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Why evolution by natural selection didn't make use of RF?

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tom66:
It's interesting to postulate a world in which animals did use RF.  Say the electric eel could create a small arc, this would potentially be useful as a wideband transmitter, and could summon other eels if they had some capability to receive the signal.  That could perhaps be an accidental evolution, as a diode-like response is possible with dissimilar metals in some cases.  In terms of more complicated means of communication like voice, I don't see how that could be practical.  It would require modulation of a carrier frequency, and I can't think of any biological process that would be capable of evolving that, it's essentially a biological transistor.  Nerve cells aren't capable of analogue modulation AFAIK.

Another question I heard once was why the wheel doesn't appear in nature given its almost superior nature in every way to the leg for locomotion.  Well, a true bearing is not possible in biology because there is no way to supply oxygen to the tissue through the bearing.   All you see in biology are ball joints which allow only partial rotation.  It could possibly develop as a component that later separates from its oxygen supply (like a nail breaking off) but it would be quite a leap to be able to then use that for locomotion, given there's no intermediately step that is apparent that conveys a selection advantage.  Also, any such tissue would be liable to needing replacement from time to time, as it wore down.  It is not clear how that would be possible with an independent component.

tszaboo:
Light is RF, it's just a specific spectrum. In a parallel world we could have eyes that work in the gamma rays spectrum, and think about how weird it would be to see in the light spectrum.
"Imagine it, you wouldn't be able to see through things, it would be so strange." said the giant talking squid while driving to his work in the factory, making squid pants.

vad:

--- Quote from: Circlotron on August 29, 2023, 05:31:21 am ---That line of reasoning would seem to indicate that we should be more likely to have sensors for UV and X-ray and so on. But we don't.

--- End quote ---
There are animals with UV vision.

Circlotron:

--- Quote from: tom66 on August 29, 2023, 10:29:48 am ---Well, a true bearing is not possible in biology because there is no way to supply oxygen to the tissue through the bearing.   All you see in biology are ball joints which allow only partial rotation.  It could possibly develop as a component that later separates from its oxygen supply (like a nail breaking off) but it would be quite a leap to be able to then use that for locomotion, given there's no intermediately step that is apparent that conveys a selection advantage.

--- End quote ---
Flagella have a bearing of sorts. Good enough to support 6000-17000 rpm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellum

vad:

--- Quote from: Circlotron on August 29, 2023, 05:31:21 am ---That line of reasoning would seem to indicate that we should be more likely to have sensors for UV and X-ray and so on. But we don't.

--- End quote ---
… Also, it is a logical fallacy. If two arguments, A and B, are false for different reasons, explaining why A is false might not give you a clue about the reasoning for argument B.

For example, bears cannot both breathe underwater and fly. Explaining why bears cannot live underwater will not explain why they cannot fly.

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