Evolution: poisonous frog self-protection (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, September 26, 2017, 17:11 (2614 days ago) @ dhw

QUOTE: "Tarvin and her colleagues conclude that protein evolution can sometimes be part of a complex balance of survival challenges, and that some adaptations – such as the little devil’s poison – initially come at substantial cost."

Comment: This shows the stepwise development of some evolutionary adaptations.

dhw: Evolution is clearly a mixture of gradualism and saltation. Now that you have agreed organisms have an autonomous ability to change themselves, I'd be very interested to know if you regard this particular example as the workings of autonomous intelligence, or do you think it was preprogrammed 3.8 billion years ago?

I've only agreed that organisms can adapt epigenetically as the same species.