Greetings, Mister Principal: Erasmus’ Biological Observations (Part 2)

Baptiste raised his eyebrows slightly. He motioned for Emilia to speak, wanting to hear what different opinions the mage apprentice could have.

"Mr. Baptiste, these creatures are very wonderful. I have never seen or heard of them in the main plane."

Almiya did not express her opinion directly, but took a detour.

"According to the theory of use it or lose it, the harsh environment of the demiplane of Erasmus caused these creatures to have to evolve mechanisms to adapt to the environment in order to survive, but I have a question, why are all the rainforests Falcons have all evolved feathers rich in oil. Why do all land fish have strong fins and special gills? These creatures themselves are not very intelligent, so how can they be so similar?"

Hearing Emiya's words, Reiner nodded slightly. Although this girl had only been exposed to the theory of necromancy for a short time, her thinking was very flexible, and she quickly realized that the evolution of living things does not have only one direction.

"Is it possible that these creatures have evolved different coping mechanisms in order to deal with the special environment of Erasmus, but some of them are not perfect enough and have been gradually eliminated over the years? After elimination, what we finally see in front of us is the rainforest falcon and the land fish."

After Alymiya finished speaking, she took a peek at Reiner's expression. Seeing that the principal was silent, she couldn't help but feel a little uneasy.

"You mean that the environment does not stimulate these organisms, but filters them?"

Agnes quickly sorted out the meaning of Alymiya's words, turning emotional language into theoretical elaboration.

"I think so, Ms. Wildfield."

Almiya nodded.

"Indeed, if you look at the results purely, the theory of advance or lose can perfectly explain these surviving organisms, but if you take into account those organisms that have not survived, this theory seems to have limitations, and there are Certain error."

Agnes was lost in thought. On the other side, Edgar looked at all this with cold eyes. He did not express his opinion, and a flash of inspiration flashed in his deep eyes.

"This is called survivorship bias."

Reiner suddenly spoke, causing everyone to look at him.

"Survivor...what?"

Jane felt that she had not heard clearly. She thought that Reiner's pronunciation might be "deviated", but she had never seen this word before, so she subconsciously thought that she had missed something.

"Survivor bias is a mathematical theory."

Reiner explained that he didn't care whether the theory had been proposed before.

"Just like in a certain sea area, ships often get into trouble and sink. After inspecting the returning ships, people found that the port sides of these ships had great wear and tear, so they thought that strengthening the port sides could effectively prevent accidents."

His explanation was quite easy to understand, and Emilia quickly realized that something was wrong.

"However, the ship that really happened in the accident had already sunk long ago. Problems on the ships that were able to return should not be the main factor."

"Correct answer."

Reiner smiled and looked at everyone.

"This is survivor bias, which means that people can only see the results obtained after a certain filtering, and use this as a standard for speculation, but ignore this filtering process, making the conclusions obtained untrue. There is another simpler and more straightforward expression of this theory, which is 'dead men cannot speak'."

After a short pause, Reiner continued to explain.

"Applying to the situation at hand, the use of advance or lose theory only takes into account the evolution of organisms that survived the special weather in the demiplane of Erasmus, but ignores those that failed to survive in this demiplane. The evolutionary process of species that continues in the demiplane."

These words made Emiya feel suddenly enlightened. Previously, she only vaguely felt this way, but could not refine the thoughts contained in it. Now after Reiner's explanation, she suddenly realized it.

At the same time, Emiya also realized that Reiner, who was able to master such a theory, could not imagine the laws between this and biological evolution. Reiner must have considered the doubts he mentioned!

Is he waiting for himself to realize?

Emilia looked at Reiner in confusion. He glanced at the land fish swimming in the water, and then said.

“I think that when we think about the evolution of species, we should not just look at the characteristics of species that have survived to this day, but we should also look for the characteristics of extinct species that have been lost in the long history, and compare them to gain insights. Correct answer."

Leiner's words are somewhat direct. This means that there are obvious problems with Baptiste's conclusion. After such a discussion, Baptiste's use-it-or-lose-it theory has been completely overturned, at least in explaining the evolution of species. In the process, a lot of persuasiveness was missing.

People are waiting for Baptiste's explanation.

Baptiste remained calm, and when he saw that everyone was focusing their attention on him, he spoke.

"Indeed, if we look at the current situation, the use-it-or-lose-it theory does not play a key role in the evolution of species, but I still think it is an inducement to biological evolution."

He said, his expression as usual.

“Take land fish as an example. Due to the dry season in the demiplane of Erasmus, a large number of rainwater lakes will disappear and the number of organisms in the water will decrease sharply~IndoMTL.com~So land fish must land on the shore before they can continue. To survive, this prompted it to evolve strong fins that could move on land, as well as special gills. However, not all land fish could evolve like this at the first time. Those land fish that failed to evolve in time , and died because of this. We can say that the filtering of the environment is the reason why the species takes on its current appearance, but whether it can evolve an appearance suitable for the fantasy world still depends on the creature itself."

The core of Baptiste's theory is already obvious, that is, he believes that will plays a dominant role in the process of evolution and can overcome all resistance.

This is also the view that mages have insisted on for a long time. As long as you have the will to advance, you can change yourself, continue to make progress, and continue to become stronger.

If Baptiste denies this view and believes that in the process of evolution, personal struggle is nothing but trivial, and what is more important is environmental choices, which are external factors beyond human control. It's different from asking him to betray his will.

Just when Reiner was organizing words in his mind and preparing to debate with Baptiste, the other party suddenly spoke.

"If I tell you that I can train organisms to a certain extent so that they can actively evolve, can my theory be proven?"

"Active evolution?"

Reiner was a little unexpected.

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