In my last article, Wikileaks and the Problem of Categorization, I talked about evolving technology and the categorization of structures and concepts with the evolving technology. There is a push-pull at work as we evolve technologies to suit our needs but at the same time technology itself encourages us to evolve to fit in with its capabilities.
Years ago a mouse was that thing that got into the house through a crack in the window and ran away with the cheese. Now, a mouse slides along a mouse rug transferring movement in the hand to electronic signals in the computer. Sometimes it seems to act on its own, closing an open window or gobbling up some cheesy letters in a fit of pique. We categorize “mice” according to context.
Yet both mice are the product of their own evolutionary processes.
Evolutionary biology is replete with categorization. We look back to the single celled organisms, bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes, and see that life has never looked back as a multitude of diverse life forms have evolved.
Starting out with the category Domain Eukarya, born out of the marriage of a Protobacteria and Archaea, we travel to Kingdom Animalia then to Phylum Chordata, on to Class Mammalia and then to Order Cetacea. In Order Cetacea we find the marine mammals, including whales, porpoises and dolphins. Under Class Mammalia, Cetacea are closely associated with the ungulates (hoofed animals).
Whales evolved from land mammals. Whales were likely a hoofed animal such as a wolf, that evolved over time to inhabit the briny deep. Mammals in the oceans? It seems like some awkward reversal of the common term “fish out of water”, a reversal of intuitive categorization.
The evolution of the whale was impressive in forging an adaptation between the two very difficult environments, land and sea. As warm blooded, air breathing creatures, with live births, they needed to forge a transition that would allow them to survive in an ocean environment. This transition took place over a long period and the story of that transition is written in the behavior of the whales themselves, and in archaeological evidence.
This Whale Evolution Documentary from PBS is excellent in discussing the story of how the whales evolved.
With humanity facing environmental, social and economic challenges, it will interesting how we adapt to those challenges and how we integrate technology into that process. In doing so, we will open up a sea of questions, including those about categorization, and interpreting behaviors and actions arising out of how we categorize.
Marilyn Dunstan’s whale images on Alamy.com
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