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Thread: Wild Morphs

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  1. #6
    BPnet Veteran Malum Argenteum's Avatar
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    We do call morphs 'maladaptive' and 'abnormal' and such, but as survival adaptations they play a role that is no less useful than camouflage or heat pits or any other adaptive trait. Genetic morphs are contributing to the success of the species.

    It is only when we pretend that there's a distinction between the human world and the natural world (as if H. sapiens is something sui generis) that these morph animals look maladaptive. Humans and the human world are part of evolutionary processes, too -- at this point, we're one of the strongest forces of evolutionary pressure.

    While it is true that morph animals are 'maladaptive' in relation to the "natural" environment, that doesn't make them maladaptive full stop, since all adaptive traits are relative to the animal's current environment. A multi morph snake probably wouldn't survive in "the wild", but neither would many species that have adapted to a novel environment (flightless island birds, for example -- return them to the mainland and they would be wiped out, but on the island flightlessness is adaptive).

    I completely agree with many of the the implications when people use words like 'Frankenstein' and 'abnormal', but those are moral claims, not claims about evolutionary adaptation. From an evolutionary point of view, morphs are completely normal.

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