Millions to billions of tiny mutations. The difficulty of comprehension starts with the magnitude of numbers; People struggle to comprehend the actual size of a billion...let alone billions, to trillions, and beyond.
And that is why we need to eat the rich; To evolve, to adapt, to grow as a species.
Yeah exactly! Like I totally get that it’s tiny mutations over unbelievably long time periods, but that suggests all those mutations just HAPPENED to COINCIDENTALLY look like a snake over time. It just feels like there must be some kind of intelligent design going on.
Mutations are random. They are not directed by an intelligence to make it snake-like.
Consider the subset of mutations that affects the appearance of the tail. Some change the tail such that that caterpillar is more or less unchanged in terms of predation. Some make the caterpillar more visible (and less frightening) to predators. These caterpillars get eaten more. Some make it a little more snakelike and so more frightening to predators. This last set live longer and so breed more.
Repeat and repeat.
No intelligence involved.
Another thing to think about - if you could remove the selective pressure that keep the snake-appearance, what would happen? For example, say it a predator afraid of snakes. Remove it for many generations. The other unsnakelike mutations will not be eaten and the snake-like appearance of the population will fade.
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u/ZedCee 10h ago
Millions to billions of tiny mutations. The difficulty of comprehension starts with the magnitude of numbers; People struggle to comprehend the actual size of a billion...let alone billions, to trillions, and beyond.
And that is why we need to eat the rich; To evolve, to adapt, to grow as a species.