A very common argument presented by those who reject evolution (of which I am not one), is that, while it is true we observe what’s referred to as “micro-evolution”, we do not observe “macro-evolution”. What is meant by this is that while we do see variations within a biological family (e.g. finches or dogs) we don’t observe variations outside of the biological family. While it is very obviously true that a finch will have genetic modifications that best suit survival in their environment, it’s a stretch to just assume that this means finches could turn into a different classification of animal.
This argument may be untrue and I am simply unaware of that fact. I recently watched the old debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye, and in it Ham asked Nye to explain this, which for whatever reason Nye seemed to ignore. I’m just curious why he would have not answered this question which so many evolution deniers get hung up on.
I do not deny evolution, I am asking questions because I want to better understand it. Does there exist, and where is evidence of animals evolving out of their biological family?
Remember 5th grade science class when you learned “Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species”? You were probably like “wow, what a great way to divide up every species on Earth, too bad I’ll never keep these all straight”. Well, my question is: how much do we know about the in-universe taxonomic ranking system (assuming there is one)?
From what I’ve found, it appears that the system starts with Designation, breaking all lifeforms down into three categories: sentient, near-sentient, and non-sentient. From there, it appears to go to Classification; human, near-human, non-human. This is where things begin to go off the rails — I haven’t been able to find the next step in the taxonomic rank. Surely it must get more specific, as there are millions (if not billions) of different species across the galaxy, and I can only assume that several thousands of scientists from multiple planets have created systems of sorting them. Would it really jump from sentient to near-human to the specific species? That seems like such a quick escalation. Furthermore, would race then play a factor? Rotians are blue-skinned Twi’leks, but seeing as how race isn’t factored in on the Earth taxonomic ranking system, I wasn’t sure if it would in the Star Wars system.
To take it one step further still, I don’t think it would be crazy to assume that living on certain planets would cause members of the same species to evolve differently, even if the differences are minuscule (Ex: slightly different bone structures/density in humans from Planet X as opposed to Planet Y due to different gravitational forces of the two planets)
Is there any media that goes into more detail on Star Wars taxonomy, or is this one subject area deemed too large to adequately be tackled and is quietly ignored in hopes of nobody asking questions like these?
All descendants of mammals will be mammals too, according to taxonomy. However, if we were to take a species that was a direct ancestor to the first mammals, but not yet a mammal, isn't that species of a different class? Wouldn't it mean that their mammalian descendants did change class in relation to these non-mammalian ancestors?
I know it makes sense in the Linnean classification, but from what I know it is the modern non-Linnaean classification which has this won't-outgrow-ancestry rule. What am I missing or where am I wrong?
Followup request to: Data set for most recent common ancestor
Is there any way to get the earliest known species of a certain taxonomic rank (or a list of species and when they lived)?
I would like to make something like the right side of this picture (from here) but with any species.
For protein translation, there are usually multiple codons that encode for a specific amino acid. However, there tends to be a favored codon for a specific organism, based upon the prevalence of that codon's corresponding tRNA in the cytosol. Because of this, for gene engineering purposes, there tends to be an optimal codon to use for a specific amino acid that will result in greater gene expression. I'm wondering as one moves up the taxonomic ranking (from species to domain), where does the optimal codon for amino acids start to deviate? Does it happen when you start comparing plants vs animals? Eukaryotes vs prokaryotes? Vertebrates vs invertebrates? Thanks!
Now if we did discover alien life we would have to add a rank higher than Domain due to the simple fact that alien life wouldn't be related to anything on Earth. What do you think scientists would or should call this new rank?
I've been using binomial nomenclature and taxonomic ranks for my SpecEv project and I have a unusual species that I cant figure out how to categorise. It formed from two species that became dependant on each other and eventually fused into a single species, similarly to endosymbiosis, which is how mitochondria and chloroplasts, which were their own individual cells, became a single part of a bigger cell when they were devoured incorrectly. Since this hasnt happened on earth for species I believe theres no official way to classify the resultant species, so I'm taking suggestions.
I hope that made sense :)
I would like an online resource that groups all known species by their standard taxonomic classifications, so if I want I can read up on the 180,000 species of Lepidoptera, or the 3,000 species of Rodentia, or the 300,000 species of Tracheoptera. I'm having trouble finding a website that's really comprehensive.
And if not, what are the best resources in print? Thanks!
Im making my own alien planet and I want to know how to make scientific names for the creatures. Any suggestions?
I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.
Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.
I'm having a difficult time finding an authoritative source that properly defines "section" in mycology.
From observed usage it looks like section is analogous to how it's used in botany (i.e. Within flora/plants, 'section' refers to rank below the genus, but above the species).
I find it really bizarre that I have several mushroom books and resources that do not utilize "section" but it's usage amongst internet mycophiles is widespread- surely I cannot be the only one confused by this.
For example, I made an initial identification of Amanita vaginata (grisette) on iNat and a more experienced mycologist corrected it 'Amanita sect. vaginatae.' I'm assuming they did this because there wasn't enough information to make a definitive distinction between A. vaginita and other members of the section? Why isn't genus broad enough to capture variation between species?
Who was the biggest bastard among all the sorts of leaders that tankies might be fans of, and why?
Counting Marxist-Leninists, Maoists, "Marxism-Leninism-Maoism-Chairman Gonzalo thought" (Christ, how does one say that phrase to describe themselves without asking whether they might be in a cult?), even atypical cases like Tito, etc, if their ideology can be taxonomically traced back to Lenin.
But not including just regular dictators without even an ostensible connection to Leninism/Communism that tankies sometimes like for geopolitical reasons (e.g. Assad).
A leader must have actual controlled some territory at some point, even if not successfully seizing control over a state. So Chairman Gonzalo counts, Bob Avakian of the Revolutionary Communist Party USA does not. (He does seem like a wiener though.)
Ranking might look like:
- Pol Pot
- Gonzalo/Abimael Guzmán
- Stalin
- Mao???
...
X. Tito as the least bastardly? Castro?
Do your worst!
They were cooked in Greece.
I'm surprised it hasn't decade.
Don't you know a good pun is its own reword?
Two muffins are in an oven, one muffin looks at the other and says "is it just me, or is it hot in here?"
Then the other muffin says "AHH, TALKING MUFFIN!!!"
For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.
I said "hey look, an escaPEA"
No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!
Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂
It really does, I swear!
For those of you who are wondering, the non mammalian synapsids where a group of amniotes that thrived during the Triassic and would eventually give rise to mammals. This includes animals like Dimetrodon, Gorgonops and Moschops. They wher eonce called "mammal like reptiles" due to their similarities to them. But know its known that they are not reptiles. That's why now their called proto mammals. But then there's the kicker, there not mammals either. So what class do they belong to then? I have theorized that the non mammalian synapsids belong to an unknown class of vertebrates known as Gymnotheria(Naked Beasts). Gymnotheria would be a class of vertebrates that would as a counterpart to Reptilia, making Mammalia a counterpart to Aves. But what do you think?
I thought I finally had rubella vs verticillata vs red log all figured out thanks to u/arcessivi and their great explanations and photos, but now I'm realizing my local garden center recently had two versions of what seemed to be the same plant, under different names-- Peperomia rubella and Peperomia rubicola. When I look it up briefly, wikipedia seems to list the two separately, but I haven't had the time to look into it deeper quite yet, so I figured I would ask here! Are they the same plant? The only difference I noticed in the two "types" at my local store was that one was a darker green on the leaf faces than the other. Help me solve this mystery!
Edit: even more confused as I began searching and this resource claims verticillata and rubella are synonyms??? I know taxonomic classifications are debated but man this is confusing
Because she wanted to see the task manager.
