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highwaystar101 on 10 September 2010
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Slimebeast said:
highwaystar101 said:
Slimebeast said:

That's a highly misleading title of the article.

They're just retaining the eggs in their body until they crack. Cold weather triggers some hormone to regulate that, to keep the egg a couple of weeks longer. It's not evolution at work.


How is it not evolution? Those lizards that are better able to carry out the act of keeping their eggs in their body during cold weather will inevitably pass on that ability (or trait) to their offspring. If the environment remains cold for an extended period of time (i.e. many years), then each breeding period will yield lizards that are better at producing the hormones than the previous generation, as the ones that do it poorly will inevitably have trouble producing offspring.

eventually you end up with a bunch of lizards that are better equiped at reproducing in cold enviornments. Regardless of how small you would consider it, that is evolution at work.

You assume this and it's a nice theory but there's no evidence of that in the article.

The only mechanism needed to explain the observations presented in the article is the one I provided.

When it's hot you take your shirt off, when it's cold you keep it on.

It is the mechanism, but the mechanism will lead to an evolution. You either assume one of two things with this statement if you believe evolution to be false

1. That successful traits aren't passed on from generation to generation, or

2. Regardless of the advantage a trait gives, the survival and birth rates between the unfit and the fit are the same.

Now you say that I have no evidence on my side. I have plenty of evidence on my side. The unfit do not survive, the fit do. This is a fact of life. All traits are hereditary, and only the fit survive to pass on the traits (link). It's called natural selection (it's a famous idea y'know) and it's an extremely well documented process and the evidence overwhelmingly abundant.

Natural selection is clearly at work here, it's blindingly obvious.

Can you prove to me that genes aren't hereditary? Because that's basically the linchpin your argument hangs on.