What do you think is evolution's most important achievement?

[Rum]

Sorry, Rum, but someone on another thread has put me in a hair-splitting mood. Not all living organisms have instincts, strictly speaking, and thus can't have an instinct to survive.

But most of them, if not all, have 'behaviour'. Assuming one of those is to respond to stimuli of various kinds, including the development of pain to help us to avoid damaging stimuli, it is a smallish step from that to the 'instinct' to avoid pain or the potential for pain, surely?

[Clinton Huxley]

Avoiding the potential of pain posits an ability to predict the future rather than respond to an immediate stimulus.

Actually, that's not a bad one for one of evolutions greatest hits - the human ability to think about the future and "game-play" different scenarios.

[Rum]

Avoiding the potential of pain posits an ability to predict the future rather than respond to an immediate stimulus.

Actually, that's not a bad one for one of evolutions greatest hits - the human ability to think about the future and "game-play" different scenarios.

There is surely a level of complexity with life where predicting the future starts to be commonplace. Many mammals certainly do it, in effect by avoiding the potential for pain. My dogs do it all the time when they step out of the way to avoid being trodden on (for example). Humans sometimes do it consciously of course, which may be the difference.

[Clinton Huxley]

Oh, I know, photosynthesis.

[Rum]

Oh, I know, photosynthesis.

Me too.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Avoiding the potential of pain posits an ability to predict the future rather than respond to an immediate stimulus.

Actually, that's not a bad one for one of evolutions greatest hits - the human ability to think about the future and "game-play" different scenarios.

There is surely a level of complexity with life where predicting the future starts to be commonplace. Many mammals certainly do it, in effect by avoiding the potential for pain. My dogs do it all the time when they step out of the way to avoid being trodden on (for example). Humans sometimes do it consciously of course, which may be the difference.

I think it's pretty amazing, the concept and execution of mental modeling. That an organ has evolved with that capacity ... and that that capacity is then turned upon itself to understand its own evolution ... that's pretty staggering, to me. I always have liked what Dyson wrote about us being the Universe pondering itself.

[FBM]

...I always have liked what Dyson wrote about us being the Universe pondering itself.

Indeed....


On a different note, I do wince when people talk about evolution or the Universe with language that implies intent. I once read a post on another forum in which someone (hippy-type woo-meister, IIRC) said that the Universe evolved humans so that it could look at and ponder itself.

[Atheist-Lite]

Evolution is blind so maintaining stable biological forms over endless generations is a neat trick.

[Mysturji]

No contest: Diversity. (Note irony)

[Thumpalumpacus]

On a different note, I do wince when people talk about evolution or the Universe with language that implies intent. I once read a post on another forum in which someone (hippy-type woo-meister, IIRC) said that the Universe evolved humans so that it could look at and ponder itself.

Yeah, I'm tip-toeing around the teleology issue myself, it's a peeve of mine. Dyson himself irritates me when he dances as close as he does sometimes: "The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming."

Grrr.

[amused]

I think it's pretty amazing, the concept and execution of mental modeling. That an organ has evolved with that capacity ... and that that capacity is then turned upon itself to understand its own evolution ... that's pretty staggering, to me. I always have liked what Dyson wrote about us being the Universe pondering itself.

We've only just begun. Once we have direct control of our own evolution, things will get very interesting.

Regarding a universe with intent.... Not likely, but if it did, extrapolating from the local pattern of life to the cosmos, the most likely intent that it might have would be to make another universe. At least then 'intelligence' would have 'purpose'. The question then being, are we currently part of the egg or the chicken?

[Brian Peacock]

...I always have liked what Dyson wrote about us being the Universe pondering itself.

Indeed....


On a different note, I do wince when people talk about evolution or the Universe with language that implies intent. I once read a post on another forum in which someone (hippy-type woo-meister, IIRC) said that the Universe evolved humans so that it could look at and ponder itself.

Ponder my arse.

[mistermack]

I don't think it's vanity to say that humans are the most important achievement.
That's not to say best achievement. But there can't be any doubt that we are the most important.
Because we are causing extinctions at an incredible rate. So we are destroying all the other achievements of evolution.
But the other reason is that we are capable of changing the environment to suit us.
And we are also capable of leaving the planet, and seeding life onto other worlds.

No other organism comes close to us in importance. For good or bad, is a different topic.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

I was thinking earlier about death and the massive instinct all living things have to survive. The instinct to survive struck me as possibly the single most important evolutionary development once you get to a semi complex level of life...

Becomes a pain in the arse though once a species reaches the level of comprehending that they're not, in the end, actually going to survive (i.e. awareness of mortality).

Personally if I could, I'd rather have that instinct removed - I'd live a better (if possibly shorter) life without it.

[Pappa]

I never really think of any of the outcomes of evolution as "achievements". From the tiniest bacteria to the biggest blue whale, and our complex brains, eyes and immune systems.... we're all just the outcome of imperfect self-replicating genes. Stupid wet bags of DNA.