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OBLIGATE BIPEDS. "Of all extant primates, humans are the only obligate bipeds. Highly specialized postcranial adaptations, especially in the lower limb, characterize this unique form of locomotion. The foot is particularly specialized in both its anatomy and its function." https://lnkd.in/eicfqZV View in LinkedIn

EXAPTATION. "All epoch-making discoveries have in their wake a revision of pre-existing ideas." http://www.jstor.org/stable/43430678?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents View in LinkedIn

NOT FIRST PRINCIPLES. We always assume that evolution has developed the most highly adapted design for a particular function -- think Darwin's Finches -- and how adapted they are to their particular foods. However, most of evolution seems to have been a series of workarounds from an outmoded design to a new use, rather than a design from first principles. The evolution of the human foot is a case in point. It derived from a quadrupedal and arboreal ancestor, trying to make it suitable for bipedal locomotion. Or, put differently, turning a square into a triangle. View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE deals for two weekends on the evolution of the human foot. If someone presented me with a design for a human foot that looked like the actual human foot, I probably would have thrown them out of my office. Clunky, messy, bolt-on evolution is why the designs from robotics companies look nothing like the human foot: it was not designed from scratch with a single purpose. All about exaptation: the acquisitions of functions for which they were not originally adapted. View in LinkedIn

Earthworm Society of Great Britain View in LinkedIn

COMMON TRANSITION FEATURES. 3. "There have been many changes in language, information storage and transmission. Examples include the origin of the genetic code, of sexual reproduction, of epigenetic inheritance and of human language." https://lnkd.in/eZ5-m7K View in LinkedIn

COMMON TRANSITION FEATURES. 2. "The division of labour...increased efficiency can result from task specialization. For example, in ribo-organisms, nuclei can acids played two roles, as genetic materials and as enzymes, whereas today most enzymes are proteins." https://lnkd.in/eZ5-m7K View in LinkedIn

CONTINGENT IRREVERSIBILITY. "If an entity has replicated as part of a larger whole for a long time, it may have lost the capacity for independent replication that it once had, for accidental reasons that have little to do with the selective forces that led to the evolution of the higher-level entity in the first place." https://lnkd.in/eZ5-m7K View in LinkedIn

SUBTLE BUT DRASTIC. "The subtalar joint complex of man is quite clearly derived from the basic primate pattern, and in particular its unique structural attributes seem to have resulted from the accentuation of trends already incipient in Pan and Gorilla. Quite subtle and easily overlooked morphological changes have drastically modified the function." https://lnkd.in/eSbfe-f View in LinkedIn

HIGHER LEVELS. "In several of the listed transitions, one is effectively dealing with a group of replicators: when does such a group qualify as an organism, or -- viewed from the level if the component replicators --- a 'superorganism'?" https://lnkd.in/eZ5-m7K View in LinkedIn