• Question: Would you say sophistication of language could be used as a metric of evolutionary success?

    Asked by to Suzanne, Nadine, Ioannis, Daniel, Carolyn on 9 Jan 2018. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Nadine Lavan

      Nadine Lavan answered on 9 Jan 2018:


      Interesting question – in terms of the sophistication of communication systems, I’m not sure. Some types of single cell organisms have been around pretty unchanged for thousands and thousands of years. They don’t have sophisticated communication systems. But since they are still around after all these years, I’d call that a successful designs (if you consider success as “managed to survive” – there could be other definitions, of course!).

    • Photo: Daniel Mills

      Daniel Mills answered on 10 Jan 2018:


      This is an interesting every species that is increasing is an evolutionary success. Evolution does not have a goal, it is the outcome of selection on the variation that happens to exist in a population, so sophistication is not a measure of success, rather it is population growth. Simple organisms may be the winners in this regard

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