No living thing has a feature “to” do anything. That implies decision making, which is intelligent design.
Tigers have spots on their ears, which can confuse attackers.
Tigers did not develop those spots “to” confuse attackers.
Yes, they did though. That’s the purpose of this evolutionary trait. I see what you’re getting at, but you seem to be implying this was a concidence
Every evolutionary trait is coincidence. If it was adaptation we’d be able to regrow vital organs.
All models are wrong, but some are useful. Thinking of evolved features as having a purpose is wrong, but it is also incredibly useful.
Why do we have eyes? In some sense, there is no reason, just a sequence of random coincidences, combined with a slightly non-randon bias refered to as “survival of the fittest” (itself an incorrect model).
However, saying that we have eyes to see has incredible explanatory power, which makes it a useful model. Just like Newton’s law of Universal gravity. We’ve known it that is wrong for a century at this point, but most of the time still talk as if it’s true, because it is useful.
I hear what you’re saying, and you’re 100% correct, but I think most people will realize it’s a figure of speech, and easier to say than “Via the process of gene mutation trial and error over many, many generations of tigers, spots have developed on their ears that look like eyes, resulting in predation from behind being discourged.”
Hippos
They’ve been bullied and fat-shamed their whole lives and they’ve had enough.
Not even on the same continent. Hippos are in Africa and Tigers are in Asia. Pretty big desert in between
Probably humans, given they went from 100k to 5.6k in population in 100 years and are still in decline.
Even arrows or spears wouldn’t have been long enough to develop such a trait. And with those tools, still I don’t think Tiger would have been a primary target for humans. Seems like for most societies felines and canines were just not things we eat. Though maybe hunted for the pelt? In which case maybe they do eat the meat?
They are actually doing a bit better than we thought
https://www.npr.org/2022/07/23/1113186725/tigers-population-numbers-endangered-species
Sweet, that’s good to know. WWF needs to update their website. Too many chairs to the face I think.
https://wwf.ca/species/tigers/#:~:text=Sadly%2C tigers are on the,of all remaining wild tigers.
i mean i’ll concede that it’s not entirely ineffective, but i very much question that it would significantly affect their survival.
If a human sees a tiger which they know may well kill another human, they’re not going to give a toss about where the tiger is looking, they’re going to have 5 friends with them who all carry the best weapons they have available to turn that tiger into a rug.
Tigers are only CR4. There’s lots of stuff more dangerous that that.
Yeah, you think you’re hot shit as a tiger and then here comes a Hellwasp…
Fun fact the South American short face bear is the only Ice aged giant that is thought not to be driven extinct by humans and fact humans could not hunt it, Tigers would be a pleasant snack for them.
Well that begs the question what the hell drove the short face bear to extinction? The long face bear?
