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A comment on Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ to poachers (2021). Parent comment

Re:Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ t... by Ygg2 on Monday December 05, 2022 @03:33AM (#33862962)
> Te point OP is making is that being born without tusks is just a random chance

Yes. That's how evolution works. Your genes are randomized during life/mating.

Due to selection pressure one variation is favored over the other. That's evolution.

So in evolutionary response to poachers elephants evolve no tusks.

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Re:Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ t... by nverno on Monday December 05, 2022 @03:39AM (#33862996)
It is pedantic, but I see how 'response' here lends agency to evolution, and could be interpreted as implying an intelligent process, as mentioned above.
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Re:Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ t... by Ygg2 on Monday December 05, 2022 @03:47AM (#33863058)
Same way any inanimate system can respond. Think of it more like action/reaction than anything else. I.e. there is no agency just a set of interacting rules.
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Re:Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ t... by nverno on Monday December 05, 2022 @04:01AM (#33863145)
Yea, I think the original wording is fine, although I'd think of it more like the elephant genes are a river that got dammed, so the river started flowing around. Saying the river responded to the dam would be similar.
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Re:Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ t... by fastball on Monday December 05, 2022 @04:11AM (#33863205)
If anyone think evolution has "agency" because the word "response" was used, I'm not sure how productively that person can participate in a conversation about such.
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Re:Elephants born without tusks in ‘evolutionary response’ t... by akvadrako on Monday December 05, 2022 @04:18AM (#33863248)
Evolution is an intelligence in the same way people call anything AI: it's a system which can learn and adapt.
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