From Newsgroup: alt.buddha.short.fat.guy
‘Everything becomes crab’ is more than an absurd meme. The crab is a
deep symbol of our devil’s bargain with technology
No one paid much attention when an obscure biology journal published an article in 2017 about ‘the evolutionary processes which led to a
crab-like habitus’. In this review of crustacean taxonomy, three
scientists from a German university – Jonas Keiler, Christian S Wirkner
and Stefan Richter – analysed studies dating back to the 1820s and noted that ‘crabs’ were not one kind of animal but instead had arisen from
five different evolutionary lineages. That is, creatures such as hermit
crabs, squat lobsters and other ‘crab-like representatives’ did not
evolve from the same ancestor: they independently developed crabby
qualities. To explain this fairly banal case of convergent evolution,
the three researchers picked a century-old noun, ‘carcinisation’, and concluded that ‘there is no reason to assume that “evolutionary tendencies” or any such vague concept played a role.’
But, within three years, a wave of coverage had taken those cautious
claims and turned them hyperbolic...
https://aeon.co/essays/are-humans-like-everything-else-destined-to-become-crabs?
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