# Change in species
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-in-species/1032282
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [August 10, 2026, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-in-species/1032282 "2026-08-10T21:16:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2026, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-in-species/1032282/21 "2026-08-10T23:03:46Z")
> [@cladking](#):
>
> He said the fittest survive. He put the cart before the horse. Saying survivors survive is nonsense. Reality sorts behavior. What doesn’t work fails and what does passes on its DNA. All individuals are equally fit.
“What works” and “fittest” mean exactly the same thing.
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### Author:  [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2026, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-in-species/1032282/22 "2026-08-10T23:03:58Z")
I’m trying to figure out if this thread is popcorn worthy.
So far no, but hope springs eternal!
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### Author:  [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2026, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-in-species/1032282/23 "2026-08-10T23:29:28Z")
> [@RitterSport](#):
>
> I feel like I should post that video from Billy Madison in every thread this poster starts.
I read this OP to my husband and he immediately suggested that video. It’s seemed to spark the same reaction for a lot of people.
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### Author:  [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2026, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-in-species/1032282/24 "2026-08-10T23:35:38Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#):
>
> > [@cladking](#):
> >
> > The only arguments I’ve ever won is by wearing down my opponent to the point they agree to shut me up.
>
> I don’t know your posting history, but man, that is not the own you think it is.
Quoted for truth. This is only slightly different from those who think they have won an argument by shouting the loudest (an in-person tactic that I have seen more than a few times in my life).
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2026, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-in-species/1032282/25 "2026-08-10T23:39:22Z")
Where did Darwin say something different than this?
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### Author:  [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2026, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-in-species/1032282/26 "2026-08-11T00:02:48Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#):
>
> Are wolves and dogs the same species?
In a sense every individual on earth is the same species because we have a common ancestor. In a more real sense every individual on earth is its own species because there can be no two identical individuals. We have unique DNA and unique experience gained from unique models.
Dogs were inside of wolves and coaxed out through an artificial bottleneck that excluded aggressive and frightened individuals.
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### Author:  [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2026, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-in-species/1032282/27 "2026-08-11T00:04:20Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> “What works” and “fittest” mean exactly the same thing.
No. What works is a mechanism, “fitness” is a post hoc label with no meaning.
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2026, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-in-species/1032282/28 "2026-08-11T00:12:13Z")
> [@cladking](#):
>
> Dogs were inside of wolves and coaxed out through an artificial bottleneck that excluded aggressive and frightened individuals.
Cool. Sounds like artificial selection. I know a guy who used the example of artificial selection in dogs to come up with an idea called “natural selection” - sounds like you’ve rediscovered his work.
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### Author:  [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2026, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-in-species/1032282/29 "2026-08-11T00:37:32Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#):
>
> Cool. Sounds like artificial selection. I know a guy who used the example of artificial selection in dogs to come up with an idea called “natural selection” - sounds like you’ve rediscovered his work.
You missed the point I think. Real bottlenecks do the exact same thing; they select for unusual behavior and these survivors with their unusual DNA create a brand new species. There is no “Evolution” and no “survival of the fittest”. It’s nonsense born of the Great Chain of Being and 19th century prejudice. Species change when typical behavior fails at bottlenecks. Species change through DNA and behavior not through fitness.
The map science has drawn does not fit the terrain at a great number of points because the science is categorical recursion and many of the forces that shape reality can not even be defined much less categorized. Where did Darwin consider “free will”? How did Einstein define constraint?
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2026, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-in-species/1032282/30 "2026-08-11T00:53:03Z")
> **cladking** Monday, August 10 at 8:47 PM
> You missed the point I think. Real bottlenecks do the exact same thing; they select for unusual behavior and these survivors with their unusual DNA create a brand new species.
We call that “evolution”
> **cladking** Monday, August 10 at 8:47 PM
> Species change when typical behavior fails at bottlenecks. Species change through DNA and behavior not through fitness.
“fitness” is the result of behavior and DNA.
It’s fun to pretend to have invented an old discovery, but embarrassing to get carried away with the fantasy.
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### Author:  [@keeganst94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keeganst94)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2026, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-in-species/1032282/31 "2026-08-11T01:03:10Z")
About 95% of this is pure bullshit, but the other 5% of it is just a restatement of the theory of punctuated equilibrium, which has been around since the 50’s. It also is not in any way inconsistent with Darwin’s work.
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### Author:  [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2026, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-in-species/1032282/32 "2026-08-11T01:07:24Z")
Well sure, as Pauli once put it, the premise of the OP is so flawed it’s not even wrong
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### Author:  [@Jihi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jihi)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2026, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-in-species/1032282/33 "2026-08-11T01:24:55Z")
What I’m wondering, and maybe I’m missing something obvious here, but why did he start this thread in the Pit? It was most likely going to wind up here anyway, but it seems like an odd decision to me.
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2026, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-in-species/1032282/34 "2026-08-11T01:38:19Z")
“Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.”
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### Author:  [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2026, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-in-species/1032282/35 "2026-08-11T08:06:04Z")
Back to my chicken example on post #2:
> **[Which came first, the chicken or the egg?](https://www.straightdope.com/21341649/which-came-first-the-chicken-or-the-egg)**
Now I really don’t see any bottleneck or “coaxing” for something like this to occur…
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2026, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-in-species/1032282/36 "2026-08-11T08:57:52Z")
Maybe I’m missing something, but…
WHAT THE FUCK IS BEING PITTED HERE?
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2026, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-in-species/1032282/37 "2026-08-11T09:16:43Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#):
>
> WHAT THE FUCK IS BEING PITTED HERE?
Nothing. It seems that our resident royalty, the King of Clad, is tired of having his threads in the regular forums closed, so His Majesty hit on the idea of regaling us with his anti-science genius observations here in the Pit.
The previous thread in GD had as its main theme the idea that every physicist in the world was wrong about everything, especially the fools who thought they could use math to calculate things. This one has a more modest objective – just to prove that Charles Darwin was wrong about everything, too.
Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to be very entertaining.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2026, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-in-species/1032282/38 "2026-08-11T09:22:07Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> **Nothing**. It seems that our resident royalty, the King of Clad, is tired of having his threads in the regular forums closed, so His Majesty hit on the idea of regaling us with his anti-science genius observations here in the Pit.
Doesn’t that violate one of the very few explicit rules that we have for the Pit?
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### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2026, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-in-species/1032282/39 "2026-08-11T12:16:06Z")
I thought i might post something like
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> In order to be able to say that someone is wrong, you must first know what it is that they say. For instance, you clearly don’t know what Darwin said, because nothing in your OP contradicts any of it. So if you want to revolutionize science, you need to first learn science. Which you have shown no interest in doing.
Or
> [@keeganst94](#):
>
> About 95% of this is pure bullshit, but the other 5% of it is just a restatement of the theory of punctuated equilibrium, which has been around since the 50’s. It also is not in any way inconsistent with Darwin’s work.
But i see it’s been done.
@cladking , you might want to read the Wikipedia article
> **[Punctuated equilibrium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium#)**
>
> In evolutionary biology, punctuated equilibrium (also called punctuated equilibria) is a theory that proposes that once a species appears in the fossil record, the population will become stable, showing little evolutionary change for most of its geological history. This state of little or no morphological change is called stasis. When significant evolutionary change occurs, the theory proposes that it is generally restricted to rare and geologically rapid events of branching speciation called Pu...
Which says things like:
> In the fourth edition (1866) of _On the Origin of Species_ Darwin wrote that “the periods during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured in years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retain the same form.”[[88]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium#cite_note-88) Thus punctuationism in general is consistent with Darwin’s conception of evolution.[[86]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium#cite_note-VQR-86)
You also might enjoy some of Steven J Gould’s books.
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### Author:  [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2026, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-in-species/1032282/40 "2026-08-11T12:21:33Z")
The cool thing about this is that the cladking will eventually tire of us and go away.
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