Why is pretty much all life on earth symmetrical? Is it the only way life can form?

Why is pretty much all life on earth symmetrical? Is it the only way life can form?

I really wish I was a Zebra mare getting constantly fucked by stallions every day and have gallons of spunk drip out my marecunt.

Life has varying degrees of symetry. Jellyfish are rotationally symmetric, so are plants, most other animals have a symmetric plane through their spine (or a similar position). Flounders and certain crabs are not symmetric. Also, animals aren't symmetric on the inside, as heart, liver, spleen, etc. have a preferred side. Also, the brain isn't fully symmetric.

Some Viruses are even point-symmetric to their center.

Molds are only symmetric at the crossection of their fillaments,.

>tfw no zebra boipusi

It's not perfect symmetry, not even close most of the time. Especially when you take into account organs and stuff.

Go back to /b/

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Alright I get that there are exceptions and imperfections but why is it that most life appears to be striving towards symmetry? Is this just an illusion of the human perception?

It probably was determined by certain factors like ease of movement. Wouldn't an asymmetrical zebra seem like it would have some trouble moving in a certain direction? Evolution picked a path and things moved along that. It could have been different, but because things got eyes and a face and therefore preferred to move forwards, creatures of that nature evolved in that way. I don't know whether or not the eyes and face came first making this was a reason, more than likely not, bit it's just a possible cause I used for an example, and you get the picture. At some point, life reached a point (or maybe it was always at that point) where it needed symmetry in certain ways to survive it's environment and each organism needed symmetry to compete with the other organisms.

As to whether or not this was the only way, it is possible that this is the way life would inevitably have turned out no matter what, and that there is an ideal organism to work towards. However, this might differ between environments, either in the context of different places on Earth or in the context of Earth in its entirety in comparison to a possible evolution of life on a different planet with a different environment.

There's so many "it's possibles" because there's an unimaginable number of influences on the evolution of life. It's very hard to tell what's what and what could be what.

read this

U wot?

U wot

Isn't bilateral symmetry some really low level stuff in DNA? Like all vertebrates have the same basic code saying "grow stuff on both sides of spinal cord, head goes on one end, tail on the other, etc."

ABSOLUTELY
NON
SYMMETRICAL

It's called radial symmetry you fuck.

Everything else is correct.

The really fucking daffy thing in evolution is that echinoderms (starfish, sea urchins, etc.) evolved only after their predecessors selected for bilateral symmetry and for some crazy reason decided to go back to radial symmetry. Nobody really knows why this is and it makes no fucking sense since all other life seems to follow the symmetry of its predecessor. Most other radial symmetric life diverged before bilateral symmetry evolved.

It's synergetics baka

Veeky Forums - Science & Math

I think radially symmetric organisms blend in more than bilaterally symmetric organisms, especially in the ocean where things like starfish could be seen from any orientation so it was advantageous to not stand out any any specific direction.

Also the water pressure at greater depth.

And being bethinic moving in all directions makes sense, I can see how it would go down >become flat >become radially symmetrical.
Interested to see the evolutionary history of Echinodermata now, specifically sea cumbers

Makes no sense as a reason for radial symmetry as bilaterally symmetrical organisms can be found living at every depth throughout the oceans.

>bilateral symmetry can be found in every depth
>therefor radial symmetry as an adaptation to pressure doesn't make sense , derp
That's not why that doesn't make sense, and that's not how evolution works

If the frequency of bilateral symmetry in organisms at extreme depths is more or less the same as the frequency of radially symmetrical organisms then being radially symmetrical doesn't offer that much of an advantage now does it?

Also being radially symmetrical wouldn't offer an advantage in a high pressure environment period. That doesn't even make any sense. All organisms at those depths have an internal pressure equal to that of the surrounding pressure, and thus they don't actually feel any pressure. Their bodies don't actually hold back the pressure around them.

Gotta admit I'm German. And we call it Punkt-Symmetrie.