My question is this: On account of the shapes living organisms have today, is any other way possible for life to exist (for example turtles look differently, humans have different shapes)? In other words, is there another way the organisms of today could look like?
Evolution plays a big part of the development of all living things. As the living things evolve they can alter there appearances to adapt to the conditions that they are confronted with. Sometimes living things mutate into another way to look as well.
. hmm, this hall threat is non sense, Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! i understood what he means, but, it's not very discussuble
First off, it was more of a joke than anything. Secondly, yes, Im pretty sure practically everyone in here knows that.
I'd like to know what homosapians evolved such massively large brains. I think it has to do with sexual selection. Like a Peacocks tail.
Evolution is not a deterministic process. It is a probabilistic process Most biologists believe that if we could start over again with everything exactly the way it was a billion years ago, present day flora & fauna would be not be recreated. At least most physicists have that point of view. Perhaps there would be no turtles. Perhaps there would be many more varieties of turtles. Perhaps there would be no felines or no canines. Most believe that certain basic features would develop. Large vertebrates with 4 limbs, but not 2, 3, 5, 6, or more. Land creatures with bilateral symmetry. Some sea creatures with radial symmetry, but no large land creatures with radial symmetry. There are many who think that the development of intelligence (Id est: A technological civilization) was an evolutionary fluke, which might not have happened.
Dino is right, there is a large degree of randomness involved. However, there is concept called convergent evolution. which means that living things often arrive at similar solutions to similar problems. Australia has the kangaroo, which takes the place of the deer in the American landscape. Both are capable browsers and can escape predators quickly, but one happens to have two legs and a hopping gait, and the other a more typical quadruped.
Science fiction writers routinely construct biologies on other planets that are nothing like what we're familiar with. Based on silicon instead of carbon, trisexual instead of bisexual, deriving energy directly from electromagnetic waves instead of eating and breathing, even life that can thrive at the temperature of liquid nitrogen. or of liquid metal. Read James P. Hogan's novel Code of the Lifemaker for a thought-provoking description of a planet on which all the life appears to us to be mechanical, yet they have invented "machinery" that looks organic. Each thinks the other is the remnants of the technology of a long-dead civilization that looked like them. But we don't really know enough about life to postulate how many different ways it could form. All of these science fiction scenarios might be possible, or there might be some fatal flaw in the biochemistry that would prevent them from ever happening in real life. The carbon-based life built upon DNA that we have here on Earth is the only type that we know for sure is possible. Anything else is speculation. As for why the specific kinds of animals, plants, fungus, algae, bacteria and protists (the six Kingdoms of lifeforms in biological classification) look the way they do, there's no answer to that except that's the way it happened. Of course evolution is all about survival of the fittest, but it's also very much about randomness. Some mutations just happen to occur and some just don't, so we never get to see the results of the second category. There are many causes of mutations and it's just luck. All of the primates have rather high intelligence, compared to many other mammals. While speed and strength are advantages for predatory species, most primates are not predators and other characteristics provide advantages for their lifestyles. The apes in particular developed high intelligence with which they form highly cooperative social groups that can find food efficiently, raise their young communally, and use teamwork to defend against predators. The gorillas and chimpanzees developed even greater intelligence than the other apes, and this made them very successful in Africa. Eventually early species of humans branched off from the early chimpanzees, and their even greater intelligence was an advantage in finding food and outwitting predators. Successive species of humans had ever-larger brains, which they used to develop technology, such as building tools out of sticks and stones and taming fire. Our ancestral species were primarily herbivores, like the gorillas and chimpanzees are today. However, the flint blades we invented allowed us to scavenge the bits of meat left over on the bones from other animals' kills, adding more protein to our diet. More protein allowed us to grow even larger brains, and more intelligence allowed us to build more clever tools and develop more complex social organization. Eventually we became the predators, killing our own meat instead of scavenging it. The final stage in our evolution was Homo sapiens, the species of which we are all members. Our species lost the long intestines with the symbiotic bacterial culture that allows the other apes to eat leaves and digest cellulose, so with our incredibly well-made tools we became full-time carnivores, hunting to live. But unlike other predators, our success is not due to speed and strength, but rather to intelligence. Man is still the apex predator in every ecosystem on this planet: we eat both bears and sharks.
. i have the answer for your question, it's: because it did ... your question have no point or sense...i do get it, but in my PO i think it's stupid. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
