StayDead wrote:Skarjo wrote:You're suggesting that this shark coming up onto land is evidence of evolutionary spirit and 'against instinct' thinking that could, over time, build up into evolutionary biological change. However, that's not how our or any other previously sea-dwelling organisms transition to land proceeded, is also not how evolution works at a base level and that this is nothing more than evidence of a really ******* stupid shark who was undoubtedly ridiculed by all his shark friends in the shark pub drinking shark beer that night.
So, were we around then this last set of sea to land evolution took place? Because, we seem to know alot about something we never saw ourselves.
Evolution takes
forever - think geographical time-scales. It is also occurring all the time in (arguably) every species on the planet, just at a ridiculously slow pace. So ridiculously slow, in fact, that we can't see it ourselves as individuals. In the same way that your granddad never says how he remembers back in the old days when America and Africa were the same country (they just don't make huge world-encompassing land masses like they used to), no population of sentient beings on Earth has ever witnessed an evolutionary step like sea dwelling animals evolving into land dwelling ones.
Fish to land animals wasn't a case of sharks going 'against their instincts' and hopping up onto the beach every so often. Over generations and generations (and generations) fish would have been born that were
ever so slightly better adapted to living in environments
ever so slightly closer to the shoreline, eventually (over a phenomenal number of standard human generations) resulting in an animal that could be considered more of a land lubber than a fisherman's friend. If you catch my drift (which is, incidentally, something that the shark in the OP is quite good at doing).
This thread reminds me of a book called The Aquatic Ape (can't remember the author) that theorised that humans are evolved from animals that came out of the sea, evolved into apes, and then went back in again before coming out for a final time. It's quite persuasive and it helps to explain some of the weirder differences between humans and other primates, such as our neonates' ability to swim and our thin layer of downy hair.