I bring this up because my sister and 3 other brothers have our second and third toes halfway webbed. Watching That's Incredible in the late 70's they brought out a Pygmy chimp. The zoo handler states that the Pygmy chimp has a peculiar trait of having the 2nd and 3rd toe halfway webbed.
My jaw dropped at this finding.
So I do research and find this article about birds below.....
Also there is a site with people commenting on their webbed toes.
Quote:
Topography of the Foot
Toe Arrangements
These terms apply to the position of the toes (usually four, but fewer in some exceptional cases) on the foot (Figure 6). On an anisodactyl foot, the toes are numbered starting from the hallux (digit one, the "thumb"), then to the inside front toe (digit two), the middle front toe (digit three) to the outside front (digit four).
Anisodactyl. Anisodactyl feet are characterized by three toes facing forward (digits 2-4) and one toe (digit 1, the hallux) facing backwards. The anisodactyl foot is the most common arrangement: songbirds (order Passeriformes) and most other birds that regularly perch have anisodactyl feet.
Zygodactyl. The zygodactyl foot is characterized by two toes facing forward (digits 2 and 3) and two toes facing backward (digits 1 and 4): in other words, the outer toe is reversed. This is the second most common toe arrangement in birds. It is found in most woodpeckers (family Picidae), owls (order Strigiformes), cuckoos (order Cuculiformes), most parrots (order Psittaciformes), mousebirds (order Coliiformes), and others.
Heterodactyl. The heterodactyl foot is like the zygodactyl foot except that the inner toe is reversed (digits 3 and 4 face forward, 1 and 2 face backward). Heterodactyl feet are only found in trogons (order Trogoniformes).
Syndactyl. Syndactyl feet are characterized by a fusion of the second and third toes (the inner and middle digits) along part of their length. This condition is found in the kingfishers and other members of the order Coraciiformes
I will try to type more later because school is getting out.
Its not any case for evolution. Having webbed toes is not completely rare, not is having an extra toe, albinism, or sickle cell anemia.
Some of these genetic variances are benign, and others are harmful. The only one that may give a competitive advantage in some circumstances is sickle cell amenia in places where malaria is widespread, otherwise its very harmful.
Now if most of the people in the world were wiped out by some catastrophy and your family survived, there may be a higher occurance of webbed feet in future generations, but my bet would be that its a very recessive trait, and evntually the population would move back to the average genetic traits, meaning that most people would not have webbed toes.
I have a cousin who was born with a few webbed toes.
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Obamanfreude - 1. taking pleasure from the misfortunes of an Obama supporter as he or she is adversely affected by the policies of their Dear Leader.
You cannot have an intelligent conversation with anyone who denies evoulution is a fact.
It's sad that in this day and age some people refuse to believe science, but will believe supernatural creatures that watch over their lives!!
That is one of your funniest posts ever, I don't know if you are being real or sarcastic
Did you miss the day in calss when the "scientific method" was discussed?
A theory is not a fact. A theory is an idea that has some facts backing it up. A fact is something that is an undeniable truth. A theory does not equal a fact.
There is just as much evidence pointing towards the idea that evolution does not exist as there are facts supporting evolution.
AS far as evolution goes, I don't rule it out, but I'm certainly far from being convinced of it. I believe its possible IF guided by a creator or a higher intelligence.
Think of this for a moment: if intelligent creatures and highly complex creatures can evolve from disorganized and nonliving matter over a few billion years, then why hasn't the iron in the ground, the sand on the beaches, and the carbon in the air and minerals organized itself into a much simpler invention than life, such as a Ford Taurus.
If things are created by random chance and I were given a million dollars to bet on which would come into existance first by random chance a Ford Taurus or a fish, my money would be on the car every time.
A watch requires a watchmaker, it dosn't make itself.
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Obamanfreude - 1. taking pleasure from the misfortunes of an Obama supporter as he or she is adversely affected by the policies of their Dear Leader.
Actually, webbed toes COULD be part of the evolutionary process if it gave you a distinct advantage over other humans in the game of survival. For instance, if we had to be better swimmers in order to survive, webbed toes might give your family an advantage over the rest of us and your family would be more likely to survive and procreate, therefore increasing the chances that the gene causing webbed toes would be passed on. This process would repeat itself in future generations and more and more people would end up with the gene and webbed feet. A couple of million years from now, there could be more people with webbed feet than without.
It all depends on whether an unusual characteristic such as this gives you a higher rate of survival than other humans.
A recessive trait, such as a clubbed foot, would give a person a distinct DISadvantage in the game of life, which means that person stands less of a chance of procreating than other humans, so THAT gene would stand less of a chance of being passed on to future generations.
Since webbed feet in this day and age don't give you any advantage and you are in the minority, the gene will probably die out eventually.
Evolution is simply a game of survival in which the strongest and most adaptable live longer and pass down more genes and the characteristics that go with those genes. The weak and sickly don't survive as long and therefore don't get to procreate and pass their genes down to future generations.
Your genetic trait of webbed toes is passed on from generation to generation. You only have a couple of webbed toes, but probably someone in your lineage had all of them webbed, mated with a non-webbed and eventually it got passed to you, maybe only showing up every few generations. Your's is a process of evolution where the webbing is slowly starting to disappear because it is being bred out of your genes.
My best "scientific theory" is that your ancestors came from the lost underwater world of Atlantis. Do you at all resemble the Creature from the Black Lagoon?
Webbed toes runs in my family. I have them between my between 2 toes, and last summer at a family renunion we ran around looking at everyones feet and about 20% of my relatives do too. I think that is why I'm such a good swimmer
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Second and third toes webbed-Evolution?
