Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

The fallacy starts with "most evolved". What does that mean?

You can say most intelligent, probably, you can measure other stuff... but what does "most evolved" mean? Most DNA changes since the primordial soup? I doubt we win on that.

I'm not trying to belittle the asker here, I know "most evolved" is something of a trope. It's just one that's meaningless IMHO.



Ha, good point. I suppose you could say that, assuming the 'arrow of evolution' always results in an improved adaptation to a living thing's environment, that any creature is the "most evolved" relative to the DNA history from which it stems. Then again, DNA mutations don't always result in positive adaptations to an individual creature's environment; sometimes (most often?) individuals degenerate relative to their predecessors.

So, maybe you can only fairly compare the degree of evolution between members of the same species functioning in generally the same environment and competing for generally the same resources.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: