Does Evolution create useless Things?

[awediot]

Evolution has a "form follows function" reason, and a so far incomprehensibly complicated utilitarianism driving it... That is the beauty and even power that makes it believable, and seeable. Though there would be flashes of something getting damaged in to a single, brief blip, it would not catch on to be crafted into silver plated serving sets... It would logically never trigger into something not needed, as that adds a drag and drain of energy on a process OF energy, literally for no reason. There may be things we do not know yet, or vestigial remains now obsolete, but pointless? -It's a curios thing to take some time and contemplate a few examples that come to mind...

[Alecto]

You're giving it a creative "will" where there exists none. Evolution doesn't "create" anything; there's some traits that get passed on and some that don't.

[awediot]

You're giving it a creative "will" where there exists none. Evolution doesn't "create" anything; there's some traits that get passed on and some that don't.
Are there any useless thing that have evolved? -whatever...

[tdogg]

I'm thinking about it. A bit sidetracked with weekend plans but I won't let this go entirely without thinking and responding.

[Pablo Rafael]

I know that several people have told me that they thought I was pretty much useless...
...but that might be a different topic altogether. :borg:

[awediot]

I know that several people have told me that they thought I was pretty much useless...
...but that might be a different topic altogether. :borg:

Well, at least you were important enough for them to get something out of trying to hurt you...:rolleyes:

...and yeah, it is :)

[Alecto]

I guess I REALLY don't understand your question. Like, I hate mosquitos, but the bats that eat them wouldn't call them useless. It's all a matter of perspective?

Or do you mean individual traits within a species? Because yeah, that's a part of evolution. We've seen it with pepper moths: they started out mostly white (with some dark ones) so they'd blend in with light-barked trees, then BAM industrialization and smoke-stacks and everything turns black, and within a few generations, they were mostly black / dark brown (with a few white ones thrown in). For a generation or two, though, there was a majority trait that wasn't particularly useful. Other variations that don't directly harm an individual's chances for survival could theoretically live on, even in a majority, for a much longer time. (I feel like if I knew more about biology I'd remember which organs we have that we don't really use anymore, but I don't).

So, um, did that cover it?

[awediot]

I guess I REALLY don't understand your question. Like, I hate mosquitos, but the bats that eat them wouldn't call them useless. It's all a matter of perspective?

Or do you mean individual traits within a species? Because yeah, that's a part of evolution. We've seen it with pepper moths: they started out mostly white (with some dark ones) so they'd blend in with light-barked trees, then BAM industrialization and smoke-stacks and everything turns black, and within a few generations, they were mostly black / dark brown (with a few white ones thrown in). For a generation or two, though, there was a majority trait that wasn't particularly useful. Other variations that don't directly harm an individual's chances for survival could theoretically live on, even in a majority, for a much longer time. (I feel like if I knew more about biology I'd remember which organs we have that we don't really use anymore, but I don't).

So, um, did that cover it?

Sorta... Say my weird example... Silver serving sets... Why would the mechanism for creating them evolve? What use is served?

[Alecto]

Not all behavior is genetic / evolution-based.
But now I'm even less sure that I understand what you're really asking.

[awediot]

Not all behavior is genetic / evolution-based.
But now I'm even less sure that I understand what you're really asking.

Then what is it based on?

(typically a train of thought I pursue with atheist/evolutionists...)

[tdogg]

I have a couple of small skin tags that I find entirely useless. I've known a body part or two on other people that I found fairly useless as well.

Ok, kind of a joke, but I stand by the useless skin tags. :p

[Alecto]

I'm a psych major. So there's a lot going into this. We'll put evolution into the "biological" category, with the understanding that said category contains more things than just evolution insofar as how it affects behavior (say you're in an accident, and a spike through your head severs the corpus collossum; that's going to have an effect on your perception and your behavior but it's a biological effect). The growing accepted source for behavior / disorders is a "biopsychosocial" model: we as individuals are all affected by our biology, by our own thought processes (which can deliberately be altered to break out of cycles of thought-and-behavior) and by the society and culture in which we are raised and live in.
Some people argue for other extra categories as well: biopsychosociospirital (one's religious views also affect behavior in a meaningful enough way that it shouldn't be lumped in with "social") etc.

As for your example of silverware, I'm going to make a comparison to language. You've just asked the equivalent of why we have articles in English ("the", "a" etc). The answer is complicated: evolution provides for the development of SOME language. Leave two people in a social vaccuum from birth, and they will develop a language. (same thing with twins / siblings developing their own language etc). Which specific language, though? And how the nuances of that language work? That all gets filled in by something else. Personal temperament? Environment? I got nothing.

So, eating tools develop (I'm guessing shortly after cooking to grab at the hot food, maybe spread it around to cool it?). Then they get put into, eventually, a social context (I'd argue that the capacity / need for "social context", ie, society, grouping, community are all quite possibly evolutionary, and the specifics get filled in later) with displays of wealth, concepts of hospitality, etc. Silver, there ya go.

[Emproph]

Does Evolution create useless Things?

Wouldn’t something have to be created before it could be determined to be useless? In fact, isn’t that the purpose of evolution, to create in all directions and see what “sticks”--for the purpose of maintaining that forward motion of ever more complex life forms/intelligence.

The do-do bird comes to mind, yet there are plenty of species that are still not afraid of man, yet there are enough of them over a wide enough area, that as a species, they can still survive.

And how many forms of life may have once been “useless,” but evolved into species that became useful to the process (or vice versa). Maybe usefulness/uselessness is a matter of opportunity--it was in the case of the extinction of the dinosaurs.

In that case, then what may be considered “useless,” would be those species that deter, or don’t contribute, to the process of evolution itself.

Perhaps such was the case with the dinosaurs, they’d reached the pinnacle of their evolutionary use, ie; they didn’t have the intelligence to defend themselves against the onslaught of the effects of a meteor impact (or whatever it was). Point being, they’d outlived their “usefulness” to survive, and therefore to evolve further.

As humans, we have the potential to survive such an event, and eventually, the potential to leave and survive without the Earth.

And perhaps, like the Ark, that was the goal of the process of evolution all along---mobility.

Beyond that, as functional and productive as we are, there’s also an argument to be made that man has now become the drag on the evolutionary process.

[Rick336]

When you talk about a living thing being evolved into something that is useless or useful, in what context are you talking about? Useful for achieving what goal?


Living things adapt and evolve to survive. Is there another reason you think they evolve?


Rick

[Alecto]

I think he's not talking about a species being "useful", but an individual trait being "favorable" (I hadn't messed about with Evolution in awhile; totally had to look up what word they used for that again).

[tymejumper]

I suppose it would really depend upon whom you spoke with. I guess people could see some things as useless, but others see them as usefull.

Take handedness. What is the evolutionary reason for being left handed? Or right handed? It would make much more sense to be ambidextrious and able to do things with both hands. That way you are using 100% of your dextarity. But, instead, we have the majority being right handed, and the minority being left handed. Has evolution decided that being right handed is not theoretically usefull? Is that why there are more left ahnded persons than ever before? Or is it simply because we are not attempting to switch children over to right handed? Why are there not an increasing amount of ambidextrious individuals?

Take increasing amounts of infertile couples. Is it evolution becuase we don't need more humans on this world and it is overcrowded? Or simply because we are polluting ourselves to death and can't reproduce? Could this also be the reason for gay people? So we can'[t add to the overpopulation of the planet? Are we in fact usuless things of evolution? Or are we usefull???????:confused:

There are simply to many parameters to cover in a post of the reasons for or against the usefullness or percieved usefullness of items that have evolved. It really is based on what we can use it for at the time.