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Evolution in reverse?

Is it possible for an animal species to de-evolve? Have humans come so far and become so overpopulated that we're reverting to thoughts, philosophies and actions that are not supportive of the evolution of our species? Or could we simply be on a different path of evolution?

Kojaksmom 8 Jan 14
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6 comments

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0

I don't think so. Things are more our there now with all the electronic devices. How could we be going in reverse?

2

As @gavlar points out, evolution has no intended direction so de-evolution is a meaningless term. It's simply evolution.

That said, I did once come across an argument that said that human activity is causing some animals to "devolve." The argument went something like this:

  1. Generally speaking, animals that are stronger, faster, and healthier will stand a better chance of surviving long enough to reproduce, therefore the genes of stronger, faster, healthier animals will be better represented in offspring than the genes of weaker, slower, less healthy animals.

  2. Predators typically will kill the weaker, slower, less healthy animals because they are easier prey, which explains why the stronger, faster, and healthier animals stand a better chance of reproducing. This is actually healthy for the population of prey animals because it results in stronger, faster, healthier offspring.

  3. Humans typically will select the stronger, faster, and healthier animals as their targets instead of the weaker, faster, and less healthy animals. As a result, this increases the odds that the less desirable characteristics will reproduce. This, in turn, weakens the population of prey animals, in effect, causing the animals to devolve.

There are, obviously, many holes in this idea although it almost sounds feasible. I'm not advocating this line of thought, but merely putting it out there because it seems relevant to the whole notion of "evolution in reverse."

Incidentally, the original argument that I heard was specific to deer and deer hunting, but I generalized it to include prey animals in general.

1

Yes it's possible. A Perfect example of this is Trump and the republican congress. At least the
De-evolving part

1

Evolution means change, it doesn't have a predetermined direction, so devolving would either mean unchanging, or changing in some way, which would be the same as evolving.

2

Ha ! I think some are de-evolving and some are still evolving.

2

Creationists are poster children for devolution

They don't want to survive they want to pollute get rich and get raptured wanting everyone but the 144 thousand to be burned alive in a nuke war beginning in Palestine

@GreenAtheist I sadly have agree with that.

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