Evolving under a certain condition does not guarantee that one functions best under that condition
By
Vynce
on February 09, 2007
For instance, humans may have spent the last ten thousand years needing a set of teeth that came in late and at an angle to pack the remaining teeth together for more effective use later in life, but it sure seems not to be a benefit to most people now.
(On the other hand, breast feeding really is better for most babies.)
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Discussion (11)
Your example cuts against your claim -- the condition in the first part (living as a human 10,000 years ago) is not the same as the condition in the second part (living as a human today).
Conjecture: Teeth that are very close to each other are better for eating. tooth loss was common 10k years ago, so having additional teeth come in and 'crowd' the existing teeth together was good. Now, with better dental hygiene (which is a *different* condition), the original teeth last longer and those extra teeth are a nuisance.
your point is well made, and yeah, i struggled to come up with a good example -- the condition i was thinking of unchanging was not having the wisdom teeth removed. I guess I should have tried harder.
But it's hard. because the world is complicated.
Evolving in a condition where wild animals will try to eat you doesn't mean you won't do better if wild animals stop trying to eat you or there aren't wild animals near you.
Well no, although I function pretty great under current conditions, I feel that I would do even better on a planet with weaker gravity, lots of spa's and free skydiving facilities.
actually, another reading suggests that my example still holds up -- unless you're willing to postulate that we're better off with no dental hygiene.
What made the claim easy to agree to for me is the use of the word "best". I think evolution general produces good enough and takes it easy after that.
Evolution is about probabilities, not certainties.
Mr. Fye, i think you may have misread the claim.
That's likely enough, Vynce, but I'm not sure in what way I may have. If you understand what I meant than it would help if you pointed out the difference. But for now I'll restate: I'm saying that your claim seems true to me because something could always function better (until it functions best) but evolution doesn't seem to take it past good enough.
the claim says nothing about evolution getting things to the best possible state, though. You seem to be responding to something like "An organism is only best for the situation it evolves in, not any other situation" which is not at all what the claim says.
"functions best" in this case is about the best function a particular configuration can have under any situation, not the best function any configuration could have under that situation.
Sorry if I took a while with responding. Unfortunately I still don't understand. I think the opinion on evolution I expressed is a broader statement than the claim and indirectly supports it.