In the film she states that the speed at which they grow and breed had been accelerated so they went through generations much faster and were more pronote to mutation. It points out that humans evolved from ape to man in 40,000 generations and implies that in 3 years the bugs have gone through a similar number of generations.
How accurately this relates to evolutionary theory i dont know.
It relates very accurately to evolution if you ask me. The statement that evolution "speed" should be measured in generations and not years is something even official sources often neglect to mention, although I can tell you right here that it is correct. People generally say evolution is a slow process which takes many years. That's basically true, but in the end, it is more observational than anything else. It only
appears to be slow because it takes many generations for evolution to occur, meaning that the longer an organism's lifespan is, the slower it will evolve. Just like the film points out, you need to think in generations, not years. An organism with a very short lifespan can cover much more generations in a few years than one with a long lifespan (as you point out), causing it to evolve much faster. I believe the reason the common cold can't be cured is because the virus simply evolves too fast. You're briefly immune after you've had the cold, but you're only immune to the mutation that infected you at the time. When you get sick again it's because the virus has evolved further, to the point where your immune system has become "outdated".
If there'd been that many of the bigger man/bugs around you'd think they'd've been spotted more often.
The movie addresses this- since the Judas breed were camouflaged as humans, people would have noticed them on plenty of occasions, but not recognize them as not being human. Basically, they were hiding in the best possible place- plain sight.
www.alienexperience.com- great Alien/Predator forum!
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HentaiGuy42
13 years ago
No, the reason the common cold can't be cured is because it isn't caused by a single virus, it's caused by a wide array of infectious agents (primarily rhinovirus, but there are numerous others). The term "common cold" is a generic physical condition caused by any of these. As such, you can't cure it.
The problem with the evolutionary aspects of Mimic aren't the amount of time required, but exactly what selectors would result in a gigantic insect that preys on humans. An ambush predator of that size would have fantastically large energy requirements on it's own, and one that developed at such a rapid speed would have an even larger one...a whole race of supercharged giant maneaters would be hard to keep hidden. These creatures didn't start out as massive hunters, so what evolutionary pressure would cause them to end up as one? Evolution tends to be about economy, these things simply would not have evolved into an apex predator in that location that quickly with those evolutionary pressures. Evolution is a reactive process, it occurs when a trait either proves more successful or less successful than other traits. Building big, powerful bodies that move at ambush speeds is costly in evolutionary terms and wouldn't happen without a damned good reason.
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SteveH2002
12 years ago
The problem with the evolutionary aspects of Mimic aren't the amount of time required, but exactly what selectors would result in a gigantic insect that preys on humans. An ambush predator of that size would have fantastically large energy requirements on it's own, and one that developed at such a rapid speed would have an even larger one
As the Sorvino character mentions in the movie, in agreement with your observation, is that generations, rather than time, is what's important.
Not only would the increase in size require more energy in for the bugs, but I also believe any creature as large as us would also develop correspondingly longer life spans (which would mean more time invested in each generation). According to wiki- cockroaches require 6-12 months to mature. You would think the particular adaptive mutation of the Judas insect in the movie would take much longer than a handful of years, even if the large bug had the same growth rate and lifespan of a cockroach.
I know it's just a movie - I should just sit back and relax.... but, one other thing I've noticed. They aren't particuarly good at killing humans. They burn up a lot of energy just getting to one human, and none of them go down without a fight.
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Amills23
12 years ago
Even though I don't believe in the type of "evolution" they speak of in this movie . There idea about generations is junk also. They said the life span of the Judas was 15-30 days so in 3 yrs there would have been 30-60 generations. If generations really made the changes they purpose in this movie break barriers in species the study on fruit flies would back up there claim which it does not.
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