Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-32918765-20171030193812/@comment-26149161-20171104161003

Swordsbane wrote:

Sir Lazuli wrote: Selective breeding is not evolution. Take dogs for example. While there are a wide variety of breeds, we have not evolved dogs into a higher form of life over all the thousands of years we have selectively bred them. The chance of mutations actually adding good information to a creature’s genome is astronomically small. The result of selective breeding is that we have creatures which, while having a particular exaggerated characteristic they were bred for, are actually less capable of survival on their own than before the breeding. This is why specific breeds of dogs often have numerous health problems, while mutts are healthier.

But this discussion really doesn’t matter. We can argue about whether selective breeding is evolution or not, but the fact is there is no such thing as evolution in Arda. Tolkien’s legendarium explicitly states that living things were created by the Valar / Ainur. Living things can be corrupted by evil things, but they do not evolve into a higher form of life. We do see examples of adaptation like the cave fish (or a sort of magically enhanced adaptation in the case of Gollum) but there’s no evolution. So whether or not selective breeding is evolution in the real world, it definitely isn’t in Tolkien’s world.

Selective breeding is about the same as natural selection, difference is that selective breeding is done for a certain set of genes (traits) more beneficial to the breeder (in case of dogs, loyalty is the biggest factor at first), while natural selection is more 'beneficial' to the animal (the weak are picked off, the strong live on).

Also, if you're right, then cave fish are born normal, then get white & blind as they grow? No, just no. Adaption is when good genes remain & bad are picked off. So there may be evolution in middle earth, it'll just go on at a much slower rate... About how long is it from the beginning of middle earth to the war of the ring? Because it take a very long time (More than 1 million years in most cases) for a species to evolve into another species. As far as I can tell, we don't have enough time shown, which is why we don't see any large-scale evolution taking place. Arda has either existed for as long as our Earth (being one and the same) or around 60,000 years. We aren't given enough detail to tell either way. However, we do see evolution on a smaller scale--the blind fish.

Macroevolution and microevolution are the same thing. They are new adaptations that take place due to mutation, natural selection, genetic drift, and migration. The only difference is the timescale--macroevolution is the stacking of long years of microevolution.

What you refer to as microevolution is natural selection, when non-mutated, naturally variable genes in the creature's genomes translate to better chances to survive. This undoubtedly takes place in Middle-earth. However, it is fallacious to say that what you refer to as macroevolution, or gene mutation, does not. For all intensive purposes, Middle-earth is our earth. It's doubtful that it would lack this key part of our own world. The difference is that the timescale we have any detail of is too small for us to have seen any truly significant changes.

Ithilion, Discussions Moderator (Auta i lómë)