{"id":213924,"date":"2025-05-13T18:04:49","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T23:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/ferns-may-have-the-ability-to-evolve-backward-to-a-more-primitive-form"},"modified":"2025-05-13T18:04:49","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T23:04:49","slug":"ferns-may-have-the-ability-to-evolve-backward-to-a-more-primitive-form","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/ferns-may-have-the-ability-to-evolve-backward-to-a-more-primitive-form","title":{"rendered":"Ferns may have the ability to \u201cevolve backward\u201d to a more primitive form"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/ferns-may-have-the-ability-to-evolve-backward-to-a-more-primitive-form.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Everyone\u2019s seen Rudolph Zallinger\u2019s \u201c<a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/March_of_Progress\" target=\"_blank\" data-cms-ai=\"0\">The March of Progress<\/a>\u201d illustration showcasing the evolution of humans: from early primate ape ancestor, <i>Dryopithecus<\/i>, and progressing toward modern man, <i>Homo sapiens<\/i>. <i>Evolution<\/i> is a fascinating phenomenon, but it doesn\u2019t necessarily always follow a straight path as portrayed by Zallinger.<\/p>\n<p>The idea that evolution marches from simple to complex forms, building irreversibly on each prior form has been around for a long time. Paleontologist Louis Dollo\u2019s law states that once an organism progresses with a specialized structure, it does not revert to the previous state.<\/p>\n<p>But now, a new study published in the journal <i>Evolution<\/i> is challenging the prevailing belief that life progresses unidirectionally. The findings suggest some plants can evolve backward, i.e., specialized species can revert to their more primitive forms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone\u2019s seen Rudolph Zallinger\u2019s \u201cThe March of Progress\u201d illustration showcasing the evolution of humans: from early primate ape ancestor, Dryopithecus, and progressing toward modern man, Homo sapiens. Evolution is a fascinating phenomenon, but it doesn\u2019t necessarily always follow a straight path as portrayed by Zallinger. The idea that evolution marches from simple to complex forms, [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":718,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[385],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evolution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/718"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213924\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}