<![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot. - io9 Comments]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot. - io9 Comments]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Priam: That is wrong on a few levels. But it is right on others.

Git Em SteveDave is a poor substitute for LindsayJoy

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Knirfie: Yes I know, Kobe beef, but they have trouble raising cattle due to their small amount of land.

I meant it mostly as an example of importing, as most of the beef in Japan, afaik, is not home grown

Cin

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @monkity: I'd hardly call the combined populations of 12 planets a "shallow gene pool" ;)

Cin

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> God I love reading post threads on this topic, such rich responses.

tamoko

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Poormojo: English is dynamic. I think of using "fail" as a noun is just more slang. Is it a substitue for "shit" or is it just a negitive? Such as, "Your theory is bound to fail." Or, "You are a failure." If you're intelligent to play with the language, I think you should know it well enough to construct more complex sentences. We are all full of fail.

Jeff-Minor

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Cin:
Some of the best beef comes from Japan :p


Knirfie

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> I fail to see the connect between evolution and Battlestar Galactica... unless by inference you are indicating that the colonies on and around Caprica were an experiment in evolution and in the short 4,000 year period since the original Earth scientists seeded the 12 colonies with life that the evolution of the breeding stock has been strangely geared towards 'hotness' than anything else.

El_Bandito

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @StrangelyBrown: Sir, you make an excellent point. I know I like a man with large breasts, a small waist and white teeth.

Anyway. Ditto on the 'this post has poor logic' comments above.

taxbaby

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> This post reminds me why io9 is the best blog I have ever subscribed to. I am among geeks and I feel DAMN good.

zingbot

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Git Em SteveDave: I heard you have to go to SanFran, get on stage, and sing this...

[uk]


+ Watch video

...with the muppets.


Priam

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Miranda Kali: OK, seriously, what does it take to get a star? I've tried making friends, RTFA, and now ego stroking. Why do I feel bribery is the only way? /jk

Git Em SteveDave is a poor substitute for LindsayJoy

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> Based on the information from the show there's no reason to think that millions of years separate us from the colonists. In fact, millions of years separates us from our next closest simian relative.

The latter being part of larger argument that can be made to conclude that the colonists, contrary to the suggestions of the original series and to the assumptions made based on this, do not live in our past but rather in our future.

I would argue that they probably live some 2500 to 3000 years in the future on the basis of what has been stated on the show. This would include the time for our descendants, here on to colonize Kobol and for there descendants to evacuate Kobol and travel to the colonies. The 13th tribe of Kobol would have returned to Earth.

There are several things in the show to suggest this scenario. First, the path that the colonists are charting to Earth is a path that someone would have had to follow back to Kobol in order to provide the information that was present in the Tomb of Athena. This suggests an opposite path of migration than that assumed by the fans and the colonists making Earth the starting point rather than the final destination.

Second, the images of Earth seen at the season finale show the continents in there current position. Additionally, the constellations also are in there present approximate configurations. This locks Earth to our current timeframe, give or take a few millennia.

And finally, although the creators of the show are likely to do what they please creatively in a fictional universe, the demographic of the show is such that it would be too much of a suspension of disbelief to have the colonists be our founders of millions of years ago. The reason for this is that we are clearly related to every other form of life on this planet both genetically and phenotypically.

This explanation would also explain the various cultural and technological similarities between the colonies and contemporary Earth.

Narratively, I would suggest that the colonists abandoned Kobol on 12 starships that were either named, or possessed AI's that were named, after the greek gods they worship. The 13th tribe would have, I think rather logically, returned to the mother world Earth that had previously been abandoned due to a similar catastrophe. This places the famous "this has happened before, this will happen again" statement in context.

Also, the form of allopatric speciation that the genetic study is referring too frequently occurs as the result of a founder effect. It's not clear that the ancestors of the colonists were subject to this. Certainly, there genepool seemingly was diminished but it's not clear that it was sufficiently diminished to cause such a broad divergence in physical traits that they would appear significantly different from us. Additionally, it's not always the case that evolution works on altering physical traits. Many organisms haven't changed significantly in the course of millions of years. It is dependent on the selective pressures being applied.

Logan5

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Poormojo: Merely a copy editor, friend, with an interest both vested and aesthetic in regulation of the language's evolution. I didn't ask for these powers.

moff

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> "Competition with other lifeforms (including insects and viruses and germs and such other ittybitties) can still pull a fair percentage of us out of the old gene pool before we have spawned (which is the key issue, really)."

For a complex animal, the offspring has to be nurtured long enough to become a viable adult. Otherwise, genes teh fail.

This is why defective genes (cancers) seldom are manifested in children, and become common right around the age that offspring usually are independent.

thatguy01

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @moff: I subscribe to a descriptivist view of language. I believe that language is always evolving, especially here on the internet.

You apparently are a troll. I congratulate you for goading me into replying. Kudos.

Poormojo

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Evil Tortie's Mom: I'm pretty sure this male person wouldn't be breeding with her any time soon in any event. Fortunately, neither fact changes the extent to which she constitutes attractiveness.

92BuickLeSabre

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @92BuickLeSabre: From what I hear (from our Gawker-related overlords at Defamer), male persons aren't going to be breeding with her.

@Git Em SteveDave: I would prefer Madame the Prez, myself, if I swung that way.

Evil Tortie's Mom

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @StrangelyBrown: Wait, are you saying I must limit myself and can't look for big breasts, small waist, white teeth, clear skin, and wide hips and a strong back?

Sir or Miss, I would like to introduce you to Michelle Rodriguez.

92BuickLeSabre

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> Except the Battlestar crew was capable of transporting most of their lifestyle with them. Where is the biological imperative to evolve?

emptee_head

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @StrangelyBrown:Bravo, you hit the nail on the noggin.
While we are in more control of our environment, and thus more control of some of the pressures that affect our mating habits and survival, we are not immune to the affects of evolution. Competition with other lifeforms (including insects and viruses and germs and such other ittybitties) can still pull a fair percentage of us out of the old gene pool before we have spawned (which is the key issue, really). And our own tastes can and do have an effect on the breed ... consider the standards for "beauty" (read that as "sexual attractiveness") have changed dramatically over the past century and you may see the direction we are headed.


SavannahJack

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @monkity: Actually, attractiveness would still be the prime motivating factor -- the only difference is what would constitute attractiveness. We modern, indoorsy humans think of big breasts, small waists, white teeth, and clear skin as "attractive", but if we were scrapping it out for food on the Serengeti, all these attributes would be useless. Instead we'd be attracted to wide hips, strong backs, and such. Beauty is always contextual.

StrangelyBrown

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Poormojo: But at least he didn't use "fail" as a noun.

moff

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> Seconded.

quetzilla

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Miranda Kali: Electrolytes!!

Git Em SteveDave is a poor substitute for LindsayJoy

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Metropolis: with longer hair she looks alittle more feminine but yeah, I'm not too fond of her.....

Obviously people do though!

I'd prefer alittle Grace Park in my evolutionary gene pool ;-)

jp182

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> Your science is complete fail.

Lizards are competing for food, and so evolve better to be able to procure food. I.e., larger jaws.

Humans are way past that point, and so would evolve to compete socially. Perhaps that means they would all evolve into Katee Sackhoff-levels of hotness. They certainly would not grow huge heads just because some starving lizards did.

In any case, your science is terrible and shameful. I hereby forbid you from talking about evolution until you read all of The Red Queen and Genome by Matt Ridley.

This type of article makes all of us dumber. You're hurting america just as much as Fox news. Please stop.

Poormojo

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Cin: To have the luxury of being selective about who you mate with you need a sufficiently high population to choose from. For evolution to happen quickly the pressure on the population has to be relatively high, and the gene pool relatively shallow. So I doubt "attractiveness" is a factor in a shallow gene pool.

monkity

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @joemono: Well, that's because the environment wasn't all that different. We still eat roughly the same kinds of food, same kinds of climate. It would take a massive change for us to really start looking different from our ancestors.

I'm thinking that a more appropriate version of this for humans would be over the past 50,000 years, the time in which we have gone from short, medium skinned, high cheek boned Africans to every race of humans around, from Europeans to Southeast Asians, to American Indians to Australian aborigines, to Middle Easterners. That seems more appropriate, because A. our appearances did change dramatically and B. we still haven't undergone speciation (the same as the lizards: they are still technically the same species genetically, they just look different)

Bob_of_Mars

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Git Em SteveDave:
I, for one, welcome our Gawker-reading overlords...Kool-Aid anyone? ..or perhaps some Brawndo..(it's got what plants crave!)

Miranda Kali

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @ElijahDProphet: Although, that begs the question as to how much effect gravity has.

Like, would generations growing up on a 1.1 gravity have a noticeable dissimilarity from a 1? From a .98?

I'd think that a relatively small lifetime difference could pretty easily have an apparent effect.

braak

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> I would think generations of different gravities would change the overall look of a person, regardless of culture or technology. Someone living under higher gravity would have to have more muscle mass then someone from lower gravity. Of course it could be that all 12 colony planets had gravity within a reasonable range so as not to cause any major changes.

ElijahDProphet

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Git Em SteveDave: Well that's probably true. Although, historically, people have moved to different places for different reasons. There are all kinds of pressures that can be brought to bear on who goes to which planet.

Plus, I've lived in a whole bunch of different places in my life, and I still don't know what kind I'd prefer.

braak

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Rev-E: I'd argue that, overall, human beings are more attractive as a whole now than they were, say, 1000 years ago, if only marginally. And I go as far as to say that no matter how attractive we become, we will still perceive certain people as ugly -- the gradation just becomes more refined.

themidnighter

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Miranda Kali: Actually, now that I googled it, I have seen pieces of this movie. I don't think we'll ALL get that dumb. Only the percentage who don't visit Gawker sites will eventually become that dumb b/c they aren't blessed with the insight and amazing journalism that Gawker and it's affiliated sites provide us.

Git Em SteveDave is a poor substitute for LindsayJoy

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> This sort of "science" is not. It's simply looking at the past as saying that things changed for some unknown reason. Flash Evolution happens, but know one knows how. Maybe God knows.

Jeff-Minor

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Priam: I think she looks pretty good myself. I think she has nice child bearing hips(which I just found out from a female co-worker and verified by one of my ex's could be considered an insult, whereas I always thought it was a compliment) also. Add in the angry frakkin, and I'm happy.

Git Em SteveDave is a poor substitute for LindsayJoy

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Git Em SteveDave:
Have you seen Idiocracy?
I wish it were less fiction than they make it out to be..

Miranda Kali

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @braak: I agree, but the people who inhabit each colony would do so as a preference, so they would choose one closest to their "normal" environment. So they would almost already be adapted to the environment, which would keep them looking the same.

One factor not mentioned that I saw is the amount of radiation they would be exposed to on the new planet. Less radiation leads to less mutation. Except for weather, there would be no other "real" pressures on them to evolve or change then, so their mutations would be even lower, IMHO.

Git Em SteveDave is a poor substitute for LindsayJoy

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @RAHfanboy:
Oh, but we have!
Just drink enough, and everybody looks amazing! I know I look damn, hot after I've had several shots.

Miranda Kali

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Seth L: Thank god I wasn't the only one who went there ;-)

Jack

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Rev-E: Well, since you can't be drunk all the time, beer goggles are good for one night stands, but I think they produce less offspring than "steady" relationships do. So while the uglies get some loving every now and then, the hotties get it more, so more offspring. OK, that statement sounded totally pompous.

Git Em SteveDave is a poor substitute for LindsayJoy

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> Starbuck is ugly as sin already. No matter how much magazines try to pretty her up she is always going to look like a guy.

Metropolis

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> They wouldn't look that radically different (like Ferenghi), unless genetic manipulation was invovled. They'd look about as different as Asians do from Africans or Europeans... which is how the colonials do look.

Now, in my re imaging of Star Trek, the speciacian is due to genetic modification, bioforming along with terraforming of alien planets. But that's a different post entirely.

Gyrus

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @DSTRYA: Goat ... that's "Giant Space Goat", at least that's what the people in Golgafrincham Space Ark C told me.

SavannahJack

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> The problem with this thesis is that you ignore the constant interaction between the 12 different populations of the BG continuity. Because of the fact that the members of the 12 colonies were interbreeding during that entire time, none of their populations possessed the genetic isolation necessary for major evolutionary changes to take place.

More than this, you ignore the effect of technology upon these societies. All 12 tribes possessed the same, highly advanced, technological inheritance. This means that the different population groups would be by-and-large protected from the unique and different environmental effects of their separate planets as they likely used this technology to make those habitats (or where they lived in them) as much like Kobol as possible. In other words, their advanced medical, agricultural, industrial, and weapons technology would protect them from selective pressures much as it does human populations on Earth today (as would their desire to protect every single infant to adulthood and every adult to senility, which the series has provided us no reason to think the colonists do not share with us). Think about it; are Australians, living in a much dryer, sparser environment than the England they came from, different from Englishmen and women in any genetic or physical way? Or what about North American Anglo-celts, who live in an equally alien environment and interact sexual within a much broader and diverse pool than the English?

For that matter, there are less genetic and phenotypic difference between a Tanzanian who's ancestors have been living on the banks of Lake Victoria for the last 50,000 years and a Sioux than there are between those two versions of Podarcis Sicula(despite the changes, speciation has yet to occur). Our unique way of living, the societies we create and the focus they place on heterogeneous breeding, insulate us to a large degree from the process of evolutionary differentiation, and have lead to a long period of genetic stability within human populations.

AngryLagomorph

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Miranda Kali: "Alcohol seems to have a profound effect on evolutionary change."

Brilliant! I've always wondered why we haven't evolved into a race of just good looking people. I wonder this every time I go to Walmart.

RAHfanboy

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> Here's my impression of this study:
If A equals B, and B equals C; then R must equal X.

themidnighter

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @themidnighter: Well, I can sound pompous even if I'm responding to a well-researched article written by someone eminently qualified in the field in question. So what about that?

@92BuickLeSabre: Ha!

moff

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @themidnighter: Wow. You're right. They sure can.

92BuickLeSabre

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @moff: People can sound pompous if they're responding to an article written by a pop-science devouring loony who has no educational grounding in the topic on which he is writing.

themidnighter

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Rev-E: True that, my friend.

Beer: Helping Ugly People Get Laid Since The Dawn of Civilization.

braak

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> yeah right-- "evolution." whatever, you science-ists. everybody knows that humans came from a the death-throws of a gigantic, many-headed space cow.

DSTRYA

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Cin: i prefer your first version of the "PS": leaner, meaner, etc.

DSTRYA

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Git Em SteveDave: "Besides, IIRC physical appearence is one factor of breeding, so the hot girls would be the ones who re-produce more."

That works on the implication that only hot girls (or guys)breed. However, with the invention of beer goggles, humanity has given evolution a wedgie. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Rev-E

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @moff: RE: Eye Tyrants...
The center one, with the anti-magic cone. That's the one where beauty is.

Now if we could just find a way to extract it, profit would be ours!

Belabras

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @SavannahJack: But why would Starbuck look like a Ferengi? If Humans went to different planets wouldn't they go to planets that were similar to the one they came from? So how would evolution change them that much that they looked like flippin lizards! I would think that humans would probably die off before they changed to adapt to an environment that was different enough to illicit an evolutionary shift. Arrgghhh I'm so confused!

Quick someone talk about a Dystopia or show me concept art for a spaceship!!

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Cin: Embarrassing. [Shakes head ]

moff

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> Sorry, thought the post didn't go through the first time, I'll stop now >_<

Cin

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Cin: Maybe you should take an Introduction to Not Sounding Pompous class, buddy!

moff

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> PS - If they had the same standards of beauty that we do, they'd actually look just as, if not MORE attractive, because attractiveness helps you find a mate, and produce offspring, passing on those genes to your children.

Someone get these hacks out of here.

Cin

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> PS - If they had the same standards of beauty that we do, they'd be MORE attractive, as that helps them produce offspring, and therefore pass on that trait to their children.

Good god these people knew nothing.

Cin

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> Oh lord here we go.

The guys who decided that this study applied to humans need to have their biology licenses revoked.

Natural Selection acts on genetic adaptations that allow an organism to survive.

Culture all but nullifies the effects of natural selection.

Ever since we stopped letting the infirm die, ever since we stopped using only our bodies to find food, ever since we created modes of transportation, evolution has been affecting us less and less because someone who can wrestle a tiger with his bare hands no longer necessarily survives better than someone with a rifle.

Being at the top of the food chain makes evolution much less effective, if it's even still happening to us at all.

And since we can assume that since all the colonists came from Kobol, they likely had the same technology, the same seeds for food, etc. And widespread trading would nullify the habitat effects even further. Just because Japan can'[t really grow beef, doesn't mean they can't eat steak.

So to argue they'd look different from Earth humans? Sure! Different tech. Different food, etc.

But look different from each other? Go back and take an introduction to human evolution class for god's sake because you clearly slept through it the first time around.

Cin

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> What are they trying to say? Lee Adama should be played by Corky from "Life Goes On"?

se7a7n7

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> So I guess I've been watching the real life Battlestar Galactica...

Whitworthian

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Miranda Kali: Ba-dum-bum, ching!

moff

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @GiltProto: Which eye?

moff

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @moff:
I know with all this talk I have the strange urge to do it with a lizard...
(which would be pretty par for the course on any given night)

Miranda Kali

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Garrison Dean, King Awesome: Yes, it was just a ploy ...
Seriously dude, try to keep up.
I think the point of the article, and several other recent studies of evolutionary processes, is that evolution is not a gradual process; it happens in spurts (like other biological processes that come to mind) and can race forward to significant variations from the progenitor organism in a comparitively short time. Environmental pressures dictate the pace and general nature of the problem, but not the solutions that will result from evolution.
Say you had a brilliantly-colored bird. It does just fine on an island with no predators and even benefits from being easy for potential mates to locate. But take that same species and put a predator on the island, and in short order, the birds with bright plumage will become kibble and the sports with dull plumage will be the parents of the next generations, who will inherit their parents survival-friendly color scheme.
Yes, in larger populations, with slower-breeding animals, with lower environmental pressure, and so forth, the process will progress more slowly. After all, when your species' idiots, cripples and defectives can survive and reproduce, there ain't much incentive to rewrite the code, doncha know?
In the BSG scenario, not only would Capricans and Taurons and such LOOK wierd to each other (think funhouse mirror people), they would smell and act wierd, too.
Oh, and BTW, I think this theme was handled on the show once: remember the original series had the Fremen and their laser-bolos?







SavannahJack

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> PNAS

Hee hee hee. PNAS *snerk*

Seth L

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> I think it would have to be drastically dissimilar environments, as braak mentioned.

Largely because we do have a human example. After Australian aborigines migrated to Tasmania, the sea levels rose and isolated the Tasmanian aboriginal peoples from the mainland populations, for 10,000 years!

While there has been plenty of controversial, controverted, and recontroverted study on the socio-cultural differences that occurred during the interim, from everything I remember the physical differences were minimal and largely, if not exclusively, at a genetic level only.

92BuickLeSabre

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> Alcohol seems to have a profound effect on evolutionary change.

Miranda Kali

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Garrison Dean, King Awesome: Its saying that when the lizards were split from its original habitat and placed on some new island, the ones on the new island were fucked up.

The parallel is that once the 12 colonies all landed on weird ass planets and if we add some super speed evolution, the study supposedly would say that the humans that evolved would be fugly.

Log1c

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Git Em SteveDave: If we are talking about bedding Mary McDonnell in her prime against Katee Sackhoff(who is in her prime now). Mary McDonnell hands down. Ms. Sackhoff looks like she was hit in the face with a frying pan.

Priam

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> Well if women developed and extra set of bizarre muscles in their vaginas perhaps they would be attractive despite being hideous. Besides, in many species the women are ordinary and dull. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

GiltProto

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Git Em SteveDave: But Earth-like isn't the same as Earth. The proportion of livable biospheres may be different--maybe on one planet, the colonists are living in mostly cold northern areas, where an another planet they're living in more temperate climates.

And bringing agriculture with you is good, but, again, if the biospheres are different, you're going to have different crops thrive, and so different diets for each population.

Interestingly: not real different from how things happened on Earth. Like how, you know, people from Java don't look like people from Siberia.

braak

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @Pope John Peeps II: Sometimes changes propagate surprisingly quickly. Isn't there some research out now that shows that the genes for blue eyes got passed around in, what, 6,000 years?

I'd think that in drastically dissimilar environments, or with substantial differences in diet, traits could propagate even faster.

braak

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> Well, we would assume that colonies would be formed on planets that were very Earth like. And also that the colonists would bring agriculture there, which would mean the diet stays the same, except for wild game. As we don't use our bodies to capture game, we instead use tools, which really have no impact on us evolutionary, except that the guy who invents the bigger stick w/ a nail in it wins, so it would be intelligence mostly.

I think this study is flawed when you extrapolate it to humans. Besides, IIRC physical appearence is one factor of breeding, so the hot girls would be the ones who re-produce more. I mean come on, who would you mate with? Starbuck or madame President?

Git Em SteveDave is a poor substitute for LindsayJoy

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> Get real. If this is actually true, why do I like fucking gorillas so much?

moff

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @joemono: Sure they were! Look at medieval paintings, where everybody's all two-dimensional, lanky and crucified.

Rasselas

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> Wait. I'm a big BSG fan I'm I'm struggling to see what this has to do with the show? I remember the original had the Cylons being created by a third lizard race, but did they say in this version that they were descended from Lizards.

Huh? Am I just missing something big? Or was putting a Starbuck pic in this header just a way to get me to click on it.

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> @joemono: As far as I can tell from medevial larpers, they were all obese.

Dead Air ummm Dead Air

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> Hi, um... that's natural selection among an INCREDIBLY small population. Seriously, it was like... 5 pairs of lizards wasn't it?

Among a very large group, I think significant genetic changes (not just skin and eye colour) would take huge amounts of time to happen.

Pope John Peeps II

]]> <![CDATA[Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.]]> Except that our medieval ancestors weren't "lot different-looking than us."

joemono

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