4 ms·

This reminds me of this study that polled academics and students about the evolutive process that happens. The results are quite decieving. https://journals.ope

• SamBam 5y ago
  For those who don't want to read a long French article: the conclusion (as I understood it) is that most people imagine teleological, or goal-driven (the authors describe it as "finalist") reasons for this very change in tusks. That is, even when the subjects consider that poaching may be the cause in the change in tusk allele frequency, they say it's because the elephants "want" not to have tusks, or that evolution is "deliberately" evolving away from tusks in order to protect the elephants. This is in contrast to the actual explanation, which is simply that if you kill the elephants with the tusks alleles and prevent them from breeding, you'll have fewer of those alleles in the subsequent generations. I'd say this result is not so "deceiving," as someone who has prepared evolution curriculum in the past, the teleological explanation is extremely seductive, even for educated people.