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Comment by AtNightWeCode | Hacker News Reader

Evolution is in general very slow when it comes to animals. I have my doubts if poaching is the true cause or if there is some environmental reason.

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Evolution needn't be slow. We've evolved (via unnatural selection) chickens over just a few decades to have more and more white breast meat, to the point where they can't stand up on their own. We've rapidly evolved dog breeds to have characteristics we covet.

If there was a deadly virus that killed human that do not have blue eyes, the entire human population would "evolve" to having blue eyes very quickly.

This is exactly what happened with the tusk-less elephants.

Some eye colors are dominant. We still have a lot of different eye colors.

Yes, that's why in my example I chose to keep alive only the most recessive eye color (both brown and green dominate blue).

Because the ones with tusks are being removed from pool (killed) before they can reproduce. Therefore their genes are not replicated and that characteristic goes away.

It’s more selection than “evolution” but they work together.

The article is explicit that it's an environmental pressure selecting for a previously recessive trait, similarly to Peppered moths during the Industrial Revolution[1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution

I think that in this case it might just be a case of 'selective breeding' rather than 'evolution' sensu stricto.

Those with large tusks are shot dead and thus only tuskless remain. Not much different with breeding dogs for specific traits which is way faster process than evolution to adapt a species to the environment

Evolution is slow when humans aren't a involved. Most poachers kill the elephants for the tusks. This is artificial selection, similar to dog breeding, which is different from natural selection.

Humans or no, environments can change quickly and drastically, causing certain genetic characteristics to quickly become favored for survival and reproduction. Evolution is all about generational adaptation to changing environments. When the environment changes quickly, evolution can happen quickly. Populations simply disappear if the necessary adaptations cannot occur quickly enough.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130409095414.h...

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/rapid-evolutio...

This could be better defined as breeding for specific traits.

Elephants without tusks are the ones “allowed” to breed.

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