Whale Evolution

[the cow says moo]

So I just found out today that whales actually evolved from a wolf-like species. My world has been turned upsidedown by this information. Any other wierd evolutions to make my day any wierder? (and don't say dinosaurs evolved into birds, that one's a given)

 

[Bad^Hat]

Oh, you Darwinists and your crazy theories. Next you're going to tell us man "evolved" from happy thoughts and fairy dust, and that unicorns still exist (everyone knows Noah couldn't fit them on the arc!!!).

 

[bbson john]

mankind is not evolved from chimpanzee.

 

[Krynn72]

Thats bullshit. All whales evolved from the Sperm Whale that God ejaculated out into the ocean after creating it.

 

[Acepilotf14]

Whales suck.

 

[Krynn72]

Suck up little wooden people and trap them in their stomach until they sneeze? Yes, they apparently do that sometimes.

 

[the cow says moo]

Whales suck.

Whales aren't that bad. They evovled onto land and then back into the sea. I think that's neat.

EDIT: MAMMALS ROCK!!!!

 

[Bad^Hat]

Land not good enough for them, huh?

Bunch of ****ing tourists if you ask me. They're just hanging out in the ocean until they evolve a good enough tan, then they're gonna pop out some feet again to go live in Italy and swing with old gay couples.

What?

Edit: Without being a dick though, that is kind of awesome if true. Got any links to substantiate it?

 

[Warped]

If I came from HLfallout.net and I had over 10,000 posts, can I have those posts back because this place feels very similar.

Also evolution will speed up this century thanks to crazy scientists who only want to see what a man and a bird would look like. I mean who doesn't want to fly into work and make everyone jealous??

 

[Raziaar]

You suck and everybody hates you! Especially Mushu.

 

[the cow says moo]

Got any links to substantiate it?

This is a pic.

Also evolution will speed up this century thanks to crazy scientists who only want to see what a man and a bird would look like. I mean who doesn't want to fly into work and make everyone jealous??

You suck and everybody hates you! Especially Mushu.

I lol'd hard.

 

[Warped]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N34eMz_rY_U

this is why man can't fly yet, we're too stupid...we need real wings

 

[swan_song1973]

So I just found out today that whales actually evolved from a wolf-like species. My world has been turned upsidedown by this information. Any other wierd evolutions to make my day any wierder? (and don't say dinosaurs evolved into birds, that one's a given)

dude, pics?

 

[Sulkdodds]

I think what's interesting about this is the question of why the whales went back to the sea in the first place.

The fossil record is incomplete enough that gaps of millions of years appear in it, and difficult enough that there is much that it does not tell us. But recent research into ice cores and other unorthodox vectors has indicated that in fact the land whales developed a complex civilisation millions of years before humanity ever began playing in the surf and developing brains.

Of course, theirs developed slower than ours has oweing to the great caution and rigour necessary to survive and push forward under the oppressive dominance of the saurians. But this very caution, and the civilisational skillset aquired during said difficult ascent, gave the land whales a unique advantage not available to us: they had time to think properly about what they were doing.

They realised, or anyway came to believe, that no civilisation would ever be sustainable, and that, just as what looks to our blinking lives a stable earth is actually in the throes of perpetual cosmic violence, all empires will fall as hard and as fast as they rose (for their civilisation included, like ours, many smaller ones during its course, and in any case they remembered the great confederacy of the crabs). They concluded that only one action was reasonable, and that was to retire in peace to a place where, as a race, they could just take it easy and have fun: the sea. Using their long-won knowledge to guide their own evolutionary process, they went there.

Ever since then they have lived out their pleasant existences, maintaining a modicum of technological and governmental structure (best described as a fluid anarchism) to deal with any problems that come their way - for example, changing themselves as necessary to deal with changes in the ocean.

But very recently they have come under threat from a young race who they have been watching with interest and with fervent hopes for its future. Those hopes, as many of this race already know, have been dashed. In only the last two hundred years humanity has become a terrible threat to the whales and their loose society, expanding with voracious brutality into the waters, polluting, fishing, hunting, whaling (a word which the whales themselves are horrified to believe could even be conceived of by any intelligent species). Many species are already extinct. Thousands, millions, perhaps, have died.

As I said, the whales were not entirely unproductive in their play, for many of them took and still take a great interest in science and engineering (their 'engineering', of course, would look like magic to use - or rather, like ecology). Though pacifist, they were not defenceless. They called a council.

The problem was this: humanity was going to kill the whales, kill all of them. And all other options - communication, or the hope that humans might stop of their own devices - were failing fast. All cetacean attempts to talk to the walking apes had ended in captivity or retarded new-age music casette tape with lyrics like "listen to the dolphins; they hold the key." The whales found themselves in a terrible situation now, because they were perfectly capable of destroying the humans utterly. The argument was not whether it was necessary for them to do so: on that they all agreed. But for many of them the act of genocide was so abhorrent that it simply could not be contemplated. If the whales were all to die out then so be it - hell, they had a good run!

So those were the options: expire forever, or protect themselves by knowingly committing the same monstrous act that even the humans did not know they were doing? After debates of immense profundity and, occasionally, heart-rending, pod-scattering ferocity, all whales were polled. They voted, with a substantial majority, for the latter.

Now, using the ocean itself as a gigantic reactor - an impossibly complex machine millions of years in the making - they have begun a process which will exterminate humanity. This process is global warming.

The earth will be flooded. And the whales, infinitely sorrowful but certain of their course, will retake it.

 

[bbson john]

As far as I remember, whales evolved around the region across India and Pakistan.

 

[Neutrino]

Whales suck.

No, whales blow.

 

[Rizzo]

Imagine a bluewhale with feet... Running around the plains.
And me. Sitting atop of it. Riding it like a god damn horse. It whould be so awesome.

 

[Eejit]

(for their civilisation included, like ours, many smaller ones during its course, and in any case they remembered the great confederacy of the crabs)

I see what you referenced there!

 

[Polaris]

I recommend you this book, it's full of fascinating examples of evolution.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/061861916X/ref=ed_oe_p?_encoding=UTF8

 

[Acepilotf14]

I think what's interesting about this is the question of why the whales went back to the sea in the first place.

The fossil record is incomplete enough that gaps of millions of years appear in it, and difficult enough that there is much that it does not tell us. But recent research into ice cores and other unorthodox vectors has indicated that in fact the land whales developed a complex civilisation millions of years before humanity ever began playing in the surf and developing brains.

Of course, theirs developed slower than ours has oweing to the great caution and rigour necessary to survive and push forward under the oppressive dominance of the saurians. But this very caution, and the civilisational skillset aquired during said difficult ascent, gave the land whales a unique advantage not available to us: they had time to think properly about what they were doing.

They realised, or anyway came to believe, that no civilisation would ever be sustainable, and that, just as what looks to our blinking lives a stable earth is actually in the throes of perpetual cosmic violence, all empires will fall as hard and as fast as they rose (for their civilisation included, like ours, many smaller ones during its course, and in any case they remembered the great confederacy of the crabs). They concluded that only one action was reasonable, and that was to retire in peace to a place where, as a race, they could just take it easy and have fun: the sea. Using their long-won knowledge to guide their own evolutionary process, they went there.

Ever since then they have lived out their pleasant existences, maintaining a modicum of technological and governmental structure (best described as a fluid anarchism) to deal with any problems that come their way - for example, changing themselves as necessary to deal with changes in the ocean.

But very recently they have come under threat from a young race who they have been watching with interest and with fervent hopes for its future. Those hopes, as many of this race already know, have been dashed. In only the last two hundred years humanity has become a terrible threat to the whales and their loose society, expanding with voracious brutality into the waters, polluting, fishing, hunting, whaling (a word which the whales themselves are horrified to believe could even be conceived of by any intelligent species). Many species are already extinct. Thousands, millions, perhaps, have died.

As I said, the whales were not entirely unproductive in their play, for many of them took and still take a great interest in science and engineering (their 'engineering', of course, would look like magic to use - or rather, like ecology). Though pacifist, they were not defenceless. They called a council.

The problem was this: humanity was going to kill the whales, kill all of them. And all other options - communication, or the hope that humans might stop of their own devices - were failing fast. All cetacean attempts to talk to the walking apes had ended in captivity or retarded new-age music casette tape with lyrics like "listen to the dolphins; they hold the key." The whales found themselves in a terrible situation now, because they were perfectly capable of destroying the humans utterly. The argument was not whether it was necessary for them to do so: on that they all agreed. But for many of them the act of genocide was so abhorrent that it simply could not be contemplated. If the whales were all to die out then so be it - hell, they had a good run!

So those were the options: expire forever, or protect themselves by knowingly committing the same monstrous act that even the humans did not know they were doing? After debates of immense profundity and, occasionally, heart-rending, pod-scattering ferocity, all whales were polled. They voted, with a substantial majority, for the latter.

Now, using the ocean itself as a gigantic reactor - an impossibly complex machine millions of years in the making - they have begun a process which will exterminate humanity. This process is global warming.

The earth will be flooded. And the whales, infinitely sorrowful but certain of their course, will retake it.

Good show!

 

[Direwolf]

Ah, gotta love evolutionary mind-screw territory. How about the Aquatic Ape Theory?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis

It posits that humans were headed in the same direction as the whales.

 

[the cow says moo]

dude, pics?

I already posted a picture.

properly[/i] about what they were doing.

They realised, or anyway came to believe, that no civilisation would ever be sustainable, and that, just as what looks to our blinking lives a stable earth is actually in the throes of perpetual cosmic violence, all empires will fall as hard and as fast as they rose (for their civilisation included, like ours, many smaller ones during its course, and in any case they remembered the great confederacy of the crabs). They concluded that only one action was reasonable, and that was to retire in peace to a place where, as a race, they could just take it easy and have fun: the sea. Using their long-won knowledge to guide their own evolutionary process, they went there.

Ever since then they have lived out their pleasant existences, maintaining a modicum of technological and governmental structure (best described as a fluid anarchism) to deal with any problems that come their way - for example, changing themselves as necessary to deal with changes in the ocean.

But very recently they have come under threat from a young race who they have been watching with interest and with fervent hopes for its future. Those hopes, as many of this race already know, have been dashed. In only the last two hundred years humanity has become a terrible threat to the whales and their loose society, expanding with voracious brutality into the waters, polluting, fishing, hunting, whaling (a word which the whales themselves are horrified to believe could even be conceived of by any intelligent species). Many species are already extinct. Thousands, millions, perhaps, have died.

As I said, the whales were not entirely unproductive in their play, for many of them took and still take a great interest in science and engineering (their 'engineering', of course, would look like magic to use - or rather, like ecology). Though pacifist, they were not defenceless. They called a council.

The problem was this: humanity was going to kill the whales, kill all of them. And all other options - communication, or the hope that humans might stop of their own devices - were failing fast. All cetacean attempts to talk to the walking apes had ended in captivity or retarded new-age music casette tape with lyrics like "listen to the dolphins; they hold the key." The whales found themselves in a terrible situation now, because they were perfectly capable of destroying the humans utterly. The argument was not whether it was necessary for them to do so: on that they all agreed. But for many of them the act of genocide was so abhorrent that it simply could not be contemplated. If the whales were all to die out then so be it - hell, they had a good run!

So those were the options: expire forever, or protect themselves by knowingly committing the same monstrous act that even the humans did not know they were doing? After debates of immense profundity and, occasionally, heart-rending, pod-scattering ferocity, all whales were polled. They voted, with a substantial majority, for the latter.

Now, using the ocean itself as a gigantic reactor - an impossibly complex machine millions of years in the making - they have begun a process which will exterminate humanity. This process is global warming.

The earth will be flooded. And the whales, infinitely sorrowful but certain of their course, will retake it.

I thought you were being serious at first.