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From: bane@parcvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.bio
Subject: Re: the Goal of evolution
Message-ID: <312@parcvax.Xerox.COM>
Date: Mon, 12-May-86 19:16:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: parcvax.312
Posted: Mon May 12 19:16:11 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 15-May-86 07:35:34 EDT
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Re: "Tigers (or whatever it was) don't have claws because they hunt,
they hunt because they have claws."

Well, I agreed with the rest of that article (I can't find it now,
darn it!), but I disagree with this part ... give a rabbit claws, and
I don't think it will start stalking birds.  Take away a tiger's
claws, and it will still try to hunt, only not successfully.

I think that a more accurate statement might be: Hunting and claws
developed together in the ancestor of the tiger.  Those animals with
claws hunted better than those without, and so the trait of claws was
passed on.  Better claws made better hunters, and hunting encouraged
better claws.

What I'd like to know is: although the expansion of the brain (of our
ancestors) into the current size (of humans) is apparently the most
phenomenal (in terms of a relatively small number of generations)
change known, the change from generation to generation was no more
than a fingernail clipping in volume.  How could that have made a
difference in terms of selection?  This is one of those, we'll never
really know questions, I guess.  The only thing I can think of is
changes in structure  as well as volume, or something.

				- rene
-- 
Rene P S (nee Steiner) Bane
bane@parcvax