To wonder why certain evolutionary changes haven't happened

[wineoclockthanks]

Mosquitos that don't buzz for example, you'd never be able to track them down and squash the little blood sucking bastards if they didn't make a noise.

Evolution is generally “good enough”. Enough mosquitoes survive that no adaptation is required.

I got eaten alive last summer in Spain by silent mosquito bastards.

Evolution is clearly a myth as I've still only got two hands people should have evolved to have at least three even four by now

Spiders should have shrunk as we kill all the big ones

Sensible answers after food

Bluetooth connectivity would be handy

I hear ya OP.

One thing I wish WOULD change is I wish birds and small (wild) animals would develop road sense, coz I hate seeing them dead every day.

I think that pheasants are evolving to develop road sense. I see far fewer dead pheasants on the roads these days . . .

I think headlice are evolving too. My oldest DC is 26. When he was little it was quite easy to get rid of them because they seemed much bigger then, so were quite easily comb outable, as well as more easily poisonable with chemical treatments.
My youngest DC is 8. The ones she had a couple of years ago were tiny and far less easy to comb out. Also resistant to Licicides!

Women still having periods. Evolutionary nonsense.

Oooh, there was an interesting programme on this the other day - a scientist designing a new human on the basis of what had happened if we had evolved some aspects differently. The programme title sounds dreadful but it was more scientific than it sounds:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p069z3gj

I suppose evolution doesn't make us perfect, just good enough to survive to reproductive age, and then it's all downhill from there!

They might have been noisier in the past!

@ Lycanthropology head lice are evolving resistance to insecticides, in the same way the bacteria are evolving resistance to antibiotics.

For the most part having a unique mutation isn't that good for an individual - but suddenly apply strong selection pressure like a massive dose of insecticide that you've randomly mutated to have resistance to and it's the best day ever.
Being a teeny tiny head louse when people are reverting back to combing as a treatment gives them a better chance of avoiding the teeth of the comb and having baby lice, and the genes for small get passed on. Eventually you end up with a whole population of smaller lice when back in the day they'd have no chance against the big muscly lice. In human terms it's happening quickly, but if you think of the lifespan of a louse for them it's happening over many generations.

@freshstarttoday

You may be right about pheasants.. I see very few too.

Badgers on the other hand! And other birds and hedgehogs etc.

Some birds fly right towards the car sometimes.

I read something recently to the effect that hedgehogs are developing a tendency to run instead of roll up. Bit late, though - there's hardly any of them left.

We need to grow a new pair of hands every time we give birth. I don't understand how that hasn't happened yet.

TEETH

Armpit hair, why do we need it?

FizzyFeet - thanks for the link. That looks very interesting. I do like Alice Roberts.

Will watch tomorrow, as I'm currently watching an episode of "Inside the Ambulance", and wondering if there's a gene for twatty driving in front of a blues-and-twos, because it would be good for evolution to get rid of that gene.

I'm not sure, but I don't think Darwin ever used the phrase "survival of the fittest", but that's what a lot of people think about evolution. Whereas it's really the "survival of the fuckers"; and about quantity not quality.

Princesscuntsuela! I say that all the time. How can I grown a whole new human, but not an extra pair of hands for myself! What a design flaw. Almost be worth an extra month of pregnancy for that extra pair of hands. In fact for each new child you could have a new set, and then they could sort of drop off as the children get older and you don’t need them anymore. 😁

Anyone else scratching their heads now?

Evolution is about living long enough to breed - it doesn't matter how successful you are, what features would make you better, whether you die immediately after reproducing etc.
As long as you have a child, and that child survives to have a child etc etc. If the species can continue to do that, it doesn't need to "evolve".
It's also down to luck - members of the species have to be born with a "good" mutation, and outbreed the ones without that mutation consistently.

After a long run of night shifts I often wonder why we haven’t evolved to the point where our brain recognises how dangerous driving is so that I don’t live in fear of falling asleep at the wheel...

Because evolution isn't a goal oriented process. It isn't directed towards a goal such as improvement of the species. Mutations are random, and then when they occur they will automatically become more prevalent in the gene pool if they increase the fitness of the mutated individual. But just because a particular trait (like silent mosquitos) would be desirable for that species doesn't mean that the required mutation will automatically occur!

Re: armpit hair. I know humans have lost a lot of body hair through evolution, though I’m not sure why, nor why we still retain some in some places.

What I do know, and that might not necessarily be a good evolutionary thing, is that body hair decreases as one gets older. Trouble is, eyesight gets worse, so although there aren’t as many hairs, I can’t see where the darned things are.

Had to muse to myself for a minute, may be a bit freaky to imagine but cat like ability to see in the dark would be amazing and save on energy bills into the bargain.(sitting in the dark as I type)

I do agree with pp evolution isn't a perfect thing it's constant miniscule changes/mutations over hundreds or thousands of generations depending on lifespans etc.

Recently went to a talk on bacteria and antibiotic resistance which was fascinating in itself but it highlighted that antibiotic resistance in bacteria is a fluke/random mutation.

Was shown a projection of say a very large dining table sized sample of bacteria growth starting from 0 antibiotic use to masses. Very little survived at the highest point of antibiotic use but the mutations started from point 0...