Everything is equally evolved to fit their niches, it’s when a niche changes than an organism develops mutations and evolves to better fit the new niche forcing the other organism to go extinct
Assuming the professor did want a real answer though and not just pointing out the obvious, then I guess either the organism with the most chromosomes (which Google says is the adder’s tongue fern) or the organism with the most generation which isn’t as easy to figure out but I assume some form of bacteria.
Weird question to have as an assignment either way, albeit not the weirdest question I was asked in college. That would go to the an extra credit math question of “What is the zen of math”
I mean I’m too sure on the time frame, but realistically he gave them like two days maybe to complete an oral presentation on what the most advanced form of life is. Assuming literally everyone would just go google that an hour before class this clearly just a test to see who is actually going to put effort into the class and who is paying attention. Especially if Becky is right and it’s a “trick” question because by design you’re not supposed to get the answer right. .
Sirksome, but that’s not the question, is it? Is the answer to “what is the most advanced form of life” the same as to “what is the most highly evolved organism”?
I don’t know. Regalli articulated it better than I did in this thread. The point being the question was bait. It’s not really meant to have a correct answer.
Either way, Sirksome is still making the teleological fallacy, seeing advancement where there is none. The irony is that googling an hour before class will produce the correct answer.
Weirdest question i got was, “what is your name?” Like really, what is a name. What does it mean to be /my/ name? What is ownership or posession? What is me? What is what? What is this question doing on a discrete maths quiz?
If I was a prof, this is a question I’d ask of class less to see them reach a “correct answer” and more to see where they go and how they got there. Maybe make statistics out of the answers and present those to the class and go over that.
“Everything is equally evolved to fit their niches”
Respectfully, but completely, disagree. To rephrase the provided argument countering the opening claim: A species newly evolved into utilizing a niche, is not going to have had as many iterations to performance tune for utilizing that niche, as compared to a species which has dominated a given niche for a million generations.
I’m not sure I agree, but I like that it’s the exact opposite of the layperson definiton of “most evolved”, where the animals that have been occupying the same niche for the longest are assumed not to have evolved in all that time, and are seen as “living fossils”.
Exactly. The question as it’s been phrased is simply ridiculous. It’s not something you’d ever expect a bio prof to ask. I could see it coming from a philosophy prof, but that’s because they’d be looking for a paper discussing the question, not an attempted answer.
It makes me think the prof here is kind of an idiot, and definitely an asshole.
Remember how Professor Brock’s first strip had that whole ‘you signed up to learn how humans evolved from lesser beings, and that’s a false conceit’ bit?
No, this is 100% intentional. He’s setting up a trick question where the true answer is ‘most evolved is a meaningless phrase,’ and expecting most of them to fall into the trick so he can challenge it afterwards.
Now, this doesn’t preclude ‘asshole teacher.’ If he set up this trick assignment for the second class and grades it expecting students to have seen through it, that’s a dick move. But if he accepts the various ‘wrong’ answers he knows he’s going to get and judges them based off the thought they put into this, the arguments they use to justify it, and the prep work they did for a presentation, that’s fine.
Of course, given how immediately he reminded me of my one asshole professor with tenure, I’m maybe not expecting the best from him. Still, it is POSSIBLE for a professor to give this on the first day, challenge it, and say ultimately ‘for the record, my goal wasn’t for you all to get the “correct” answer right off the bat, I wanted to get you thinking about this even if you didn’t draw that conclusion and I’ll be grading your arguments regardless of your answer, don’t worry.’
No, mutations don’t happen on demand. They happen at random. (Sometimes true quantum-physical random.) The trick is that they happen so often that there’s pretty commonly one available when it’s needed.
Crows are actually pretty intelligent too!
They got facial recognition and cool flock things going on.
Pigs are supposedly smart too, but I know less of them.
I’m getting the sense though that it’s a double-twist of an answer.
Like she EXPECTS people will think it’s a trick but the real answer is just humanity anyway.
Crows use tools, can solve puzzles and have been found to use toys (items for the sole purpose of entertainment, which is rare in wild animals).
They’ve used Crows for recycling initiatives, where they have little machines that will accept things like bottle caps and dispense small bits of food. The problem is that Crows would figure out which size/shape/weight things would work in the machine and then use them to get food.
The same goes for parrots by the way. INCREDIBLY intelligent animals. Can use tools, mimic things they hear and actually have decent memories. They can even name colors just by seeing them. Which y’know…isn’t impressive for humans but super impressive for a bird!
To my knowledge, most animals have the ability to detect one or two particular hues with their eyes, but rarely the full spectrum visible to us primates.
It is worth noting that any animal need not necessarily be able to see all hues in order to use color identification as part of one or more symbioses they have with others.
Ok that’s a valid interpretation, but it plays with a loose definition of colourblind where coloquially people may commonly understand it to mean monochromatic vision rather than “sees fewer colours than primates”. Still, it kind of is a moot point since plenty of mono- or few-cellular animals have no vision, and they shirley outnumber all the other animals combined. (this last point is pure spit-ballery)
Humans don’t see in “All hues” . Birds and insects can see into UV .
Humans have a very simple 3 pigment system. We can’t even directly detect half the spectrum we see ( or the sky would look violet, not blue ) including the color yellow.
Mantis shrimp can directly detect 10 separate colors, differentiating hundred s of millions of hues we can not.
But even examining the frequencies of visible light humans can see reveals 50% of the frequencies appear as the same shade of red; is A large clue humans don’t see the full spectrum nor have the best color differentiation.
Mantis shrimp color vision isn’t quite as spectacular as we previously thought, it seems. I was disappointed, but the current understanding is still pretty fascinating! https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2014.14578
I think its more that most /mammals/ have poor colour vision, except for primates. Birds, many arthropods, and many fish have colour vision that is as good as ours or better.
The answer is clearly absurdly rich videogame CEO’s. They’ve evolved the point that they don’t need emotions, and fhus they can easily decide how many people are going to lose their jobs because the shareholders want more money.
Nah, absurd riches are mostly down to random chance. Just look at Flappy Bird, and In Search of Excellence. In regard to the latter, pay particular attention to how WRONG it turned out to be come the 2008 recession.
I like videogames and I’m bitter that so many people lose their jobs because the game sales: “didn’t meet expecations.” So rather than cut the salary of the executives who make too much money, they instead fire people who do the actusl work. I could go on further but I think I made my point.
Everyone’s going to give their answers, then the professor will wheel in something under a sheet. “This,” he’ll say, “is the answer, the most highly evolved organism.” With a flourish, he’s yank off the sheet. Beneath it: Galasso.
NGL I can’t read Sal’s appearances in IW! without thinking of Shadow the Hedgehog at least a little bit. “Genetically-engineered superbeing out for REVENGE!!” tends to remind me of Shadow. Hell, the alliance between [Yvaqn naq gur Urnq Nyvra]* is kinda like the one between Prof. Gerald and… whatever that game’s aliens were called. I think it was something racist
Also, he went to a public high school in Indiana. Having gone to a public high school in a somewhat similar state, I suspect he learned evolution, but not well enough that he is aware that evolution doesn’t have opinions.
Yes, but usually onlly the basics. Your typical high school biology class offers the chimp version of evolution and genetics. (Ie, so dumbed down a chimp could understand it) That’s pretty much what I remember, and judging from many, many discussions I’ve had online, it’s what most people get.
Mh okay. My perspective on this is probably coloured by the fact that I a) did not go to high school in America and b) went to a high school with an extra focus on science.
What would your choice be? I only chose the one I did because Joe and Joyce’s answer is more or less an obvious reference to A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Well, yeah, it depends what you mean by most evolved and what the criteria would be. It’s almost certainly a trick question designed to open more discussion of the common assumptions from outside the field and overhauling them.
Exactly. It’s meant to get the students thinking about what “most evolved” is supposed to mean, how you’re supposed to measure it, and what it means to evolve – all while knocking down their previously unquestioned assumptions.
If the gears are rusted, you might have to give them a kick to start them moving even if you’ve spread oil on them already.
In the common parlance, “most highly evolved” means “the most like us,” in which case the question is trivial. If it means, “most adapted to its environment,” we again have the advantage, in that we can live in nearly any environment on earth, and furthermore we can alter nearly any environment to suit us. If it mean, “most intelligent,” that’s a species specific parameter and no answer can be adduced. One begins to suspect the question has no meaning and it’s foolish to worry about it.
Fun fact. Crows and Pigs are two incredibly intelligent animals. Crows moreso than pigs but pigs are a lot smarter than we often give them credit for. About on par with dogs (and sometimes maybe even smarter)
Fucker isn’t even the Big Bad (that’s the humans and Napoleon), but I swear that ever since reading Animal Farm every time someone says “I don’t like apples” my hands reflexively clench into fists.
The primary reason we don’t eat corvids is because they snack on dead animal carcasses. This makes them carriers of diseases you wouldn’t find in goose or duck, as well as the top end of the heavy metal concentration.
Fun Fact – Concern about heavy metal toxicity is one of the things stopping us from regularly consuming other carnivores.
Dude, pigs will eat dead meat if that’s what’s available. Like crows, they are situational omnivores. There’s even scientific speculation that pigs had a carnivorous ancestor. Heck, pigs will eat PIG if it’s fed to them. They’re not picky.
Also, humans do eat crows – it’s where the expression “eating crow” comes from. You have to be pretty desperate to do it – that’s why “eating crow” means to acknowledge your own humility – but people have done so. I think it’s why crows are so distrusting of us – they know we’re predators.
…are you just here to try and “well, actually” everything?
Obviously it is physically possible to eat a crow. Obviously it has been done before. I was discussing why we don’t eat them the way we eat pigs. Context was important.
Also, didn’t they meet before breakfast, (or at least first thing in the morning) to get the work done before class? And now it’s after lunch? If they only had two hours for the assignment, and class is after lunch, then what did they need the extra time for? Also, she knows it is a trick question, so why the act pretended like she just figured it out now?
As much as I want y’all to be correct, I think it’s more of a conspiritorial lean/whisper kind of thing. You know, like: Joyce leans in, places her hand on Joe’s muscled chest. Her hand appears smaller, dwarfed by his pec pushing back and her fingers splaying across its chisled meat. She speaks softly so that he must lean down to hear, and she whispers gently in his ear. Her breath escapes her soft lips and caresses his skin. “Joe,” her voice massages his name. Just uttering it is a lover’s embrace. “I’m starting to think ‘dolphins’ is also too obvious an answer.” But maybe you’re correct, maybe it is a snuggle.
Yeah, if we’re assuming there’s a ‘correct answer’ (and uh, I sincerely doubt there is,) I’d probably go to one of those shapes that keeps showing up on completely different branches via convergent evolution. In that respect I suppose dolphins aren’t the WORST answer, since they saw what sharks were doing and went ‘yeah that sounds great.’
But points go to the Crab Shape, for showing up so often on enough different families biologists made up a word for it. Carcinization for the win.
There isn”t a correct answer, “most evolved” means nothing by itself. People tend to treat ”most evolved’ as if it means ‘most intelligent’ or ‘most dominant’ or ‘most powerful’ but all these are non-sequiturs.
If it’s by evolution and not intelligence, it’d probably be bacteria, particularly viruses. They are constantly evolving and changing. Just because we can’t see it, and it doesn’t compare to human evolution, doesn’t mean it’s not evolved.
Viruses are not bacteria. Perhaps the word you wanted was microbes or microorganisms? Anyway, it’s a decent answer; I really think the point of the assignment is to notice that “most highly evolved” doesn’t have a testable meaning, so everyone will say something different.
Oh shoot your right! I really mixed it up. I also agree that there is no real right answer to the statement, as everything evolves differently due to several factors. It’s not really fair to say one organism is more evolved than another when they never needed those traits to survive in their environment.
If you haven’t heard it, do yourself a favor and look up Cosmo Sheldrake’s Tardigrade Song! Then, if you’re anything like me, you can be sucked down a rabbit hole of weird but very boppy songs about any number of odd subjects. You’re welcome.
I thnk it’s a neat question to reflect what you value- most people (disregarding ‘it’s a trap’ answers, tend to go for intellect (humans, dolphins) or survivability (cockroach, tardigrade). Those are the two things most ppl seem to consider worth ‘evolving towards’.
Sometimes there’s value given to like, ecosystem-preservation (dolphins are smart enough to not fill their environment with toxins!!1!) or community (bees work together!) or hacking the system (parasites, particularly ones which seem to have LOST complexity as part of their evolution within the context of their host)
I’m sorry, but anyone who says that dolphins are the most evolved because they don’t pollute deserves to be slapped. I would honestly rather deal with a beginning of comic hyper-religious Joyce than that hippie bullshit.
They also commit infanticide sometimes, possibly to free up females for breeding! We think they may also sometimes practice this technique by killing other species of porpoise. And they’ve been filmed deliberately chewing on pufferfish to get high, which is less horrifying I guess but also not fun for the pufferfish.
Yeah, dolphins are intelligent enough to be utter bastards sometimes. Survival techniques are frequently not pretty.
Plants are weird but they’re different enough from us humans manage to consider them Not The Same as animals.
Yeah the ‘chew on pufferfish to get high’ thing isn’t on the same level as infanticide, but it is really interesting because it’s something they clearly do for recreational purposes. Dolphins: they’re smart enough to do drugs.
This is awesome. I throw out an example that I hope is an even more, “hippie bullshit,” excuse for dolphins being most evolved, and I get to learn that they’re also using mind-altering substances. There are reports (iffy, sorry just search results) of dolphins attacking or being somewhat amorous with humans. I don’t know if them being interspecies would make them the same or worse than Harvey.
Dolphins can be real pieces of shit if they feel like it. They don’t pollute like people because they literally can’t, not out of any moral superiority
I feel like the smartest answer is a crab, because crustaceans keep evolving crab-like physiology. This implies that a crab is a very well-adapted form and unlike other potentially coincidental morphologies like sharks or crocodiles, this phenomenon occurs so frequently that we felt the need to name it – Carcinisation.
You could also be a smartass and say viruses are the most highly evolved due to their sheer quantity of adaptations.
By this token you can also claim most fish, considering that despite their morphological similarities most of them aren’t very closely related at all, there just aren’t many variations on the best way to travel through water. I don’t know if there’s a fancy name for it though, so it doesn’t get as much attention as carcinisation has since that went somewhat viral.
There’s an internet rabbit hole you just missed: let me push you in. See, “fish” is a meaningless term. It’s an easy to understand word… until you look closely.
A “fish” is anything that swims underwater, and has gills and has scales and has fins: There’s a lot of things that are “fish-like” because they have 3/4 of the above and we have no other place to put them (like lungfish). So “fish” describes a lot of things that can’t really be described as well as “snake” or “human” or “cat.”
Secondly: Humans are Primates, and Monkeys are primates, because we’re farther down the evolutionary tree. But if you go back past primates to mammals, and then to amphibians, next thing you know you’re describing fish, since early vertibrates were fish! So amphibians are fish that learned to survive on land, etc. So primates are very specialized fish. Almost anything, eventually, falls into the supercategory of “fish”?
Fish is a word that everyone knows what it is, even though no one can completely define what it is that makes only fish be fishes.
Vertebrates with internal gills and fins seem pretty close. I mean, lungfish have gills. The only things that seem problematic are some eels that lost fins, although are still definitely part of the same teleost lineage.
If you want a phylogenetic definition, fish are vertebrates that aren’t tetrapods. That of course means they aren’t the result of fishification though…rather vertebrates [i]started[/i] as fish, and except the one weird lineage most have stayed that way.
Eelification, though, is definitely a thing that has happened a couple times. 🙂
You know what I wonder? People often think of the theory of evolution in terms of standard curriculum that’s there for whatever reason, but yet I suspect that not alot of people reckon what it actually does for us.
Would anyone care to list some applications of evolution that are not necessarily purely academic? Like medicine maybe?
Computer science has genetic algorithms, modeled on evolution. They’re basically AI’s designed to write other AIs, then mutate them and compete for survival based on how well they perform their designated task.
Software writing software. It’s either the smartest thing humanity has done, or the dumbest. Possibly both.
What exactly is “dumb” anyway, besides the first four letters eponymizing this very comic?
Philosopher and economist Nassim Nicholas Taleb has written some rather fascinating work on the axiom that some systems can actually gain from disorder. I definitely think it’s worth checking out if you have the time.
Yes. Although software writing software has been done for a lot longer than just genetic algorithms. It’s essentially the definition of a compiler. G.A.’s just optimize something for a particular problem space (data set). It can be software, it can be starting parameters, performance settings, fault tollerances…
Learning about the theory of evolution gives you the background needed to understand a few things. Why can antibiotics or vaccines stop working? Why can scientists use standardized model organisms to study some things, instead of always needing a convenient population of whatever plant or animal their research might help someday?
Also, the underpinning that Professor Brock’s probably trying to get at – that there is no set path or ‘most evolved,’ and you can’t neatly sort things into least advanced -> most advanced – is also useful in recognizing how that applies to society, as well. Social progress isn’t a straight line, and industrialization isn’t some end goal that’s more desirable than any other form of civilization or culture. It’s just one path, that’s gone this particular way, and it can be shifted from on a societal level because it’s not working out. Humans are a part of the ecosystem just as much as wolves or songbirds are, and we can’t opt out of that because we like to think we’re superior.
Also given the ‘genetically modified foods are evil because genetic modification is bad!’ scaremongering that exists in this world, sometimes I just want to point to that one comic with Becky seeing what corn looked like 10,000 years ago. Humans genetically modify LOADS of things, and we’ve been doing it about as long as we’ve been humans. We just had to do it way slower, via selective breeding.
Genetic Engineering may very well be essential to future medicine and food sources. The fact that it’s been globally demonized for the sake of some marketing gimmick makes me want to cringe all the way back into my visual cortex!
People certainly scaremonger about genetically modified foods, but there are more reasonable concerns about the companies doing it and their testing and quality control. Doing things the slow way makes it harder to create dangers and gives time for any problems to show up and get weeded out.
It also tends to exacerbate the existing problems of industrial farming.
More than fair, yes. (The companies controlling agriculture are, like, 500 different issues in their own right as well.) It’s the reductiveness of it, the ‘all genetic modification is bad, because it’s unnatural’ that I find irritating.
Yep. I dislike siding with the scaremongers, and don’t go in for “organic” et al. most of the time because I can’t afford it, but the corporate behaviour, financial bullying, and pure bastardry of bayer-monsanto is so disgusting that I have absolutely no faith in their ethics. And since they’re such a juggernaught, I’m inclined to just sit back and say to the radical anti-GMO’ers, “go for it.”
It’s like our history of plastics for food consumption. Compared to the thousands of years we’ve had to learn what glazes, glasses, metals and woods safely hold food, we’ve had barely a century of companies telling us their plastics are safe for food, only to keep finding out they lied.
There’s a line of thinking comparing ‘companies in a democracy’ to ’emporers in republics’, but frankly I’m just out of energy to pursue it.
Unfortunately, the anti-GMOers tend to be anti-science in other ways. Anti-vaxxers, for example, who I hate so much the last year hasn’t actually intensified it because there was no up to go.
And that’s without going into stuff like that time a company engineered the seeds so the resulting plants would be sterile, so farmers would have to keep buying the seeds.
Farmers wouldn’t necessarily have to buy the seeds in those cases.
For instance, the Banana is a very popular fruit that’s been genetically modified to be seedless. They can only reproduce by budding, so all Banana growth happens solely through human activity. The fact that they are all genetically identical creates many potential problems though, and the bananas we know today may very well go extinct if we don’t get our act together about climate change. But the point still stands that budding remains a viable option for growing new crops.
Monsanto has developed a “terminator” gene that produces sterile seeds, but they claim not to have used it. They do sell their seeds under agreement to not save and reuse seeds, but that’s actually been standard practice even outside of GMO products.
“Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution.” You can’t really do taxonomy properly without understanding evolution. And while that might count as academic, you can’t really do any other biology or ecology well without taxonomy.
It’s like asking what applications atomic theory has that aren’t academic. Not many, you can mix the same chemicals without understanding it. But it’s never going to make sense what you get without it.
I wrote my biomedical thesis on bacteriophage research. Bacteriophages are viruses which prey upon bacteria, they are highly specialized (sometimes only attacking specific strains of specific bacteria) and are great at not harming any cells other than the ones they are supposed to. For this reason they are currently being (and have been for some time) looked at as an alternative/complementary treatment to help combat antibiotic resistance.
They work by invading a bacterium, replicating over and over until the cell finally bursts and spreads the infection to the other bacteria around it. The phages need a little time to assemble and replicate, but once they are all put together, they’re happy to go out and meet new homes.
– – – – – – – – –
Backstory over: A paper I read on bacteriophages made an interesting observation of an evolutionary arms race happening in miniature, and it has always impressed me.
The author noticed that their particular bacteria, when exposed to the phages, began to commit “benevolent suicide”…they would trigger apoptosis upon becoming infected, giving the phages no time to replicate.
In response, the phages which survived were those who had the ability to halt that apoptosis trigger, forcing the bacterium to stay alive until they were done replicating inside.
That reminds me of the captured hosts for ‘Aliens’ (xenomorphs). When the hosts are glued to the walls or wherever, helpless, immobile, and begging to be killed because they can’t do it themselves.
They probably don’t need to worry that hard about whether they actually guess the same answer the professor intended. It makes more sense that they’ll be graded by the effort put into their reasoning.
If we’re counting multicellular lifeforms, it’s fruit flies. They have a generation of 6-8 hours, iterating evolution tens of thousands or maybe millions of times within a single community gathering between a fermenting banana and a flock of birds as they deliver nutrition from the former to the latter. It’s hard to make any estimation how many fruit flies might have lived since they first evolved, since they keep mutating new traits including up to 25% faster generation in response to local conditions with a speed that makes them prime candidates for biology studies of all kinds.
The one whose genetic makeup is the furthest removed from the primordial ooze wins, right? Of course that could mean the species that have had the most reproduction, the one with the most unique genes, or just the one most recently developed into its current form. . .
I bet your phone snuck a space in after the open quote before the URL. There’s been more than a few times I’ve only noticed that between hitting “Post Comment” and the page refreshing…
According to them, the Doctor Who villains the Daleks are the perfect and supreme life-form in the universe. However, every xenophobic sci-fi villain species tend to think that.
The answer is that no animal is the “most highly evolved”. Evolution is an ongoing process with no end point or specific goal. It does not make things, it filters them. You answers actually simply show where your bias towards how things should be is.
I’d go with sharks.
Evolved to fill their environmental niche about 300 million years ago, more or less unchanged since then. I’d say that 300 million years of biomorphic stability is a pretty good indicator of evolutionary perfection, wouldn’t you?
While she may be basing her answer on what was spelled out in Deuteronomy or Leviticus, I don’t think she actually follows it herself. How else could she have tacos with cheese, since mixing meat with dairy is also treyf?’
Does she have tacos with cheese (or whatever the fast food equivalent of cheese is)? This is someone who takes her meals apart to keep their elements separate, even while acknowledging that this goes beyond God’s requirements.
Maybe I’m misnderstood the source material but I’ve never thought that the Imperium considers humans to be genetically superior (other than the GEOM’s bloodline, for obvious reasons). They just have a semi-religious obsession with keeping the human genome ‘pure’ and have absolutely no interest in sharing the galaxy with any other intelligent life-form.
That’s actually an interesting question. I would assume that Because they see themselves as superior to other races they consider their genetics to be superior as well. Seems like a logical step.
Spider-bros, spider-bros, do whatever a spider does
They eat some bugs that they catch in their webs
Spider-bros, spider-bros, they’re not just some plebs.
One question I have… Did Becky figure out the answer herself, or did Dina tell her?
After all, Becky was raised with the same type of evangelical/anti-science mindset that Joyce was. Granted, she has been exposed to proper science through Dina for the past few months, but I’m not sure if she would have learned enough to figure out tricky questions like “what animal is most evolved”.
While generally, “yes dear” is a poor approach to learning, something tells me it’s a reasonably safe bet with Dina since the answer likely included sufficient explanation and references to actually teach Becky to make her own decision, rather than an appeal to authority.
Becky’s scientific education began with evolution (well, OK, it began with carbon dating, but as soon as she started dating a carbon-based lifeform, it was all about what corn used to look like 9000 years ago), so given that it’s been a few months and she’s fairly bright, she may have worked out enough for Dina not to need to give more than a gentle push.
Of course, this assumes that Dina’s answer isn’t “This particular type of dinosaur, because asteroid strikes don’t count when it comes to judging a species’ ability to survive.”
Optimistically, if Becky did go for ‘Dolphins’ it’s because she and Joyce giggled over The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy together as children. I can see Dina having protested against that quite strongly though!
Yeah, Joyce wasn’t one for Forbidden Stuff, because she was a goody two-shoes, and Becky’s shown no particular interest in sci-fi. Given Douglas Adams died before the girls would have been born by now via sliding timescale, I’m not certain they would even have heard of it without a specific interest in the circles it comes up in.
I think if it came from Hitchhiker in-universe, rather than being a joke or easter egg, Joe’s the one that’s read it. He and Danny used to be proper little nerds together when they were younger
Could be an illustrative question; like, you can create a lot of good discussion about it because the things someone might value tell a lot about our own preconceptions.
Joyce, Joe, you guys only think brains = pinnacle of evolution because the human brain is vastly overdeveloped and is more than a little biased in its own favor. TRY HARDER.
Just a question of phrasing, but surely beetles are only 1/5 of the Animalia, since they are neither Plantae, Fungi, Protista, Archaea/Archaebacteria, nor Bacteria/Eubacteria?
Beetles are way more than 1/5 of the species of Animalia. More like 1/2, unless the nematodes have been grossly underestimated… which of course they have been.
Species of bacteria are unfairly hard to name, BTW, because that officially requires growing a pure culture of them, and for most that’s not currently feasible.
Hmmmm.. a quick google says there’s estimated 8.7 million species total, ~7.7 million animalia (950,000 catalogued) and 350,000 species of beetle. Only unclear bit is if that 350000 is est. total or catalogued. But either way, still well less than 1/2.
Sorry, that should say, “well less than half, but wow, yeah, still a shockingly high share of animalia.” Thank you for shocking me into looking. Familiar already with the quote, by J.B.S. Haldane, “God has an inordinate fondness for beetles.”, but I wasn’t aware of the full extent of his meening.
it’s a very simple object lesson, evolution is a branching tree, more of a bush really, but some people think of it as a ladder, which is wrong because it implies there was some kind of end goal all along.
First answer: As presented (you know, one-line summary by characters in a comic, most likely leaving out detail and nuance) it *is* a trick question, because evolution isn’t some kind of sliding scale you can move up and down. Nor is it linear… as marine mammals like dolphins and whales show, you can evolve away from something (living in the ocean) and then re-evolve the traits you got rid of (living in the ocean). Is that a “backwards” step? Is it a “forwards” step? That only matters if you’re thinking of evolution as some kind of one-direction progression.
So no, there is no “most evolved”, because that fundamentally misunderstands evolution.
2nd Answer: Octopus. Seriously, we’ve caught octopuses, on camera, that will wait until the security guards walk by before they open their habitats (from the inside!) so they can walk (on land!) across the room to open *another* habitat so that they can get in there and have a late night snack, then sneak *back* across (while again, avoiding guards) to their own habitat. They left so little evidence, the only way they were caught was the cameras. Octopus are amazing, and the only thing keeping us safe is that they never had a need for firearms under water.
Thank you for reminding us of the midnight octopus assassin snacker, unfortunately that story isn’t well corroberated, but plenty are. Bemoan not the duplicate state of some of your data, upon us you have still bequeathed a gift of shared knowledge.
I choose to believe that the octopus-snacker is uncorroborated because it is so common in aquariums that they don’t bother documenting it, they just duct-tape the tanks shut.
Joyce, the answer is obvious. It is Charizard. It has evolved twice to reach its third stage, and then it can mega-evolve into two different forms. Thus it has the potential to have evolved into four different forms over the course of its life! Most anyone else can achieve is three.
I have thought about it some more. I have decided it is Sasquatches. They have evolved far enough that they were able to leave the planet. The sightings we get are just researchers coming back to the home planet to keep an eye on us.
Shathak aka Mrs. Tsathoggua said “I would tell the professor to go away with that tendentious, meaningless, stupid question that’s all Great Chain of Being. It’s a question designed to cause fights, not teach science, and nobody who is teaching biology should even ask it.”
And as usual she is right. It’s a terminally bad question.
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MICE
As pan-dimensional beings, I don’t think evolution applies to them.
I’m going with tardigrades, like the alt-text says, except only the giant dimension-hopping on magic mushroom kind.
Tardigrades, but specifically the ones from Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts.
“I went to Joyce’s biology presentation, and all I got was NOTHING because it’s NOT REAL”
<3 Kipo
Poor Ripper
Kitchen pans don’t evolve, silly.
look at all the species of pots and pans in my kitchen I think you might be wrong
Look, if mice were so smart, they wouldn’t have had to build the Earth to answer a simple question.
They didn’t build earth to answer a simple question, they built it to find the question to a simple answer.
That answer being “42”.
You fools! The answer is nothing! We are all machines!
Everything is equally evolved to fit their niches, it’s when a niche changes than an organism develops mutations and evolves to better fit the new niche forcing the other organism to go extinct
Assuming the professor did want a real answer though and not just pointing out the obvious, then I guess either the organism with the most chromosomes (which Google says is the adder’s tongue fern) or the organism with the most generation which isn’t as easy to figure out but I assume some form of bacteria.
Weird question to have as an assignment either way, albeit not the weirdest question I was asked in college. That would go to the an extra credit math question of “What is the zen of math”
No wait, I remembered that wrong. The question was actually “What is the zen of calculus?”
Differential calculus or integral calculus?
Sorry; I only know the zen of electrical engineering.
It’s ohhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmm
I mean I’m too sure on the time frame, but realistically he gave them like two days maybe to complete an oral presentation on what the most advanced form of life is. Assuming literally everyone would just go google that an hour before class this clearly just a test to see who is actually going to put effort into the class and who is paying attention. Especially if Becky is right and it’s a “trick” question because by design you’re not supposed to get the answer right. .
Sirksome, but that’s not the question, is it? Is the answer to “what is the most advanced form of life” the same as to “what is the most highly evolved organism”?
I don’t know. Regalli articulated it better than I did in this thread. The point being the question was bait. It’s not really meant to have a correct answer.
Either way, Sirksome is still making the teleological fallacy, seeing advancement where there is none. The irony is that googling an hour before class will produce the correct answer.
Weirdest question i got was, “what is your name?” Like really, what is a name. What does it mean to be /my/ name? What is ownership or posession? What is me? What is what? What is this question doing on a discrete maths quiz?
Are you certain it wasn’t an instruction to change your name to What?
No, that was “Data Structures and Algorithms” and isn’t a question. 😉
Reminds me of that one Babylon5 episode. “Who are you?”
If I was a prof, this is a question I’d ask of class less to see them reach a “correct answer” and more to see where they go and how they got there. Maybe make statistics out of the answers and present those to the class and go over that.
“Everything is equally evolved to fit their niches”
Respectfully, but completely, disagree. To rephrase the provided argument countering the opening claim: A species newly evolved into utilizing a niche, is not going to have had as many iterations to performance tune for utilizing that niche, as compared to a species which has dominated a given niche for a million generations.
Also, completely unrelated, but because I so enjoy saying it, humans are the least evolved form of primate.
Among the largest genetic differences between humans and chimps is the mere ordering of genes. Genetics is complicated!
Also most genes may be selfish genes that contribute nothing but, like, kill sperm cells that don’t carry both halves of it.
With. Gene edited babies, we shall carve away the filth of our past.
I’m not sure I agree, but I like that it’s the exact opposite of the layperson definiton of “most evolved”, where the animals that have been occupying the same niche for the longest are assumed not to have evolved in all that time, and are seen as “living fossils”.
It’s more that being ‘highly evolved’ doesn’t have a meaningful definition
Exactly. The question as it’s been phrased is simply ridiculous. It’s not something you’d ever expect a bio prof to ask. I could see it coming from a philosophy prof, but that’s because they’d be looking for a paper discussing the question, not an attempted answer.
It makes me think the prof here is kind of an idiot, and definitely an asshole.
Remember how Professor Brock’s first strip had that whole ‘you signed up to learn how humans evolved from lesser beings, and that’s a false conceit’ bit?
No, this is 100% intentional. He’s setting up a trick question where the true answer is ‘most evolved is a meaningless phrase,’ and expecting most of them to fall into the trick so he can challenge it afterwards.
Now, this doesn’t preclude ‘asshole teacher.’ If he set up this trick assignment for the second class and grades it expecting students to have seen through it, that’s a dick move. But if he accepts the various ‘wrong’ answers he knows he’s going to get and judges them based off the thought they put into this, the arguments they use to justify it, and the prep work they did for a presentation, that’s fine.
Of course, given how immediately he reminded me of my one asshole professor with tenure, I’m maybe not expecting the best from him. Still, it is POSSIBLE for a professor to give this on the first day, challenge it, and say ultimately ‘for the record, my goal wasn’t for you all to get the “correct” answer right off the bat, I wanted to get you thinking about this even if you didn’t draw that conclusion and I’ll be grading your arguments regardless of your answer, don’t worry.’
No, mutations don’t happen on demand. They happen at random. (Sometimes true quantum-physical random.) The trick is that they happen so often that there’s pretty commonly one available when it’s needed.
Extremely here for Joe and Joyce being idiots through biology class.
Samesies
Absolutely yes!
Agreed, unfortunately. I say that because they are really trying, and Joyce is doing her best to discard the religious
baggagehand she’s been dealt.Crows are actually pretty intelligent too!
They got facial recognition and cool flock things going on.
Pigs are supposedly smart too, but I know less of them.
I’m getting the sense though that it’s a double-twist of an answer.
Like she EXPECTS people will think it’s a trick but the real answer is just humanity anyway.
Crows also use tools which is pretty wild.
Crows use tools, can solve puzzles and have been found to use toys (items for the sole purpose of entertainment, which is rare in wild animals).
They’ve used Crows for recycling initiatives, where they have little machines that will accept things like bottle caps and dispense small bits of food. The problem is that Crows would figure out which size/shape/weight things would work in the machine and then use them to get food.
Corvids, in general, are wicked smart.
The same goes for parrots by the way. INCREDIBLY intelligent animals. Can use tools, mimic things they hear and actually have decent memories. They can even name colors just by seeing them. Which y’know…isn’t impressive for humans but super impressive for a bird!
That’s interesting. I thought that most animals except primates were color blind.
That ‘most animals are colourblind,’ would seem a strange assumption to make given how much of the animal world is such an explosion of colour.
To my knowledge, most animals have the ability to detect one or two particular hues with their eyes, but rarely the full spectrum visible to us primates.
It is worth noting that any animal need not necessarily be able to see all hues in order to use color identification as part of one or more symbioses they have with others.
Ok that’s a valid interpretation, but it plays with a loose definition of colourblind where coloquially people may commonly understand it to mean monochromatic vision rather than “sees fewer colours than primates”. Still, it kind of is a moot point since plenty of mono- or few-cellular animals have no vision, and they shirley outnumber all the other animals combined. (this last point is pure spit-ballery)
If you have the time to check it out, I just found a neat article from the Natural History Museum that shows how various animals see the world.
Humans don’t see in “All hues” . Birds and insects can see into UV .
Humans have a very simple 3 pigment system. We can’t even directly detect half the spectrum we see ( or the sky would look violet, not blue ) including the color yellow.
Mantis shrimp can directly detect 10 separate colors, differentiating hundred s of millions of hues we can not.
But even examining the frequencies of visible light humans can see reveals 50% of the frequencies appear as the same shade of red; is A large clue humans don’t see the full spectrum nor have the best color differentiation.
When I said “full spectrum”, I mean just the colors visible to primates. No animal, including any primate, can see ALL hues.
Mantis shrimp color vision isn’t quite as spectacular as we previously thought, it seems. I was disappointed, but the current understanding is still pretty fascinating! https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2014.14578
I think its more that most /mammals/ have poor colour vision, except for primates. Birds, many arthropods, and many fish have colour vision that is as good as ours or better.
Most mammals other than monkeys-including-apes are red/green blind.
Most vertebrates other than mammals have four color-sensitive eye pigments instead of our three or the usual mammalian two.
Outside of vertebrates very little research has been done, but do check out mantis shrimp.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZerUbHmuY04
Dude, you don’t f**k with crows. They know your face, they remember, and they carry grudges. Like, pass-down-to-their-children grudges.
well otters use tools too, if we go by that then they must atleast as smart as crows.
in any case they are alot more adorable.
Pigs are real goddamn clever, but not to the same degree as Dolphins or Corvids
Come on, it has to be cats.
Obviously.
They’re very good at training humans
The answer is clearly absurdly rich videogame CEO’s. They’ve evolved the point that they don’t need emotions, and fhus they can easily decide how many people are going to lose their jobs because the shareholders want more money.
I think you can drop the ‘videogame’ and ‘CEOs’ parts of that.
Difficult to get absurdly rich without callous disregard for the lives of other people
Nah, absurd riches are mostly down to random chance. Just look at Flappy Bird, and In Search of Excellence. In regard to the latter, pay particular attention to how WRONG it turned out to be come the 2008 recession.
… and is there a reason that this is specifically video-game CEOs?
I like videogames and I’m bitter that so many people lose their jobs because the game sales: “didn’t meet expecations.” So rather than cut the salary of the executives who make too much money, they instead fire people who do the actusl work. I could go on further but I think I made my point.
these problems are hardly exclusive to the game’s industry
Yeah that’s pretty much how almost all big corporations work.
Currently rerunning on Doonesbury -a video game company lays off employees while the CEO goes to Hawaii.
YOU FOOLS! You are all doomed!! DOOOOOMED!!!
Everyone’s going to give their answers, then the professor will wheel in something under a sheet. “This,” he’ll say, “is the answer, the most highly evolved organism.” With a flourish, he’s yank off the sheet. Beneath it: Galasso.
OK, you win.
He has spoken!
… You know, I can’t dispute that. Clearly, Galasso is the ultimate lifeform.
This is erasure of Shadow the Hedgehog.
NGL I can’t read Sal’s appearances in IW! without thinking of Shadow the Hedgehog at least a little bit. “Genetically-engineered superbeing out for REVENGE!!” tends to remind me of Shadow. Hell, the alliance between [Yvaqn naq gur Urnq Nyvra]* is kinda like the one between Prof. Gerald and… whatever that game’s aliens were called. I think it was something racist
*MAJOR spoilers, ROT13 at your own risk
I love these two maroons.
Aren’t the basics of evolution something you learn in high school?
She’s homeschooled, and Joe isn’t exactly giving the assignment a lot of effort.
Homeschooling is not allowed were I come from for that exact reason.
Also, he went to a public high school in Indiana. Having gone to a public high school in a somewhat similar state, I suspect he learned evolution, but not well enough that he is aware that evolution doesn’t have opinions.
LOL
not if the christian fundangelicals in your area can possibly prevent it
And in a state like Indiana, they usually can.
Yes, but usually onlly the basics. Your typical high school biology class offers the chimp version of evolution and genetics. (Ie, so dumbed down a chimp could understand it) That’s pretty much what I remember, and judging from many, many discussions I’ve had online, it’s what most people get.
Mh okay. My perspective on this is probably coloured by the fact that I a) did not go to high school in America and b) went to a high school with an extra focus on science.
Sadly, a lot of high schools in the US don’t teach the basics of evolution very well.
Sadly, a lot of high schools in the US don’t teach the basics of
evolutionanything very well.Fixed
*plays “So long and thanks for all the fish” on Voxola PR-76*
*golf claps for you*
What would your choice be? I only chose the one I did because Joe and Joyce’s answer is more or less an obvious reference to A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
I think you chose well.
Thanks. That means alot coming from you.
Well, yeah, it depends what you mean by most evolved and what the criteria would be. It’s almost certainly a trick question designed to open more discussion of the common assumptions from outside the field and overhauling them.
Exactly. It’s meant to get the students thinking about what “most evolved” is supposed to mean, how you’re supposed to measure it, and what it means to evolve – all while knocking down their previously unquestioned assumptions.
If the gears are rusted, you might have to give them a kick to start them moving even if you’ve spread oil on them already.
In the common parlance, “most highly evolved” means “the most like us,” in which case the question is trivial. If it means, “most adapted to its environment,” we again have the advantage, in that we can live in nearly any environment on earth, and furthermore we can alter nearly any environment to suit us. If it mean, “most intelligent,” that’s a species specific parameter and no answer can be adduced. One begins to suspect the question has no meaning and it’s foolish to worry about it.
Congratulations, you have solved the trick question.
It’s definitely a trick question, and I’m betting their professor is expecting at least a few of them to realize that.
The most highly-evolved species is obviously Larxene apologists. But nobody’s ready for that conversation yet.
Fun fact. Crows and Pigs are two incredibly intelligent animals. Crows moreso than pigs but pigs are a lot smarter than we often give them credit for. About on par with dogs (and sometimes maybe even smarter)
Snowball…. Snowball…. Snowball….. why am I thinking about that name right now?
All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Just remember that I’m more equal than you are.
Ugh, I fucking hate Squealer.
EVERYBODY hates Squealer, the evil little prick.
Fucker isn’t even the Big Bad (that’s the humans and Napoleon), but I swear that ever since reading Animal Farm every time someone says “I don’t like apples” my hands reflexively clench into fists.
By the way @Yotomoe, how was your crab last night? Will we be expecting any more fine art in the neat future?
It was delicious, I have leftovers and Who knows! Probably soon!
I’m going to vote for crows as being smarter. Pigs haven’t proved smart enough to evolve to not be delicious.
I dunno. From what I heard, the dark meat of crows can easily compete with that of goose or duck.
The primary reason we don’t eat corvids is because they snack on dead animal carcasses. This makes them carriers of diseases you wouldn’t find in goose or duck, as well as the top end of the heavy metal concentration.
Fun Fact – Concern about heavy metal toxicity is one of the things stopping us from regularly consuming other carnivores.
Dude, pigs will eat dead meat if that’s what’s available. Like crows, they are situational omnivores. There’s even scientific speculation that pigs had a carnivorous ancestor. Heck, pigs will eat PIG if it’s fed to them. They’re not picky.
yes, but pigs who are raised for food are not fed meat.
Not completely true.
Also, humans do eat crows – it’s where the expression “eating crow” comes from. You have to be pretty desperate to do it – that’s why “eating crow” means to acknowledge your own humility – but people have done so. I think it’s why crows are so distrusting of us – they know we’re predators.
…are you just here to try and “well, actually” everything?
Obviously it is physically possible to eat a crow. Obviously it has been done before. I was discussing why we don’t eat them the way we eat pigs. Context was important.
They’re also small and thus have a low effort/reward ratio.
I think fish are the only real carnivores we eat regularly and heavy metals are definitely a concern there. Chickens eat bugs? At least if free range.
Tuna. Apex predators, lots of lovely meavy metal accumulation….
Heavy-metal toxicity has only been a concern for less than a hundred years!
I didn’t know the evangellical crusade against rock and roll went back that far!
Oh, Crows are absolutely smarter. No contest. It’s not even close. But Pigs are still smarter than we give them credit for.
It’s obviously TURTLES, specifically the ones of the Teenage Mutant Ninja variety.
Oh, I would have guessed the Great A’Tuin
They are sorting it by intelligence? Jeez, everyone knows the most evolved creature is the one that can synthesize the most variety of proteins
Or the one that has gone through the greatest number of speciation events…. which is probably something tiny, short-lived and not very bright.
Humans are extremely smart, but we’re no more advanced than a creature that sucks algae off of rocks. We just have remarkably different priorities.
Is it the angle or is Joyce snuggling up against Joe’s chest?
I think it’s just the angleYes.It’s the angle but also you are correct.
Also, didn’t they meet before breakfast, (or at least first thing in the morning) to get the work done before class? And now it’s after lunch? If they only had two hours for the assignment, and class is after lunch, then what did they need the extra time for? Also, she knows it is a trick question, so why the act pretended like she just figured it out now?
As much as I want y’all to be correct, I think it’s more of a conspiritorial lean/whisper kind of thing. You know, like: Joyce leans in, places her hand on Joe’s muscled chest. Her hand appears smaller, dwarfed by his pec pushing back and her fingers splaying across its chisled meat. She speaks softly so that he must lean down to hear, and she whispers gently in his ear. Her breath escapes her soft lips and caresses his skin. “Joe,” her voice massages his name. Just uttering it is a lover’s embrace. “I’m starting to think ‘dolphins’ is also too obvious an answer.” But maybe you’re correct, maybe it is a snuggle.
Crocodiles…. Sharks… Crabs… I have no idea what the right answer is, but I’m sure it’s not that.
Yeah, if we’re assuming there’s a ‘correct answer’ (and uh, I sincerely doubt there is,) I’d probably go to one of those shapes that keeps showing up on completely different branches via convergent evolution. In that respect I suppose dolphins aren’t the WORST answer, since they saw what sharks were doing and went ‘yeah that sounds great.’
But points go to the Crab Shape, for showing up so often on enough different families biologists made up a word for it. Carcinization for the win.
There isn”t a correct answer, “most evolved” means nothing by itself. People tend to treat ”most evolved’ as if it means ‘most intelligent’ or ‘most dominant’ or ‘most powerful’ but all these are non-sequiturs.
If it’s by evolution and not intelligence, it’d probably be bacteria, particularly viruses. They are constantly evolving and changing. Just because we can’t see it, and it doesn’t compare to human evolution, doesn’t mean it’s not evolved.
Viruses are not bacteria. Perhaps the word you wanted was microbes or microorganisms? Anyway, it’s a decent answer; I really think the point of the assignment is to notice that “most highly evolved” doesn’t have a testable meaning, so everyone will say something different.
Oh shoot your right! I really mixed it up. I also agree that there is no real right answer to the statement, as everything evolves differently due to several factors. It’s not really fair to say one organism is more evolved than another when they never needed those traits to survive in their environment.
If you haven’t heard it, do yourself a favor and look up Cosmo Sheldrake’s Tardigrade Song! Then, if you’re anything like me, you can be sucked down a rabbit hole of weird but very boppy songs about any number of odd subjects. You’re welcome.
I thnk it’s a neat question to reflect what you value- most people (disregarding ‘it’s a trap’ answers, tend to go for intellect (humans, dolphins) or survivability (cockroach, tardigrade). Those are the two things most ppl seem to consider worth ‘evolving towards’.
Sometimes there’s value given to like, ecosystem-preservation (dolphins are smart enough to not fill their environment with toxins!!1!) or community (bees work together!) or hacking the system (parasites, particularly ones which seem to have LOST complexity as part of their evolution within the context of their host)
I’m sorry, but anyone who says that dolphins are the most evolved because they don’t pollute deserves to be slapped. I would honestly rather deal with a beginning of comic hyper-religious Joyce than that hippie bullshit.
How about, “dolphins are most evolved because they use casual sex to say hello.”?
Aren’t dolphins known for sexual assault? Like the Harvey Weinstein of the sea?
They also commit infanticide sometimes, possibly to free up females for breeding! We think they may also sometimes practice this technique by killing other species of porpoise. And they’ve been filmed deliberately chewing on pufferfish to get high, which is less horrifying I guess but also not fun for the pufferfish.
Yeah, dolphins are intelligent enough to be utter bastards sometimes. Survival techniques are frequently not pretty.
Good thing cannabis and coffee trees don’t have minds…
Plants are weird but they’re different enough from us humans manage to consider them Not The Same as animals.
Yeah the ‘chew on pufferfish to get high’ thing isn’t on the same level as infanticide, but it is really interesting because it’s something they clearly do for recreational purposes. Dolphins: they’re smart enough to do drugs.
This is awesome. I throw out an example that I hope is an even more, “hippie bullshit,” excuse for dolphins being most evolved, and I get to learn that they’re also using mind-altering substances. There are reports (iffy, sorry just search results) of dolphins attacking or being somewhat amorous with humans. I don’t know if them being interspecies would make them the same or worse than Harvey.
Dolphins can be real pieces of shit if they feel like it. They don’t pollute like people because they literally can’t, not out of any moral superiority
Dolphins wouldn’t just pollute if they could, they would actively murder other animals with pollutants
Tardigrades are less invulnerable than people think though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMUvNWuSq6I
I feel like the smartest answer is a crab, because crustaceans keep evolving crab-like physiology. This implies that a crab is a very well-adapted form and unlike other potentially coincidental morphologies like sharks or crocodiles, this phenomenon occurs so frequently that we felt the need to name it – Carcinisation.
You could also be a smartass and say viruses are the most highly evolved due to their sheer quantity of adaptations.
By this token you can also claim most fish, considering that despite their morphological similarities most of them aren’t very closely related at all, there just aren’t many variations on the best way to travel through water. I don’t know if there’s a fancy name for it though, so it doesn’t get as much attention as carcinisation has since that went somewhat viral.
We need a word for fishification
Piscefication
Piscinization?
There’s an internet rabbit hole you just missed: let me push you in. See, “fish” is a meaningless term. It’s an easy to understand word… until you look closely.
A “fish” is anything that swims underwater, and has gills and has scales and has fins: There’s a lot of things that are “fish-like” because they have 3/4 of the above and we have no other place to put them (like lungfish). So “fish” describes a lot of things that can’t really be described as well as “snake” or “human” or “cat.”
Secondly: Humans are Primates, and Monkeys are primates, because we’re farther down the evolutionary tree. But if you go back past primates to mammals, and then to amphibians, next thing you know you’re describing fish, since early vertibrates were fish! So amphibians are fish that learned to survive on land, etc. So primates are very specialized fish. Almost anything, eventually, falls into the supercategory of “fish”?
Fish is a word that everyone knows what it is, even though no one can completely define what it is that makes only fish be fishes.
Vertebrates with internal gills and fins seem pretty close. I mean, lungfish have gills. The only things that seem problematic are some eels that lost fins, although are still definitely part of the same teleost lineage.
If you want a phylogenetic definition, fish are vertebrates that aren’t tetrapods. That of course means they aren’t the result of fishification though…rather vertebrates [i]started[/i] as fish, and except the one weird lineage most have stayed that way.
Eelification, though, is definitely a thing that has happened a couple times. 🙂
So snakes are still fish, but people aren’t, tadpoles are, but not when they grow up. Got it! 😆
Snakes are tetrapods and don’t have fins, and tadpoles are tetrapods and have [i]external[/i] gills, so…not at all?
As opposed to Carsonization, the mechanism that keeps turning celebrities into talk show hosts.
GIANT ENEMY CRAB
Crows are the correct answer. Always bet on black
If you’re going that route, though, wouldn’t a creature of the night be even better at striking fear into the hearts of criminals?
You. I like you.
https://twitter.com/LericDax/status/1412974860545007617
You know what I wonder? People often think of the theory of evolution in terms of standard curriculum that’s there for whatever reason, but yet I suspect that not alot of people reckon what it actually does for us.
Would anyone care to list some applications of evolution that are not necessarily purely academic? Like medicine maybe?
Computer science has genetic algorithms, modeled on evolution. They’re basically AI’s designed to write other AIs, then mutate them and compete for survival based on how well they perform their designated task.
Software writing software. It’s either the smartest thing humanity has done, or the dumbest. Possibly both.
What exactly is “dumb” anyway, besides the first four letters eponymizing this very comic?
Philosopher and economist Nassim Nicholas Taleb has written some rather fascinating work on the axiom that some systems can actually gain from disorder. I definitely think it’s worth checking out if you have the time.
good is dumb.
eh, you know it when you see it
Yes. Although software writing software has been done for a lot longer than just genetic algorithms. It’s essentially the definition of a compiler. G.A.’s just optimize something for a particular problem space (data set). It can be software, it can be starting parameters, performance settings, fault tollerances…
Learning about the theory of evolution gives you the background needed to understand a few things. Why can antibiotics or vaccines stop working? Why can scientists use standardized model organisms to study some things, instead of always needing a convenient population of whatever plant or animal their research might help someday?
Also, the underpinning that Professor Brock’s probably trying to get at – that there is no set path or ‘most evolved,’ and you can’t neatly sort things into least advanced -> most advanced – is also useful in recognizing how that applies to society, as well. Social progress isn’t a straight line, and industrialization isn’t some end goal that’s more desirable than any other form of civilization or culture. It’s just one path, that’s gone this particular way, and it can be shifted from on a societal level because it’s not working out. Humans are a part of the ecosystem just as much as wolves or songbirds are, and we can’t opt out of that because we like to think we’re superior.
Also given the ‘genetically modified foods are evil because genetic modification is bad!’ scaremongering that exists in this world, sometimes I just want to point to that one comic with Becky seeing what corn looked like 10,000 years ago. Humans genetically modify LOADS of things, and we’ve been doing it about as long as we’ve been humans. We just had to do it way slower, via selective breeding.
Genetic Engineering may very well be essential to future medicine and food sources. The fact that it’s been globally demonized for the sake of some marketing gimmick makes me want to cringe all the way back into my visual cortex!
People certainly scaremonger about genetically modified foods, but there are more reasonable concerns about the companies doing it and their testing and quality control. Doing things the slow way makes it harder to create dangers and gives time for any problems to show up and get weeded out.
It also tends to exacerbate the existing problems of industrial farming.
More than fair, yes. (The companies controlling agriculture are, like, 500 different issues in their own right as well.) It’s the reductiveness of it, the ‘all genetic modification is bad, because it’s unnatural’ that I find irritating.
Yep. I dislike siding with the scaremongers, and don’t go in for “organic” et al. most of the time because I can’t afford it, but the corporate behaviour, financial bullying, and pure bastardry of bayer-monsanto is so disgusting that I have absolutely no faith in their ethics. And since they’re such a juggernaught, I’m inclined to just sit back and say to the radical anti-GMO’ers, “go for it.”
It’s like our history of plastics for food consumption. Compared to the thousands of years we’ve had to learn what glazes, glasses, metals and woods safely hold food, we’ve had barely a century of companies telling us their plastics are safe for food, only to keep finding out they lied.
There’s a line of thinking comparing ‘companies in a democracy’ to ’emporers in republics’, but frankly I’m just out of energy to pursue it.
The best part is, organic crops actually use pesticides. “Natural” pesticides, that are proven worse than modern ones. I’m dead serious.
Unfortunately, the anti-GMOers tend to be anti-science in other ways. Anti-vaxxers, for example, who I hate so much the last year hasn’t actually intensified it because there was no up to go.
The anti-vaxxers are actually kind of concerning. If they can manage to prevent herd immunity globally, well….. so long and thanks for all the fish!
And that’s without going into stuff like that time a company engineered the seeds so the resulting plants would be sterile, so farmers would have to keep buying the seeds.
Farmers wouldn’t necessarily have to buy the seeds in those cases.
For instance, the Banana is a very popular fruit that’s been genetically modified to be seedless. They can only reproduce by budding, so all Banana growth happens solely through human activity. The fact that they are all genetically identical creates many potential problems though, and the bananas we know today may very well go extinct if we don’t get our act together about climate change. But the point still stands that budding remains a viable option for growing new crops.
Depends on the crop. Can’t really do it with wheat or corn.
Monsanto has developed a “terminator” gene that produces sterile seeds, but they claim not to have used it. They do sell their seeds under agreement to not save and reuse seeds, but that’s actually been standard practice even outside of GMO products.
Regardless of design, the seeds of crops we have now are gonna be guaranteed useless unless we get serious about climates change!
“Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution.” You can’t really do taxonomy properly without understanding evolution. And while that might count as academic, you can’t really do any other biology or ecology well without taxonomy.
It’s like asking what applications atomic theory has that aren’t academic. Not many, you can mix the same chemicals without understanding it. But it’s never going to make sense what you get without it.
Oh my god, it’s my chance!
I wrote my biomedical thesis on bacteriophage research. Bacteriophages are viruses which prey upon bacteria, they are highly specialized (sometimes only attacking specific strains of specific bacteria) and are great at not harming any cells other than the ones they are supposed to. For this reason they are currently being (and have been for some time) looked at as an alternative/complementary treatment to help combat antibiotic resistance.
They work by invading a bacterium, replicating over and over until the cell finally bursts and spreads the infection to the other bacteria around it. The phages need a little time to assemble and replicate, but once they are all put together, they’re happy to go out and meet new homes.
– – – – – – – – –
Backstory over: A paper I read on bacteriophages made an interesting observation of an evolutionary arms race happening in miniature, and it has always impressed me.
The author noticed that their particular bacteria, when exposed to the phages, began to commit “benevolent suicide”…they would trigger apoptosis upon becoming infected, giving the phages no time to replicate.
In response, the phages which survived were those who had the ability to halt that apoptosis trigger, forcing the bacterium to stay alive until they were done replicating inside.
That reminds me of the captured hosts for ‘Aliens’ (xenomorphs). When the hosts are glued to the walls or wherever, helpless, immobile, and begging to be killed because they can’t do it themselves.
They probably don’t need to worry that hard about whether they actually guess the same answer the professor intended. It makes more sense that they’ll be graded by the effort put into their reasoning.
Sharks. If they haven’t changed in 100 million years, they must be doing something right.
Coelacanth. Turned out not to be extinct, AND can live for centuries.
Actually, same with turtles. Though the giant ones never learned not to be delicious, so they’re not around anymore.
I’m glad someone else came to the same answer!
Of course they’ve changed in 100 million years. Even in 10 million. Just their very general body shape hasn’t.
If we’re counting multicellular lifeforms, it’s fruit flies. They have a generation of 6-8 hours, iterating evolution tens of thousands or maybe millions of times within a single community gathering between a fermenting banana and a flock of birds as they deliver nutrition from the former to the latter. It’s hard to make any estimation how many fruit flies might have lived since they first evolved, since they keep mutating new traits including up to 25% faster generation in response to local conditions with a speed that makes them prime candidates for biology studies of all kinds.
The one whose genetic makeup is the furthest removed from the primordial ooze wins, right? Of course that could mean the species that have had the most reproduction, the one with the most unique genes, or just the one most recently developed into its current form. . .
Or perhaps, whoever snuck aboard voyager?
If anyone from Voyager was the ‘most evolved’, it was Tom Paris after he achieved Warp 10.
Ugh, not fiction. Not that one. This (these) voyager(s) is(are) furthest from the primordial ooze.
Besides, didn’t Janeway also mutate? I recall some saucy comment from her about how in many species it’s the female that initiates copulation.
I like that most physically removed theory.
If they reproduce every 6-8 hours, I’m going to have to step up my game. They can evolve outside, not in my kitchen.
GO GO TEAM TARDIGRADE #1
It’s definitely hedgehogs. Not only have a bunch of mammals evolved Pokey Bits, but I have it on good authority the Ultimate Lifeform is one.
(I was replying to the Galasso comment and got inspired.)
Welp, still can’t link on mobile. https://youtu.be/CFnhX1ix1Cg
I bet your phone snuck a space in after the open quote before the URL. There’s been more than a few times I’ve only noticed that between hitting “Post Comment” and the page refreshing…
And, of course, the hedgehog can never be buggered at all.
https://www.reddit.com/r/discworld/comments/8vkp12/the_hedgehog_song/
The truest sign of evolutionary superiority, yes.
What is the “Ultimate Lifeform”?
Is this a Jojo reference?
According to them, the Doctor Who villains the Daleks are the perfect and supreme life-form in the universe. However, every xenophobic sci-fi villain species tend to think that.
Like humanity in 40k.
To quote Decius “We are the greatest species in existence and the Emperor is the greatest member of our species!”
I definitely prefer the T’au.
The answer is that no animal is the “most highly evolved”. Evolution is an ongoing process with no end point or specific goal. It does not make things, it filters them. You answers actually simply show where your bias towards how things should be is.
I’d go with sharks.
Evolved to fill their environmental niche about 300 million years ago, more or less unchanged since then. I’d say that 300 million years of biomorphic stability is a pretty good indicator of evolutionary perfection, wouldn’t you?
…AND just noticed pther people making the exact same comment. Does that count as peer review?
crocodiles fairly filled their niche too, though do agree sharks very stable
FWIW, dolphins are also not kosher, so if she’s basing her answer on that, dolphins could still be the right answer.
While she may be basing her answer on what was spelled out in Deuteronomy or Leviticus, I don’t think she actually follows it herself. How else could she have tacos with cheese, since mixing meat with dairy is also treyf?’
Does she have tacos with cheese (or whatever the fast food equivalent of cheese is)? This is someone who takes her meals apart to keep their elements separate, even while acknowledging that this goes beyond God’s requirements.
They had cheese on them (in them?) to start with.
she does say “you” and not “us”, and she knows joe’s family is Jewish, so she may specifically mean him and not “you” in the general sense.
capybaras. they’re friend-shaped for a reason
The real answer is….
Every animal in the world is equally evolved.
Except for spiders. Because spiders did not evolve, but they formed out of congealed evil wrapped in a crunch exoskeleton.
Because they defeated that evilmwith their friendly neighborhood spiderness and adorability
You look at Lucas the Spider and tell me he has a single drop of evil in his body.
Maybe I’m misnderstood the source material but I’ve never thought that the Imperium considers humans to be genetically superior (other than the GEOM’s bloodline, for obvious reasons). They just have a semi-religious obsession with keeping the human genome ‘pure’ and have absolutely no interest in sharing the galaxy with any other intelligent life-form.
That’s actually an interesting question. I would assume that Because they see themselves as superior to other races they consider their genetics to be superior as well. Seems like a logical step.
Come on, how can you treat our spider-bros like that. They catch other annoying bugs for us.
Spider-bros, spider-bros, do whatever a spider does
They eat some bugs that they catch in their webs
Spider-bros, spider-bros, they’re not just some plebs.
Cephalopods, of course
One question I have… Did Becky figure out the answer herself, or did Dina tell her?
After all, Becky was raised with the same type of evangelical/anti-science mindset that Joyce was. Granted, she has been exposed to proper science through Dina for the past few months, but I’m not sure if she would have learned enough to figure out tricky questions like “what animal is most evolved”.
I think Becky would’ve just rolled with whichever answer Dina settled on. Like you said, Dina’s her primary source for mainstream science.
While generally, “yes dear” is a poor approach to learning, something tells me it’s a reasonably safe bet with Dina since the answer likely included sufficient explanation and references to actually teach Becky to make her own decision, rather than an appeal to authority.
Becky’s scientific education began with evolution (well, OK, it began with carbon dating, but as soon as she started dating a carbon-based lifeform, it was all about what corn used to look like 9000 years ago), so given that it’s been a few months and she’s fairly bright, she may have worked out enough for Dina not to need to give more than a gentle push.
Of course, this assumes that Dina’s answer isn’t “This particular type of dinosaur, because asteroid strikes don’t count when it comes to judging a species’ ability to survive.”
As for the latter possibility, I doubt it. While Dina is incredibly enthusiastic about dinosaurs, she is still a scientist.
Ah yes the jolly little chimps of the sea…
You’re not referring to Sea Monkeys, are you????
Nope, I’m referring to the rapists of the sea, the dolphins.
The Winslow, of course.
This is the correct answer.
“Hi!”
Optimistically, if Becky did go for ‘Dolphins’ it’s because she and Joyce giggled over The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy together as children. I can see Dina having protested against that quite strongly though!
Oh, as if either of them ever had a chance to read/hear/watch that.
Given the amount of ‘forbidden’ stuff those two consumed hiding under their covers, I think that the chance is actually quite high!
I’d have to highly disagree with that…
Yeah, Joyce wasn’t one for Forbidden Stuff, because she was a goody two-shoes, and Becky’s shown no particular interest in sci-fi. Given Douglas Adams died before the girls would have been born by now via sliding timescale, I’m not certain they would even have heard of it without a specific interest in the circles it comes up in.
I think if it came from Hitchhiker in-universe, rather than being a joke or easter egg, Joe’s the one that’s read it. He and Danny used to be proper little nerds together when they were younger
So long and thanks for all the fish!
Crabs
Probably Ants, or come insect able to survive to nuclear disasters. But it’s really a weird assignment. I wonder what Dina and Ruth have choice.
Could be an illustrative question; like, you can create a lot of good discussion about it because the things someone might value tell a lot about our own preconceptions.
The answer is “nothing, everything is equally evolved”.
The correct answer is Dr. Brock, of course.
Im sticking to my guns. Its Earth.
Earth hasn’t evolved. Earth hasn’t reproduced.
Cearly Galasso is the most highly evolved
Two words… Zombie fungus.
How am I supposed to know what bacteria are on the furthest traveling probe?
Bacteriophages, despite their microscopic scale, are considered to be amongst the most efficient predators on Earth. Just something worth considering.
Damn things look terrifying too.
And quite reasonably, too. Beetles are great.
Joyce, Joe, you guys only think brains = pinnacle of evolution because the human brain is vastly overdeveloped and is more than a little biased in its own favor. TRY HARDER.
1/5 of all described species of any kingdom are beetles. Just saying, God has an inordinate fondness for them.
They’re amazingly environmentally adaptive too. Land, air, arboreal, subterranean and even shallow-freshwater aquatic variations.
Just a question of phrasing, but surely beetles are only 1/5 of the Animalia, since they are neither Plantae, Fungi, Protista, Archaea/Archaebacteria, nor Bacteria/Eubacteria?
Beetles are way more than 1/5 of the species of Animalia. More like 1/2, unless the nematodes have been grossly underestimated… which of course they have been.
Species of bacteria are unfairly hard to name, BTW, because that officially requires growing a pure culture of them, and for most that’s not currently feasible.
Hmmmm.. a quick google says there’s estimated 8.7 million species total, ~7.7 million animalia (950,000 catalogued) and 350,000 species of beetle. Only unclear bit is if that 350000 is est. total or catalogued. But either way, still well less than 1/2.
Sorry, that should say, “well less than half, but wow, yeah, still a shockingly high share of animalia.” Thank you for shocking me into looking. Familiar already with the quote, by J.B.S. Haldane, “God has an inordinate fondness for beetles.”, but I wasn’t aware of the full extent of his meening.
Both. Both is good
Just ask Becky, Joyce. You know she’d love to teach you all this cool stuff.
Horseshoe crab. They are perfectly adapted to their niche and haven’t changed in millions of years…
Most arthropods have basically fine-adapted and locked into their form since around the Cretaceous period at the latest, as a rule.
‘Evolving to be non-delicious’. There are plants that have evolved to taste bad to insects. We call them ‘herbs and spices’.
‘Things God won’t let us eat’ sounds promising.
it’s a very simple object lesson, evolution is a branching tree, more of a bush really, but some people think of it as a ladder, which is wrong because it implies there was some kind of end goal all along.
From what I’m understanding from Google. All of them are most evolved. They all came from Mew
Sharks, the answer is sharks.
You beat me to it, that was going to be my answer.
First answer: As presented (you know, one-line summary by characters in a comic, most likely leaving out detail and nuance) it *is* a trick question, because evolution isn’t some kind of sliding scale you can move up and down. Nor is it linear… as marine mammals like dolphins and whales show, you can evolve away from something (living in the ocean) and then re-evolve the traits you got rid of (living in the ocean). Is that a “backwards” step? Is it a “forwards” step? That only matters if you’re thinking of evolution as some kind of one-direction progression.
So no, there is no “most evolved”, because that fundamentally misunderstands evolution.
2nd Answer: Octopus. Seriously, we’ve caught octopuses, on camera, that will wait until the security guards walk by before they open their habitats (from the inside!) so they can walk (on land!) across the room to open *another* habitat so that they can get in there and have a late night snack, then sneak *back* across (while again, avoiding guards) to their own habitat. They left so little evidence, the only way they were caught was the cameras. Octopus are amazing, and the only thing keeping us safe is that they never had a need for firearms under water.
Also, now that I have read other comments, I see many other people already hit on my points. Alas.
Thank you for reminding us of the midnight octopus assassin snacker, unfortunately that story isn’t well corroberated, but plenty are. Bemoan not the duplicate state of some of your data, upon us you have still bequeathed a gift of shared knowledge.
I choose to believe that the octopus-snacker is uncorroborated because it is so common in aquariums that they don’t bother documenting it, they just duct-tape the tanks shut.
Counterpoint. Crab. They keep evolving, so obviously it’s the optimal life form. You may not like it, but that’s what peak efficiency looks like.
Joyce, the answer is obvious. It is Charizard. It has evolved twice to reach its third stage, and then it can mega-evolve into two different forms. Thus it has the potential to have evolved into four different forms over the course of its life! Most anyone else can achieve is three.
I have thought about it some more. I have decided it is Sasquatches. They have evolved far enough that they were able to leave the planet. The sightings we get are just researchers coming back to the home planet to keep an eye on us.
I have an idea for the Ultimate Lifeform: a hybrid of a tardigrade and a crab — the The Tardicrab!!!!
That way, people will no longer need to look to the ocean for savory, delicious crab meat!!!
If such a creature ever existed, it would surely take over the planet.
Year after year he’s been giving this assignment and still not a single student has come up with the obvious correct answer. — University Professors.
Is it crabs? I’m going with crabs!
Ooh, “most highly evolved” as in “has evolved independently the highest number of times”. Great carcinisation, I like it!
Shathak aka Mrs. Tsathoggua said “I would tell the professor to go away with that tendentious, meaningless, stupid question that’s all Great Chain of Being. It’s a question designed to cause fights, not teach science, and nobody who is teaching biology should even ask it.”
And as usual she is right. It’s a terminally bad question.
Who’s the bitterest man in the living room~
the answer is of course faz
I am so amused I found this at the very bottom of the replies that I was hesitant to reply to it. But I must tip my hat to you, ma’am!