In the thirty-fifth chapter of The Science of Discworld<\/i>, the wizards are disappointed by the Project, right up until it surprises them. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Oh, wizard logic. Actually, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such a distinct thing that I feel it needs to be properly capitalized, like: Wizard Logic.\u00e2\u201e\u00a2 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so fun to take a moment and figure out how one of the wizards arrived at their absurd conclusions. And by gods, they have so many of them<\/i>. This chapter features one that also deals with a common misconception about have evolution and natural selection works. See, the wizards are completely lost as to why<\/i> there are still creatures living in the ocean if some evolved to live on land. The mistake here is that this is a zero sum game, that once evolution happens, the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153original\u00e2\u20ac\u009d species has<\/i> to die off and abandon everything that made them what they are. But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve learned (through this book!) that this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t remotely what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happened. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like the amphibians willingly thought, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hey, I need to go live on land!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d They evolved features \u00e2\u20ac\u201c most likely through genetic mutations \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that allowed<\/i> them to live out of the water. And because they were well-suited to both of these environments, they thrived. That meant that they started procreating and passing on the genetic material and the instinct that helped future generations survive in these conditions.<\/p>\n
What this doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i> mean is that the species that lived in the ocean that the new one evolved from suddenly drops dead en masse because OH NO, OUR RELATIVES FOUND A NEW WAY TO LIVE. I mean, that would be pretty dramatic, first of all, and I have no idea if the fish in this Project are dramatic enough for that. They might be!!! But one species doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t inherently \u00e2\u20ac\u0153lose\u00e2\u20ac\u009d if another gains some feature or quality that allows them to survive better in a specific habitat, you know? On top of that, the wizards are dealing with an accelerated timetable, so they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not appreciating how slow this actually<\/i> would have transpired. Even the massive eruption in this chapter happens pretty much instantaneously, and they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re able to move themselves out from under the ocean through magic. Evolution takes a long, long time, which is how it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s possible that the creature at the end of this chapter can exist after 70,000 years.<\/p>\n
I REALLY HOPE THE DINOSAUR CHAPTER IS NEXT. I WANT IT SO BADLY.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/youtu.be\/3xPpokuivVk<\/p>\n
Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n
– My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now available for pre-order!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the thirty-fifth chapter of The Science of Discworld, the wizards are disappointed by the Project, right up until it surprises them. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[451],"tags":[463,248,532],"class_list":["post-4363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-the-science-of-discworld"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4363\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}