Shark swims and lands on beach in New Jersey

Igor wrote:Hey, no need to get in a huff. Obviously we misunderstood you when you said that a shark that has remained unchanged for about 5million years could 'go against its instincts' and decide to 'evolve'.

It's like an elephant jumping off a cliff in an effort to evolve into a bird.

I think we should pause and reflect on the millions of elephants that must have done this and perished before one actually flew.

God bless you, Dumbo.

Fair enough, sorry for getting jittery.

If we start from the basis that evolution happens in stages and that it takes place over millions and millions of years. Evolution involves the instincts of animals changing to suit their environment and to survive. So, this shark that decided to venture out into the water could have gone against its instincts in doing so. I'm not suggesting that all sharks are going to jump out of the water and bask in the New Jersey sun; rather I am saying that it could be that this animal went against its own natural-script (instinct) to leave the sea and go onto land. It could be that the shark does this quite often, we just don't often see it. So over a period of millions and millions of years of continued instinctive changes, this kind of fish could change its behaviour to involve the land/coast/beach/whatever in its own way to survive.

Or, it could just have been attracted by the crowd or maybe it thought it was a drive-thru.

I think you might be underestimating how gradual our transition from sea to land was.

It wasn't like a few fish decided they didn't want to go to school and thought 'strawberry float DAT noise' and flopped onto the beach with a splutter and a dream.

Skarjo wrote:I think you might be underestimating how gradual our transition from sea to land was.

Scotticus Erroticus wrote:
If we start from the basis that evolution happens in stages and that it takes place over millions and millions of years. Evolution involves the instincts of animals changing to suit their environment and to survive. .....So over a period of millions and millions of years of continued instinctive changes

Evolution and natural selection does not work that way, and that argument borders on creationism, mate. Individuals do not evolve. A shark that beaches itself is no more trying to 'evolve on land' than you are trying to evolve in the sea when you go snorkelling.

Again, it's like saying that, I dunno, lemmings are trying to evolve into sparrows when the jump off of cliffs. Which is ridiculous.

I believe in Scott's theory of evolution and would like to subscribe to the newsletter.

Fatal Exception wrote:You do realise Whales evolved from land animals, that went back into the sea.

Cetacean evolution is messed up. They've still got their strawberry floating digits, man.

I did not say that the individual shark was evolving at all. I think I was right to jump ship in the first place. This thread has not worked out for me. I know what I mean, you don't know what I mean. Let's just leave it at that.

Scotticus Erroticus wrote:

Skarjo wrote:I think you might be underestimating how gradual our transition from sea to land was.

Scotticus Erroticus wrote:
If we start from the basis that evolution happens in stages and that it takes place over millions and millions of years. Evolution involves the instincts of animals changing to suit their environment and to survive. .....So over a period of millions and millions of years of continued instinctive changes

Yes, but, including the phrase 'millions of years' doesn't undo the fact that you are proposing evolution as governed by massive, huge, phenomenal leaps and bounds rather than gradual increments. Our transition to land didn't involve beaching ourselves at any point, and this shark was pretty much suicidal.

Igor wrote:Evolution and natural selection does not work that way, and that argument borders on creationism, mate. Individuals do not evolve. A shark that beaches itself is no more trying to 'evolve on land' than you are trying to evolve in the sea when you go snorkelling.

Again, it's like saying that, I dunno, lemmings are trying to evolve into sparrows when the jump off of cliffs. Which is ridiculous.

Lemmings don't jump off cliffs. Its a myth.

Skarjo wrote:you are proposing evolution as governed byassive, huge, phenomenL leaps and bounds rather than gradual increments.

No I am not. I was saying that gradual increments is exactly how it happened. WTF is going on here? Is this a wind-up? Everything I say is being taken in a bit of a strange fashion.

Scotticus Erroticus wrote:

Skarjo wrote:you are proposing evolution as governed byassive, huge, phenomenL leaps and bounds rather than gradual increments.

No I am not. I was saying that gradual increments is exactly how it happened. WTF is going on here? Is this a wind-up? Everything I say is being taken in a bit of a strange fashion.

I was winding you up but I think everyone else is assuming that you are a crazed creationist.

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 strawberry floating stupid shark who was undoubtedly ridiculed by all his shark friends in the shark pub drinking shark beer that night.

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 strawberry floating 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.

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.

Fair enough. I can happily accept that my wonderings surrounding this sharks behaviour have been answered.

Now, I really am getting out of this shark-pool of a thread. Au revoir.

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 strawberry floating 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.

By jove, you're right. I never saw the moon landing either, how do I know that's real? And what about the holocaust?

You're such a crazy, Rapelay playing, holocaust denier, StayDead.

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 strawberry floating 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.

Well, unless you're of the opinion that everything we know about the world older than a few thousand years is completely unreliable because we weren't there to see it then you're going to have to settle for the fact that evolution just plain not working like that is reason enough to know that beaching ourselves until we learned to breathe was not how we evolved.

I don't mean to get in the way of the evolution discussion here, but saying that this is 'like a scene from Jaws' is a bit much, no?

I've always believed many of the compulsive whale beachings can be explained by a primal instinct to get onto land. Y'know, when it isn't an accident or from dying then washing ashore.

Let's talk about whales some more.

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.