People get the timescale twisted in their heads, like the existence of the allele has to happen well before the actual event causing selection happens If it didn't happen until then it would be too late, there'd be nothing to select
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Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne and
This concept was mocked by anti-Darwinians as "hopeful monsters" because, again, they didn't grasp the timescale involved (a fish egg hatches a lizard that starts to drown but makes it to land just time?!?)
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Replying to @arthur_affect @iridienne and
But that's what most mutations are like Oh, some humans are melanin deficient, and that's bad because skin cancer, but it's also kind of good because vitamin D, so it's a wash People start living indoors most of the time and skin cancer is now rare? Hey awesome
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Replying to @Woman4W @arthur_affect and
Chemo has not existed on evolutionarily relevant timescales.
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Replying to @LizardOrman @Woman4W and
And neither did vitamin D supplements, although the need to consume vitamin-D-rich foods like dairy to stay healthy is theorized to be why white people evolved lactose tolerance
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Replying to @arthur_affect @LizardOrman and
But to be serious about it for a second, even pale people who've spent most of their lives working outdoors in the sun rarely get skin cancer early enough that it affects their chance at having kids From an evolutionary standpoint that's all that matters
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Replying to @arthur_affect @LizardOrman and
Like, the reason getting old sucks and "diseases of aging" (including the steadily increasing risk of getting cancer in general as you age) is that there's no selection pressure against it If you live long enough to pop out kids that's good enough
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Replying to @arthur_affect @LizardOrman and
It's not ENTIRELY true, to the extent that having grandparents around helps the grandchildren survive, but yeah.
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Replying to @mssilverstein @LizardOrman and
It's more complicated than that, yes, but it's not like evolution is a conscious entity that sat down and had a plan Human social evolution seems as likely to be the accidental result of there being no selection pressure to have a "kill switch" after our kids are born either
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Like, first we grew to be big and strong and relatively robust so we don't run the constant risk of death like our tiny squirrel ancestors Then it turned out lots of us were hanging around after our reproductive systems wore out and we made ourselves useful
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