Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!ames!uhccux!lee
From: lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: evolution of intelligence
Message-ID: <4514@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Date: 5 Aug 89 19:16:32 GMT
References: <19229@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU>
Organization: University of Hawaii
Lines: 19

From article <19229@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU>, by b27y@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU:
" ...
" questions:
" 	What about "reverse" evolution?  Some researchers (I do not remember
" all the details) I recall seem to have found evidence of speices which
" evolved attributes which made survival HARDER.  More specifically: A type of
" pike, whose teeth where evovling so that they stick outwards, which made
" cating and eating prey MORE difficult?  This deosn't seem possible under the
" orignal Dawrininan discriptions. ...

In _The Meaning of Evolution_, Simpson proposes an explanation of how
such things can happen.  He gives an example of a type of elk whose
antlers came to be burdonsomely large, and claims this happened because
of a genetic link between antler size and overall body size.  Increased
body size was sufficiently advantageous to overcome the disadvantage of
the outsized antlers.  Whether such an argument could be made for
your pike, that I don't know.

			Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu