Dollo's "law" of evolution
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Is evolution a one-way street? In the late 1800s, paleontologist Louis Dollo proposed what became known as Dollo’s Law: the idea that once a complex trait is lost in evolution, it can never be regained in exactly the same form. According to Dollo, evolution can’t rewind. Perfect re-evolution is statistically unlikely but never say never... Today, scientists treat Dollo’s "law" more as a general trend than a fundamental law of nature. Re-evolution can happen, but it’s rare—especially if the genetic and developmental pathways that produced a trait have been fully dismantled. When traits re-evolve, they often take a different path or are built from different starting structures than the original.
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