• pyre@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      no they’re not. by definition if you don’t have what you need you don’t survive. we definitively don’t need it. or at least haven’t for millions of years. that’s different from saying we wouldn’t benefit from it.

      although that’s not a guarantee either. more information isn’t always better.

      • jsomae@lemmy.ml
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        9 hours ago

        Okay true, but I still feel the comment was misleading. If it were phrased as “If vertebrae don’t have it, it means it wouldn’t improve their fitness” it would be wrong. I’ll admit that the comment as worded is true, but it does depend on a very literal interpretation of what “needs” means. Why even post that? In my opinion, that makes it low-quality content, so worth a downvote.

        • pyre@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          disagree. again, we don’t even know if such a change would be beneficial.

          also, more importantly, the post is entirely stupid.

          suboptimal by what measure? became disadvantageous how? against what? last time i checked ve**rtebrates were still dominating. now even more than they did during the ages of dinosaurs.

          evolution was too late to correct it… what? first of all, is it even a mistake to correct? where’s the evidence of that? second of all, did evolution stop? too late how? it’s complete bullshit, and if anything the original comment wasn’t harsh enough on it.

          • jsomae@lemmy.ml
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            10 minutes ago

            I’m not claiming that this change in how eyes work would be an improvement. I’m claiming that the following does not hold generally: “Doesn’t have adaptation X ⇒ adaptation X would not improve fitness.”