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Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ to poachers (2021)
31–40 of 133 posts
Re: Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ to poachers (2021)
#32Maybe I'm being a bit pedantic here, but being born without tusks is not in itself an "evolutionary response". Surviving without tusks and passing on those tuskless genes at a higher than previously normal rate is the actual evolutionary response.
Technically, the offspring themselves having more chance to be born without tusks is the "evolutionary response".
Now with a challenge: try writing a more accurate headline, in as many characters or less.
Re: Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ to poachers (2021)
#33Maybe I'm being a bit pedantic here, but being born without tusks is not in itself an "evolutionary response". Surviving without tusks and passing on those tuskless genes at a higher than previously normal rate is the actual evolutionary response.
> Maybe I'm being a bit pedantic here
Not only maybe a bit.. every evolutionary response is surviving and passing on something beneficial for survival/reproduction, which includes new born with it then.. come on!
Re: Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ to poachers (2021)
#34Maybe I'm being a bit pedantic here, but being born without tusks is not in itself an "evolutionary response". Surviving without tusks and passing on those tuskless genes at a higher than previously normal rate is the actual evolutionary response.
Without knowing anything about the general or scientific use of those terms, just by looking at the words, I think it is fine the way the title is worded. What is the actor here that responds? It is the process of evolution, in the same way you could say the climate reacts to a change in solar activity. So the process of evolution reacts to a change in the ecological system - more poachers than before - by changing t…
The issue OP has is that the article conflates cause with effect.
It's not poachers that cause elephants to evolve not to have tusks.
It's that some elephant got a rare mutation, and those mutated elephants aren't as targeted by poachers, thus are able to survive more easily.
Plenty of popsci journos write as if nature is intelligent and driven by some purpose.
Re: Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ to poachers (2021)
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
But born without tusks may be deemed "good" for the survivability of the elephants in the said environment. No tusks = no ivory, therefore minimising the incentive for poachers to hunt them. My understanding of evolution is the ability to adapt and adjust to the ever-changing environment over multiple generations, and if we treat ivory poaching as an environmental danger, it makes sense for tuskless elephants to pass…
Yes. It's good to evade a predator. And the process you describe is accurate. But it occurs because the first elephant without tusks happens to live a longer life and prosper and left a large number of descendants just in time when they were hunting by their tusks. It just occurs, it's not a response in the sense of the specie but in the sense of the randomizing events we call world. That's why I said OP is, in the c…
Then the wrong word is "response", not "evolution". Because this is exactly what evolution through natural selection is all about.
Re: Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ to poachers (2021)
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are being pendantic. It's literally pressure from environment influencing evolution. Or an evolutionary response.
Te point OP is making is that being born without tusks is just a random chance, not a response to anything but as a result of this random chance, this elephant has a higher chance of living longer and having more babies resulting in higher chance of the "tuskless gene" being passed on to future generations. The distinction is important to understand evolution correctly. A lot of evolution deniers have a problem with…
You are overly pedantic as well :D
(Noone thinks that "getting born" involves intelligence choosing, the point you are repeating applies sometimes, but here out of context imo.)
Re: Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ to poachers (2021)
#37Do tusk poachers usually kill? Seems stupid to kill the golden goose.
They tend not to have long term wildlife conservation high on the agenda.
Re: Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ to poachers (2021)
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Te point OP is making is that being born without tusks is just a random chance Yes. That's how evolution works. Your genes are randomized during life/mating. Due to selection pressure one variation is favored over the other. That's evolution. So in evolutionary response to poachers elephants evolve no tusks.
It is pedantic, but I see how 'response' here lends agency to evolution, and could be interpreted as implying an intelligent process, as mentioned above.
If anyone thinks evolution has "agency" because the word "response" was used to describe it, their understanding of evolution is clearly very limited and I'm not sure how productively that person can participate in a conversation about such.
Re: Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ to poachers (2021)
#39Elephants without tusks are more likely to survive and reproduce, so while this is a "better" survival trait as part of an evolutionary process, it's not an active response. It's just a mutation that has a better chance to survive. Like that click-baity headline from the Telegraph, it has a better chance to get clicks phrasing it that way, instead of "Elephats without tusks are more likely to survive violent poachers…
But that's exactly what evolution is? Evolution isn't an active process, it's just just the better fit thriving and carrying their genes on slightly better.
Re: Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ to poachers (2021)
#40Maybe I'm being a bit pedantic here, but being born without tusks is not in itself an "evolutionary response". Surviving without tusks and passing on those tuskless genes at a higher than previously normal rate is the actual evolutionary response.
I'm not an expert, but a Google search shows that the term "evolutionary response" seems to be accepted terminology for generational trends in the evolutionary process prompted by some environmental change.