Evolutionary meanderings...

[cyan_blue]

So I was walking with oakdragon the other day, and a bird flew overhead, and I wondered to him about whether humankind would have come up with the idea of air and space travel if there were no flying creatures to model it on... birds, insects, whatnot.

It might put a different spin on evolution, if so. We're used to thinking of evolution in terms of the gradual, linear metamorphosis of genetic data over countless generations. But this would be an evolutionary leap - the activities of a distantly-related species being an essential component of the achievements of this one. So we could see birds and winged bugs as occupying not just their customary biological niches, but also as our direct and necessary forerunners, in an intellectual-evolutionary sense.

Comments

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think evolution in general starts working on a much faster scale when it becomes cultural instead of biological. I'm pretty sure Dawkins or somebody has plenty to say about this.

[maestrodog.livejournal.com]

I think if there were no flying creatures there would be a lot more species with longer limbs and necks, otherwise there would be very few ways to grab the food on trees.