Darwin Day Submission

Man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits.
~Charles Darwin

After much prodding, I transformed my human evolution design into a piece that I could submit for the Darwin Day T-shirt competition.  Here is the final design I decided to submit.

As you can see, the design is centered around my original human evolutionary tree concept, but I added the text and the outlines of extant primates.  The three additional taxa of primates include Pan (lower left), Gorilla (lower right), and Pongo (upper left), since these genera are mostly closely related to Homo out of the primates living today.  I decided to remove the arm with the apple because I didn't think a disembodied arm would work well on a t-shirt, without an edge to line up with.  

 

Instead I added a finch perched on the girl's outstretched hand.  If you are familiar with Darwin you will recognize the finch as a one of the species of Darwin's finches that had developed a large wide beak in order to specialize on tougher food sources that finches with long narrow beaks could not easily consume.  Finches with narrow beaks specialized in feeding on different resources, allowing the different morphs to exploit different niches rather than directly competing for the same limited resources.  Over time, initial variation in beak dimensions was enhanced, since different shapes provided different advantages allowing some birds to access resources that the others could not.  Thus they didn't starve and were able to reproduce and pass their genes onto the next generation.  Anyway, I digress, basically the finch is an homage to Darwin as well a representation of a possible mechanism of change.

 

I wasn't sure if I should draw the lettering or use a font.  Also, I realized that since Darwin Day isn't until February the actual year would be 2012 (oops) so I fixed that in my final design.  Here are the original design layouts with the girl, the text, the arm and the bird.

 

Originally, I had just thought I would use my design with the girl and text on a red background, but the t-shirt had to be white so that limited the background color.  Since I didn't want to just put the girl in a square of color I tried to add color to surround the outline in by containing it in the shapes of the other primates.  I didn't like the first design because I didn't think the ape was distinct enough, so I removed that image and changed to the large ape on the right of the girl.  I then added the small ape on the left bottom and finally re-added the one at the top left.  I was trying to use the apes to make the girl stand out more so I had a difficult time laying them out to minimize the area of the girl bordered by white while simultaneously positioning them to look like they looked like they belonged in the image.  Amusingly, all of the background primates are based on pictures of chimps, but by manipulating the size and design of the images they definitely look like different apes.  Finally, I changed the color to orange to fit with the Tennessee theme.

 

I mostly like the way the design came out.  The lettering is a little strange because it crosses the orange and white backgrounds, but I tried multiple different text layouts and I couldn't find any that I like better.  I really like the addition of the extant primates because it adds context to the evolutionary tree depicted in the girl.  It would be cool to include similar evolutionary lineages in the other primates, but unfortunately I am not very familiar with the evolutionary records of other primates and I know for chimpanzees few fossils have been recovered.

 

The judging of the designs doesn't happen until January, so I guess there won't be any updates till then.  Hope you like the design, and think it would make a neat t-shirt. :)

Giraffefish and Other Nonsense

I love this painting.  It was made by one of my best friends, and it has inspired several debates about the nature of the universe and the existence of unknown or impossible creatures (such as a giraffe fish).  During one of these debates I found myself arguing the position that even though there is no tangible proof that giraffe fish exist, the possibility of their existence should not be ruled out on that basis alone.  My friend on the other hand, argued that since there is no proof of the existence of giraffe fish, it is foolish to even consider the possibility of the existence of such a creature.  While I was focused on the immensity of the ocean and the likelihood that there are numerous undiscovered species potentially living on our planet, my friend was debating the larger social question of the existence of God.  

Yes, in this case the fictitious character of the giraffe fish plays God.  

I suppose this issue brings up and interesting difference between atheism and agnosticism.  My friend is an atheist, or at least when we were discussing this topic several years ago she was. (I think she may have joined my agnostic/ indecisive worldview at this point, but that is an entirely different discussion.)  She had made up her mind that God did not exist and chastised me for being gullible/ naive enough to entertain the possibility of any form of supernatural deity.  In response I would argue that her strong belief in atheism is equally problematic since the main evidence she uses to argue against the existence of the divine is the failure of religion to prove its existence.

I consider myself agnostic.  I honestly have no idea whether or not there are supernatural forces existing in the world.  Sometimes I find this problematic.  While I have no evidence that there is any type of deity influencing the universe, I have equally little evidence to prove that one does not exist.  In this case, atheists and religious groups alike are basing their views on a belief system, or faith, as neither can provide evidence to substantiate their claims.  One key phrase that I have heard repeatedly in my studies or biology and anthropology is the adage "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."  This phrase basically sums up my reasons for being agnostic.  The lack of evidence from either side prevents an adequate basis for drawing an informed conclusion on the topic.  While the fundamental inconsistencies in accepted modern religions lead me to reject any specific doctrine, I realize that humans created religions and humans are fallible.  Yet, it is possible that a deity beyond human comprehension exists.  Until I can gather further evidence on god's existence or lack there of, I have chosen to accept the unknowability or the universe and remain my indecisive self.

Today I was thinking about whether it would be possible for a giraffe fish to evolve through the process of natural selection.  I realize "fish" is probably and inappropriate term to use, as I expect that the proposed organism would be a mammal, but technically all tetrapods are evolutionary descendants of fish.  More on that another time.

Anyway, upon considering the potential advantages and disadvantages of giraffe features in an aquatic environment the prospects aren't great.  First of all, the elongated thin neck of a giraffe would not be streamlined or effective in an aquatic environment, especially given a more massive torso.  Secondly, the general consensus in the scientific field is that marine mammals evolved from a wolf-like ancestor that returned to an aquatic environment.  Thus, an aquatic giraffe would probably represent a parallel evolutionary trajectory of an herbivorous quadruped that returned to the water and adapted to the conditions by developing fins (ect.). While parallelism are common in mammalian evolutionary history, my friend had a point when she noted that an aquatic giraffe-like creature would probably have difficulty remaining unnoticed by humans since it would need to breath oxygen, and would need to be fairly large to maintain mammalian metabolic functions in an aquatic environment.  

That being said, I challenge anyone to completely disprove the possibility of the existence of a giraffe fish.