Re: Evolution, Bipedalism, and Precision Throwing in Hominids

On 5.8.2024. 7:08, JTEM wrote:

  Mario Petrinovic wrote:

         Adapt to what? Every animal is adapted to niche. A jaguar will not adapt to eat grass.

 Common Descent means that the common ancestor to the jaguar and the
goat did adapt to eat one or the other.
 The goat eats grass, the jaguar eats meat... what did their LCA eat?
 

There is a niche in nature.

 And the better adapted to that niche, the more vulnerable to changes.
 The better matched to a niche, the more likely a population will go
extinct if changes are introduced.

Of course. But until the change, the better matched to niche will thrive.
The goat eats grass, because there is grass, the jaguar eats meat because there is meat. Some animal will adapt to eat plastic, because there is plastic. One day, when grass cease to exist, goats will cease to exist, but an animal which eats both, grass and meat, will survive. If there is such an animal. Yet, will it survive, since then we will only have meat, and the animals which are adapted to eating meat will do better than an animal which eats both, meat and grass? Thee advantage of generalist is in some other fields of logic, like they can occupy larger space, because they can occupy more niches. So, it isn't strange that big bears are generalists, they do need big areas.
So, things are far more complex than looking at the just one line of logical progression.
But, when, exactly, grass ceased to exist? In the time of dinosaurs, per my view, they did lost their food (fern), in the case of mammoths they did lost their food (herbs). We are adapted to live on Earth, once the Earth is gone, we will cease to exist. There is nothing wrong with all this. Generalists thrive less, but they do survive. So, it is a sorry life, but a surviving one. Big deal. I would rather thrive while I am alive, generalists die regularly also, they don't live forever. Even if humans would eventually (of course, they will not) conquer the whole Universe, I will still die in a few decades, so, who cares. Should I be a generalist, and live my sorry life, just so that some other member of my species survive? Well, I will not survive for sure, I will die, just like every animal dies. Should I live a sorry generalist's life, or should I thrive and enjoy my life? It will be hard for the members of my species when the time of extinctions comes, but hey, at least they will enjoy their lives up till that moment.