Evolution doesn’t look how it’s depicted in pop culture. We often picture the famous “March of Progress” illustration where a series of apes stand in line leading to a modern human.
But evolution is not linear. It branches and branches. Divides in some places and recombines in others. #science
Image: @keesey
Coach Pāṇini ®
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Martin Rundkvist
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Alex🇺🇦
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •It looks like above when you walk back from one species towards its origin (no branching on the way back). It is basically a history graph.
Just saying the top graph also has its purpose.
bewitchedmind
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Kumar McMillan
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Monkeys: Our Primate Family | National Museums Scotland
National Museums ScotlandMaria Langer | 📝💎🌵🛥️
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Ray McCarthy
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Julien Avérous – 🇫🇷🇪🇺🇺🇦
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •WandreCanada
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •So true. I hate that the march of progress fully implies that humans are the 'best' because of their position.
In reality the evolutionary diagram puts all currently living organisms on the same podium. Modern humans are not the end goal.
Dergoran
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Your right. But who will explain this to Fatboy Slim now?
youtu.be/ub747pprmJ8
- YouTube
youtu.beBashStKid
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Down with teleology, I say.
The cladal bush works on a number of scales, but its best message is that context matters, any singular definition in biology is just an artefact made up to group a diverse and varying population into a discussion point.
Also that if you do find a population lacking in diversity and variability, that twig on the bush is not going to last long.
Smoogy
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Laura
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •cauZation
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Sure there are short linear blips, long curvy differentials... all between the Big Bang/Crunch Singularities.
Without scalar differential equations; there's no you, me, or a bird named bee. Now where are those flowers and trees?..
ts 🚇
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •MsMerope
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Sensitive content
I can no longer see an evolutionary chart without this image popping into my brain.
Apparently taken from that other social media place back in March of 2020.
ucape [uwe caspar]
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Rachel Greenham
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •NUTRITIOUS FOODS UGANDA 🇺🇬
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Jake S.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Through an amazing quirk of the internet this was immediately followed in my feed by the following: mastodon.social/@warandpeas/11…
War and Peas 🧿
2025-11-24 17:12:04
MidgePhoto
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Caricature says "Something something transitional fossils."
(All the fossils are transitional forms, except a few tgst are dead ends. We are a transitional forms. Let us try not to be th3 latter.)
Mouse
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •lankohr
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Simon Brooke
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •the only one who looks happy is at the root of the tree.
It's almost as if we're getting something wrong.
Trouble
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Steve Baker
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •(it "only" took a few billion years🌎 for "it"🧠 to begin to understand "itself)
at least parts of (eukaryotic) yeast and human genes are "homologous" and functionally similar enough to function in either "host "
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/…
From Saccharomyces cerevisiae to human: The important gene co-expression modules - PMC
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov