Agnostic.com
  1. Agnostic
  2. Posts
  3. Academic (e.g., Science)

5 9

Elephants are rapidly evolving without tusks to escape ivory poachers, study finds

[abc.net.au]

xenoview 8 Oct 21
Share
Submit

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

5 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

0

Level 8

Did the elephants with big tusks reproduce before the poachers killed them?

Did you read the article?

@xenoview I noted first that the OP implies that evolution has a purpose — producing elephants whose tusks poachers don’t want.

Then I wrote my query, and finally read the article. The researchers did their work more carefully than the writer reported their work.
1

Level 9

Not exactly correct. The poachers are harvesting elephants genetically programmed to produce big tusks. That leaves the gene pool just those without that genetic tendency.

You literally just described how evolution works.

1

Level 9

And fish are evolving smaller bodies, so that they can squeeze through the holes in fishing nets.

Though of course, according to creationists, nobody has ever seen an example of evolution.

2

Level 8

And rattlesnakes are evolving who don't rattle. Why rattle if it just means humans kill you?

I have frequent visits from Pygmy rattlers. They don't rattle their buzz and I hope they keep buzzing.
5

Level 9

Poachers should be shot on sight.

They are in many countries.
Write Comment

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

Share this post

Copy Link

Categories

You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:629515
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.