USH'S MATRIX GAME 2006 FOURTH ASSIGNMENT (PHILOSOPHY)- 'The Door'

"It's a matter of surroundings, isn't it? White bears usually live in environments where snow is the prevalent surrounding, and so their white fur hides them in the snow."

"And that just spontaneously happened, did it? Bears are brown, how can there be white ones? Where are, say, the green ones?"

"They evolve to match their environments and better camouflage themselves from predators or prey to increase their chances of survival. Green ones...well...bears don't really live in open grassy fields, as their game aren't there."

"'They evolve to match their environments' seems to ascribe this to some magical process of change. And if white, why not green? Who says they shouldn't live in fields but should live in tundra?"

"Let us have a closer look at this process. Bears in general are brown. You move bears into tundra and their offspring will be just as brown as those before them, and in the normal run of things would stay so forever, assuming they did not die out as it would not be helpful to them.

"So. Why would any bear, ever, end up with a white coat?"

"Could it be related to how the fox and the rabbit got faster? In an Arctic environment, a brown bear would be easily spotted attempting to approach its prey against the white snow. If the fox is going to starve because rabbits increased in speed, the bear is going to starve because its prey will escape before it has a chance to catch it. The fox survived by becoming faster, so the bear would survive, over several generations, by adapting a camoflage white coat."

"But again, that does not describe the process, which is left as something mysterious. And it does not account for the fact that the bears would not be in tundra in the first place, as it is not their habitat. Let us forget about the environment for a moment. Why would any bear at all be born with a white coat? Or a human ambidextrous, albino, or unable to see?"

(Oh, now I feel stupid that I didn't get this one...)

"Oh! Mutation is the answer. It's like someone having red hair instead of brown. It's an error in the genetic process, which can be detrimental or beneficial, or have no effect at all."

"Absolutely. A random genetic mutation- or should we say, variation? Unlikely to occur individually, but over periods of time within entire species, effectively inevitable.

"Now. What would the normal impact of such a random difference be on the species as a whole?"

"In regards to the white bears, it allows them to be camoflaged in the tundra."

"The bears are not in tundra, so that's not highly relevant.

"What is the general effect of such random variations on any species?"

"It may eventually define them as a different species, a separate identity from the original species they started as."

"That's a specific, and might I say unjustified, effect. What is the general effect? What difference does the occasional birth of a white bear make to the species of bears in general?"

"It just increases variety, doesn't it?"

"How so? Bears remain brown."

Originally posted by General Zink
(Oh, now I feel stupid that I didn't get this one...)

"Oh! Mutation is the answer. It's like someone having red hair instead of brown. It's an error in the genetic process, which can be detrimental or beneficial, or have no effect at all."

(okay, not to be annoying or anything, but red hair is a mutation of blond, not brown. Trust me. I know that little fact very well.)

"But that doesn't mean the white bears stop existing. Their mutated genes for white coats are still in the gene pool."

"You will forgive me, but I did not ask if they still existed. My question is what general difference it made to the species."

"In any case, the white coat gene is still present in the gene pool. It can be passed on in reproduction."

"Once more, not answering my question."