General Question

Ltryptophan's avatar

Can humans become mermaids if we start living in the Sea?

Asked by Ltryptophan (12091points) December 16th, 2020 from iPhone

Look at whales!

Can’t we just swim out there and hang out for a while until we grow/select fins?

Observing members: 0 Composing members: 0

12 Answers

elbanditoroso's avatar

Uh, no. Evolution might do this – have humans grow fins – if you can wait a couple dozen million years for that to happen. There’s this thing called evolution that needs to occur.

gondwanalon's avatar

Since cetaceans and pinnipeds did then apes could do it also it given an open ecological niche and a few million years.

LostInParadise's avatar

Given enough time, we could possibly evolve, but we would not end up as mermaids, since mermaids still have their arms.

Ltryptophan's avatar

If a group of humans wants to start living out in the water, perhaps we should let them. ¯\(ツ)

Zaku's avatar

Basically, no. Humans develop wrinkles, not scales, from sitting in water too long.

We could try a selective breeding program where we get our best swimmers and people with webbed fingers and toes to have children… for a very very very very very very long time.

Don’t “hold your breath” waiting for them to develop scaly tails though.

Or we could unleashing the evil GMO scientists on the project, combining human and fish DNA and seeing what they can clone up.

dabbler's avatar

Depends what you mean “we”, those of us individuals discussing would not be able to evolve to have that capacity. But thousands of generations from now our descendants could have done it.

Isn’t there a Vonnegut novel set in the far future where the sentient beings are similar to seals and other pinnipeds having returned to the sea from humans?

kritiper's avatar

No. We’d all drown before we could ever get that far, if we could get that far at all.

Zaku's avatar

@dabbler Yes: Galapagos ends up that way, anyway.

kritiper's avatar

We would be water logs, but not mermen/mermaids.

dabbler's avatar

@Zaku Galapagos. That’s it, thanks!

JLoon's avatar

As a part time mermaid I can confirm that just hanging out at the beach works in most cases.

Dutchess_III's avatar

I have been a Wiki Watchee mermaid since 1963.

Answer this question

Login

or

Join

to answer.

This question is in the General Section. Responses must be helpful and on-topic.

Your answer will be saved while you login or join.

Have a question? Ask Fluther!

What do you know more about?
or
Knowledge Networking @ Fluther