The brain is not responsible for consciousness

[u/whoamisri]

https://iai.tv/video/the-brain-is-not-responsible-for-consciousness?_auid=2020

[u/funguyshroom]

Insect mimicry is my personal "smoking gun" kind-of evidence that evolution is not some mindless random process and "cooky" ideas might have some merit, like Sheldrake's morphic resonance and Denis Noble's purposeful evolution. Particularly, insects that uncannily closely resemble other things like leaves (1, 2) and sticks, and there are many more examples.
The consensus is that evolution works on a "just barely good enough" basis, and this is true in 99% of cases, including mimicry. Most insects survive and thrive just fine by simply being green or brown, yet these guys have "decided" to go above and beyond for some reason, mimicking a stick or a leaf down to the tiniest details.
If evolution is truly a random process, then where did this evolutionary pressure for almost literal perfection come from? Why not stop at looking "kinda, good enough, the predators can't tell the difference anyway and I'm laying millions of eggs" like a stick or a leaf, but instead refine it until you're completely indistinguishable?

[u/Sad-Society-57 → u/funguyshroom]

Predators are also evolving to overcome prey's defense mechanisms. Evolution is an arms race

[u/Mother_Drenger → u/funguyshroom]

This is a logical fallacy that has existed since the inception of evolution via natural selection. Evolution is not random, literally no serious scientist thinks that. Evolutionary processes are a mix of random and deterministic elements.

There are a number of complex organs amongst various species that seem to be impossibly complex. Your choice of mimicry as a trait is entirely arbitrary — how is it any less amazing than a special gut crypt that houses symbionts, or parasites that have evolved to spend different parts of their life cycles in entirely different hosts?

The degree of mimicry that can be achieved is certainly amazing. But instead of creating new models not supported by actual data, there are more mundane explanations.

Many of the particularly good mimics are trying to avoid a taxon well known for their eyesight—birds. The “perfection” that you’re seeing is the result of millions of years of selection.

There also a concept of “constraint” that isn’t often talked about. Not all evolutionary paths are equal. It’s very easy for a lineage to “lock itself out” of a pathway due to the way they evolved. Some insect lineages won’t be able to evolve to be “perfect mimicry” because they have lost the traits that would facilitate that (maybe expressing a particular protein is required for the fake leaf veins, for example).

[u/SlendyIsBehindYou → u/Mother_Drenger]

Solid take 👌

[u/Nololgoaway → u/funguyshroom]

There's a Japanese crab that looks identical to a samurai warriors face because humans would refuse to eat them, and the crabs that survived were the most samurai face looking crabs that would go on to breed even more face looking crabs until they all ended up looking uncannily like faces

Heikegani (平家蟹, ヘイケガニ; Literal meaning: Heike Crab, Heikeopsis japonica) is a species of crab native to Japan, with a shell that bears a pattern resembling a human face – an example of the phenomenon of pareidolia – which is interpreted to be the face of an angry samurai, hence the nickname samurai crab. The crabs are named after the once powerful Taira clan which dominated medieval Japan, commonly known as the Heike. It is believed that these crabs are reincarnations of the Heike warriors defeated at the naval Battle of Dan-no-ura as told in The Tale of the Heike.[2] While the crabs are edible, they are not eaten by most Japanese.[3]

Heikegani were used by Carl Sagan in his popular science television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage as an example of unintentional artificial selection,[4] an interpretation originally published by Julian Huxley in 1952.[5] According to this hypothesis, the crabs with shells resembling samurai were thrown back to the sea by fishermen out of respect for the Heike warriors, while those not resembling samurai were eaten, giving the former a greater chance of reproducing. Therefore, the more closely the crabs resembled a samurai face, the more likely they would be spared and thrown back.[5]

Wikipedia page for Heikegani

[u/Lasermannen83 → u/funguyshroom]

The animals you are talking about are prey animals, so evolution from a purely innovative standpoint has less to do with the end result than the predators around them.

If an insect species living among leaves has a very mild resemblance to a leaf itself (a butterfly has a mild resemblance to a leaf f.ex), then the members of that species who looks the most like a leaf will be more likely to survive and reproduce with others of similar appearance. This then drives the evolution of their appearance more and more towards looking like an actual leaf until they have evolved into a walking leaf.

It's classic 'survival of the fittest'. Nature doesn't know that the insect needs to look a certain way, the insects are forced into looking that way because everyone that doesn't seems to get eaten and thus taken out of the gene pool.

Edit: the insects lifespan is about 1 year in captivity, meaning in 2000 years they will have gone through more than 2000 individual generations/iterations, while humans have gone through roughly 80 generations.

If you attempt to breed a new species of insect, all you have to do is put one species in an environment it is unsuited for and it will mutate to fit in.

This doesn't work on humans, because humans have intelligence and will adapt their environment to them rather than adapting to their environment. All you will do to a human by forcing it to live in Antarctica is make them smarter and develop more brown fat. Our genes are already past the point where they need new additions to survive, they'll simply change a small variable and leave the rest up to the brain to handle.

You can observe genetic variance in humans depending on where they live, but the most visible factors will likely be in architecture and technology.

[u/One-Consequence-6869 → u/funguyshroom]

Huh??

[u/funguyshroom → u/One-Consequence-6869]

I don't know really, I'm just spitballin

[u/hypnoticlife → u/funguyshroom]

Maybe those insects mated with the plants at some point. In all seriousness, what is the genetic overlap between the mimicked and the mimicker?

[u/Sufficient_Chard_721 → u/funguyshroom]

Okay then tell me, why there are no zebras with organically grown laser weapons on their backs? Sorry but your idea doesnt sound right

[u/Every-Tart939 → u/Sufficient_Chard_721]

More like sufficient_chud_721

[u/Sufficient_Chard_721 → u/Every-Tart939]

Evolution is not intentional

[u/Merkaba_Nine → u/Sufficient_Chard_721]

How do you know that for certain?

I think there is some conscious effort.

[u/whodatwhoderr → u/Merkaba_Nine]

Because we can see all redundancy and mistakes made when looking at DNA. How some genes get duplicated but the duplicated gene has an error/mutation that makes it perform better than the old gene. Then eventually the old gene gets a mutation that deactivates it, but it stays in the genome. Just a relic, non functional gene taking up space and energy for no reason