuli.

jalgos_eminator 5y ago

> This does not necessarily mean any new genetic material or "nature responding". But this is exactly how evolution works. There are always mutations in every generation, and sometimes those mutations are beneficial. These genes are being selected by the organism's environment, and if the environment changes, then the genes that are selected will be different. That is "nature responding". Elephants without tusks (or very small ones) are more likely to survive and produce offspring.

KiranRao0 5y ago

I would argue what you describe is Evolution as broken into the two pieces: Genetic Drift and Natural Selection. Genetic Drift is always occurring randomly. Some elephants had a "genetic defect" to live without tusks before poaching. Some humans had the 0.1% resistance to the hypothetical super-covid before the disease. As new environmental conditions emerge (human poaching, hypothetical super-covid, etc), some genes are far better adapted to the new environment (tuskless, covid resistance, etc). Those genes then thrive in the new environment and consume the available resources left by those killed off.

deleted 5y ago
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addicted 5y ago
> What I mean is that it is possible (and I think very likely) this isn't feat of nature suddenly evolving some new defense mechanism as response to poachers. That's not how evolution works. Evolution doesn't ever involve a "feat of nature suddenly evolving defense mechanisms". I don't understand this comment, unless it's a way to say the above, that evolution does not involve sudden spontaneous changes in response to an external stimuli.