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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9335001" data-attributes="member: 42582">But how are you defining &quot;likeness&quot; here? In surface appearance? Biochemistry? Ecology? Something else?Because it seems to me the more plausible view is that there is no ecological and biochemical pathway from humans to octopuses. As I've already said my training in biology is pretty weak, but my general understanding of evolutionary pathways is that differentiation - at the cellular and organ level - tends to increase, and that there is a reasonably high degree of path dependency (with ecology playing a significant role in that respect).For humans to turn into octopuses seems like it would require some sort of &quot;devolution&quot; followed by a re-evolution in a different direction. Does this happen? Is there any known instance, for example, of a lung-based animal evolving into an animal that takes its oxygen directly from water? (Do octopuses have gills? I'm not sure and haven't wikipedia-ed to find out.)What is this pathway of tiny transformations from (say) RuneQuest to Apocalpyse World, that has a playable RPG at every point?I mean, I've actually played RQ and RM, and I can't see the &quot;continuum&quot; pathway from them to Burning Wheel. Nor even from one of them to the other, even though they're both d%-using purist-for-system-oriented engines.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 9335001, member: 42582"] But how are you defining "likeness" here? In surface appearance? Biochemistry? Ecology? Something else? Because it seems to me the more plausible view is that there is no ecological and biochemical pathway from humans to octopuses. As I've already said my training in biology is pretty weak, but my general understanding of evolutionary pathways is that differentiation - at the cellular and organ level - tends to increase, and that there is a reasonably high degree of path dependency (with ecology playing a significant role in that respect). For humans to turn into octopuses seems like it would require some sort of "devolution" followed by a re-evolution in a different direction. Does this happen? Is there any known instance, for example, of a lung-based animal evolving into an animal that takes its oxygen directly from water? (Do octopuses have gills? I'm not sure and haven't wikipedia-ed to find out.) What is this pathway of tiny transformations from (say) RuneQuest to Apocalpyse World, that has a playable RPG at every point? I mean, I've actually played RQ and RM, and I can't see the "continuum" pathway from them to Burning Wheel. Nor even from one of them to the other, even though they're both d%-using purist-for-system-oriented engines. [/QUOTE]

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