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Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ to poachers (2021)

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ to poachers (2021)

#51

Post by piskerpan »

Aissen wrote: post #32
sunaurus wrote: post #2

Maybe 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.

“Tusk-less elephants outbreed tusked ones”

But that wouldn’t be as catchy and as misleading/misunderstood as the original. Anyone reading that one will assume that elephants are purposefully being born without tusk, but it’s just a ratio consequence of tusked elephants dying early.

Re: Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ to poachers (2021)

#52

Post by tediousdemise »

What is the actual mechanism of action here?

I assume it was an elephant coincidentally born without tusks, which then survived being poached thanks to the adaptation that was then passed on to subsequent offspring.

An impeccably timed advantageous mutation for an endangered species. We rely far too often on the word “coincidence” to describe what is clearly an unknown gene expression phenomenon, which gives me chills and seems to borderline the supernatural.

At what point to people throw in the towel and say, yup, God’s real? Or do we just keep saying these unexplainable things are coincidences since it somehow jives better with our worldview?

I never understood why people think that spirituality and science are mutually exclusive. In 2014, even the pope himself came out and said the Big Bang and evolution are real [0]. Maybe it’s part of the whole “works in mysterious ways” tidbit, if you believe that kind of stuff? Let’s try having an open mind.

[0] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pope-francis-evolution-bi...

Re: Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ to poachers (2021)

#53

Post by rrgok »

sph wrote: post #34
danbruc wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Dumb question: I'm always amused by this phrase "...as if nature is intelligent and driven by some purpose..". Are you not, as human being, part of nature? How is possible from an unintelligent being emerge something intelligent? Either the seed was already there or otherwise I don't know how it would be possible. Would you consider human beings not intelligent and not driven by purpose?

Re: Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ to poachers (2021)

#55

Post by sph »

rrgok wrote: post #53
sph wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Dumb question: I'm always amused by this phrase "...as if nature is intelligent and driven by some purpose..". Are you not, as human being, part of nature? How is possible from an unintelligent being emerge something intelligent? Either the seed was already there or otherwise I don't know how it would be possible. Would you consider human beings not intelligent and not driven by purpose?

I rephrase: evolution of life as we know it (that's what I meant by nature) is not intelligent nor driven by any purpose, not even survival. It's randomly throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. Maybe the resulting organism lives longer, maybe not.

We only see the result of it. The observation that evolution helps find a better local maximum is literally survivorship bias.

Re: Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ to poachers (2021)

#56

Post by bigDinosaur »

danbruc wrote: post #48
sph wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not poachers that cause elephants to evolve not to have tusks. Cause and effect are very complex concepts, probably not even well understood ones, but I would rather avoid descending into the philosophy of cause and effect, so I will just pick a potentially naive idea of cause and effect. Assume a counterfactual world without poachers, would the elephants evolve to be tusk-less? No, so the poachers cause elephan…

It's amusing how downright hard it is to avoid teleological explanations of evolution. In this case it is important to note that this mutation presumably existed before poachers so they cannot be the cause of the actual genetics of tuskless elephants - but they are the cause of why the ratio is now changing. So I'd say your counterfactual is wrong: there would be a few tuskless elephants but having no evolutionary advantage they would not become the dominant phenotype.

If a species lacks the preexisting genetic diversity here, it dies.

Re: Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ to poachers (2021)

#57

Post by justsomehnguy »

danbruc wrote: post #16
sunaurus wrote: post #2

Maybe 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…

> change in the ecological system - more poachers than before - by changing the elephants to no longer having tusks

Change in the body - more torn hymen than before - by changing the humans to no longer having hymen.

Right?

Re: Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ to poachers (2021)

#58

Post by fiftycents »

fastball wrote: post #35
fiftycents wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Response would be a better wording. Yes, you are right. > maybe lead you to assume that variation/response seems to move towards something. But, yeah. You are right.

Re: Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ to poachers (2021)

#59

Post by cnity »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #46
cnity wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The upvotes are from other pedants who dislike the wording, I presume. It's entertaining, and I understand the argument, but I do wonder if such people also avoid sentences like "primates evolved opposable thumbs so that they could be more dextrous". This kind of language is clearly a proxy for an overly verbose articulation of the process of evolution over and over again. It's an approximation.

> primates evolved opposable thumbs so that they could be more dextrous" I for sure do. It’s extremely wrong. It implies the very incorrect idea that there is a purpose to evolution.

It's shorthand for "primates with a genetic mutation that resulted in opposable thumbs were more dextrous. Those primates proliferated due to natural selection". I guarantee that even evolutionary scientists do not talk like that over dinner and regularly reach for such shorthands.

Re: Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ to poachers (2021)

#60

Post by sph »

danbruc wrote: post #48
sph wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not poachers that cause elephants to evolve not to have tusks. Cause and effect are very complex concepts, probably not even well understood ones, but I would rather avoid descending into the philosophy of cause and effect, so I will just pick a potentially naive idea of cause and effect. Assume a counterfactual world without poachers, would the elephants evolve to be tusk-less? No, so the poachers cause elephan…

> Assume a counterfactual world without poachers, would the elephants evolve to be tusk-less?

Of course they would! I can't see how you can disprove that. In both that world and ours there are or have been tusk-less elephants, elephants with two heads, elephants that live 150 years.

Evolution is pseudo-random. The whole of nature gives context and some variants thrive better within this context. It is illogical to take life out of its natural context and think whether it would have evolved differently.

Your question should be rephrased as "would elephants without tusk thrive and outcompete regular elephants in a poacher-less world?" Maybe yes, maybe no, but my point is that evolution occurs every time a new elephant is conceived, and maybe the resulting animal lives longer.

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