Counterpoint: tiny terrestrial mammals becoming whales.
Whales came onto land, said fuck this and walked right back into the sea. It is widely regarded as a good decision in whale culture.
This title is also misleading, though. By claiming “evolution isn’t linear” and then showing a massive dinosaur leading to a chicken, you’re suggesting the chicken is a downgrade (otherwise, what “linear” would even mean in this context?).
The chicken is, however, a massive upgrade - for the specific environment it lived in. Well, “proto-chickens”, let’s say. The actual domesticated chicken is the result of artificial selection.
The title and the meme are correct. Many people think that evolution means a line of becoming bigger and physically stronger and having more powerful offensive capabilities and smarter and faster etc. But in reality evolution can just as easily mean becoming smaller, weaker, dumber, and slower
The issue is precisely in your mix up of “linear progression” and implying “smaller” is somehow a counter argument to that. While it’s true evolution isn’t linear, being smaller is not a downgrade at all.
I haven’t mixed up anything. Smaller to bigger to smaller again is not a linear progression in size going always upward, which is what happens in games and in people’s misconceptions.
Well, “proto-chickens”, let’s say.
Also known as red junglefowl.
Needs 3 stages for balance
The chicken will eventually be a crab
I adore the total lack of surprise for the ‘fridge with machine gun’ in the comments here. We all watched Digimon, apparently.
Hell yeah.
Pokémon: [day one] I wanna be the best Pokémon trainer the world has ever seen! [20 seasons later] Wow I got another gym badge! Pikachu is pretty decent!
Digimon: [day one] Oh this poor kitten, gotta save it from these big jerks! [end of season] Today, we must destroy God.
I’m pretty sure they made the Digimon evolutions while fucked up on coke.
Can you selectively breed chickens back to dinosaurs?
i’d rather selectively breed ostriches into rideable flying dragons.
Don’t forget the part where actual evolution requires a lot of sex and dying…
Technically, it is very much linear. It’s just it doesn’t always go the way we feel like it should.
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My grandpa used to have backyard chickens. I saw a couple of chickens completely brutalize and dismember a field mouse that had made it into their coop. I also have a pet parrot, he’s small, but if that little fucker was 6’ tall and pissed off, I’d be dead. Even at his size he can mess you up. If dinosaurs were just bigger versions of current chickens, they’d eat us all.