

Evolutionary Timeline, to scale - trafficlight
http://andabien.com/html/evolution-timeline.htm?=9738234

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iamwil
It seems like there's a whole lot of nothing going on for the first 2 billion
years. But what I think we miss is during that time, a lot of the complex
biochemical and organic pathways were being developed--without which none of
the other classifications of lifeforms would have appeared--and none of these
bio pathways manifest themselves in the fossile record.

If we were somehow able to classify organisms biochemically instead of by
their physical features, I wonder how different the picture would look?

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fh
That's true, many of those pathways are shared between all current species, so
they must have evolved in that early period. I wonder how (for lack of a
better word) _inefficient_ organisms must have been before they evolved the
modern citric acid cycle, for example.

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njharman
This has always been the best explanation of why we don't see evidence of
aliens. Any detectable species is less than a pixel on that timescale.
Combined with likelyhood of getting wiped out by natural (comet/asteroid) or
technological(nuke, pollution/climate, custom disease, etc).

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AngryParsley
I think this timeline tells a different story: Intelligent life is very rare.
Typically, life doesn't evolve beyond single-celled or primitive multi-celled
organisms before the star goes red giant.

The chances of general intelligence evolving are so small that we're probably
the first.

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JoeAltmaier
How are Homo Sapiens NOT the pinnacle of evolution? What are we then, the
hind-end? Brick wall? Full Stop?

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tom_rath
We're the species currently dominating a niche.

Calling anything the 'pinnacle' of evolution implies some sort of progress
towards perfection. Evolution does not work that way.

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JoeAltmaier
Says a member of the only race in 2 billion years that CAN argue about it...

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tom_rath
You misunderstand how evolution works. It is not a progression towards
perfection.

You're conflating biological evolution with creationism / 'intelligent
design'.

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JoeAltmaier
Any anyway, how do you explain going from single-celled creatures to working
organisms with a trillion cells? Darwin claims species are driven by their
environment to better compete - is that not something like perfecting them?

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AndrewDucker
No. Perfection implies a scale with a top end.

We compete for spaces in a niche, we don't compete to be all round "better".

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JoeAltmaier
Ok, but Pinnacle describes a local maximum, which seems to describe us
perfectly.

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rman666
Yeah, he said "Domestic Asses." Huh, huhhuhuh.

