Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to Sorry, forgot that you had no clue

There is one thing...
Tom Brosz — (archived)

Evolution seems to go in "spurts." Not sure if that is a biological phenomenon, or just a reflection of rapid changes in environment. I haven't studied recent materials on this.

I think that a lot of "unused DNA" in an organism makes evolution work more effectively, since complex solutions from the past may already be stored there. Kind of like being able to take a mutation off the shelf instead of having to assemble it bit by bit.

It would normally take a long time for a chicken to evolve teeth from scratch, but it only takes a couple of genetic kicks to get a chicken with teeth, since distance ancestors already had them.

In the kid's book "The Enormous Egg," a chicken lays a triceratops egg. Sheer fantasy, of course, but the book's explanation (back in the 1950s!) was that there was some relationship between birds and dinosaurs, so it wasn't all THAT far-fetched.

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