Wheye_commentary

Darryl Wheye's Commentary
Imagine life on Earth, if vision had not evolved. How different might plants and animals look?
Darwin's mechanism of natural selection shows us how to understand some of the roles of color and shape and size. So, if vision had not evolved... .
There would be no need for cryptic coloration
no possibility of heeding warning coloration
no advantage in possessing vibrant coloration
		or predator-deterring eyespots ...so would most mimicry be auditory...or tactile...or olfactory?
	Might more flowers be green, allowing them to photosynthesize?
Would males and females be visibly more similar ...or less? Artists: Geuze, Wild, Reiling, Docherty, Diment, McManiman
Leave a comment on vision and natural selection?

Trying to visualize shared ancestry in Darwin's day.

Darwin explored the idea of shared ancestry without the aid of high power magnification, or chromatography, or mass spectrography, or carbon dating, or xrays...
These 3D illustrations of the morphology of hands created by Bryan Christie Design and featured in the Zimmer article, show how much more difficult it would have been for Darwin to recognize the hand of the elephant or aye-aye, or bat than it is for us.	In the “The Common Hand” (National Geographic, May, 2012), Carl Zimmer wrote that our hands began to evolve from fins at least 380 million years ago, and within 40 million years, held five fingers. Many animals have hands. Did hands emerge independ- ently over, and over again, or did they evolve from a common ancestor? As Zimmer noted, “Darwin could re- cognize only the outward signs that hands had evolved from a common ancestor. Today scientists are un- covering the inward signs as well.” The hand of the elephant is obscured by adaptations to withstand extreme weight. The hand of the aye-aye, a long fingered lemur, is capable of teasing out insect larvae hidden in recesses of trees. The thin-fingered hand of the bat (modeled here, on a flying fox) is adapted to stretch the membranous wing into flight- worthiness.
For more please see the article's slideshow
Leave a comment on visualizing shared ancestry and the process of evolution?
Imagine evolution as seen through the eyes of children:

Darwin gave us tools to look back in time. Looking forward might matter even more today.

Bernd Pöppelmann, Die Sünden ihrer Väter (Sins of Her Fathers) (35 x 47”, oil on linen)
We are all stewards. Windows on Evolution helps convey how our role as stewards includes protecting the sensitively-tuned relationships among species and between them and their environment. It is our job to recognize the degree to which we influence those relationships through policies we endorse and personal decisions we make. In discussions it may help to consider how your view of human evolution compares with that of fellow stewards. In the U.S., for example, a 2012 Gallup Poll found that 15 percent held the view that humans evolved without divine intervention, 32 percent held the view that humans evolved with God's guidance, and 46 percent held the view that God created humans in our present form at one time within the last 10,000 years. Viewpoints inevitably vary. What is essential, however, is caring about other species and their relationships and protecting them. It may also help to consider how your view of evolution might compare with that of tomorrow's stewards. German artist Bernd Pöppelmann reminds us that children will be considering our sins as stewards and how fast they will need to scramble to try to overcome them so their children will not be held back by barren soil and an imbalance between human life and that of other species.
Leave a comment on the evolutionary process and sustainability issues?

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