thank fish for your ears.

We aren't going to go backwards through the evolutionary process and grow gills, we got a lot from the large bony fish of millions of years ago. In fact our whole basic body (sans hair etc) came from the movement of certain fish, relatives of the lung fish which adapted to living out of water for part of the time. Retaining gills but also forming basic lung structures. Eventually the granddads of the lungfish became more adapted, fins elongated into stumpy legs, enabling movement around swampiness. The actual movement from water occurred with the evolution of hard shelled eggs. People don't know enough about this sort of thing, it really is very interesting. This was written from memory for apologies for any slight inaccuracy but i think it is mostly right.
 
BlackDragon said:
There might be more water than land, but everyone is living on land. Why would we evolve gills when we clearly don't need/use them (yet)?
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Considering that the mammals which have gone back to living in water still havn't evolved gills and don't need to, its a fairly safe bet that no human decendant will ever, ever evolve gills.

This is simultaneously the worst yet best thread ever posted on OCUK.

Gilly said:
That yet needs to change to an (any more) :)
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Indeed :)
 
what if we were forced to live in the sea,or not on land due to some future disaster.surely over time we would develop something to aid our sea/water life.i thought the topic was quite interesting myself.
 
~>Dg<~ said:
what if we were forced to live in the sea,or not on land due to some future disaster.surely over time we would develop something to aid our sea/water life.
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The pinnipeds do not have gills. Edit - That should have read 'all' marine mammals, beg your pardon.

But yes it is a very interesting subject.
 
~>Dg<~ said:
what if we were forced to live in the sea,or not on land due to some future disaster.surely over time we would develop something to aid our sea/water life.
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Erm, no. We would all die.

Or alternatively build suitable environments under the sea, like a Bond villains secret layer.

Edit: Do you really not understand the evolutionary process or are you being deliberately obtuse?
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and do a little explanation - humans will not evolve gills because we have now reached a point where we have lungs and drown when our lungs fill with water. It would be difficult for either of the suggested evolutionary processes to occur once dead.
 
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Waaaaaaitaminute.

Earlier the OP used The Abyss to state how deep he could go with liquid breathing.

In Waterworld there's very little land, and even fewer gills ;)
 
The pinnipeds do not have gills.
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That's because they spend time on land. Perhaps if a species went back into the water, and never came back onto land over millions of years the lungs would be replaced with gills? I think Sea Otters spend most of there life in the open sea.
 
badbob said:
That's because they spend time on land. Perhaps if a species went back into the water, and never came back onto land over millions of years the lungs would be replaced with gills? I think Sea Otters spend most of there life in the open sea.
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See my edit. My mistake was glaringly obvious, as is yours :p

The animals which you mention include whales and dolphins.
 
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