Game Theory: Why Eevee is the MISSING LINK to Pokemon Evolution!

This episode finally solves the mystery of Pokémon

evolution

, that's all. No, embarrassing opening joke, nothing at all. If you want to know the truth about what really happens when Pokémon evolve and how it applies to us, then this is the video for you, plain and simple, throw in the intro. The time has finally come. The doors begin to open. The pieces are in place for you. Use everything I have taught you to solve my mystery. Your search begins at TheTheoristGateway.com. The prize awaits you at the end. Will you accept my challenge? Hurry. The clock is ticking.

Hello internet! Welcome to

game

theory

. The self-proclaimed Garbodor of the Internet.('_') With the release of Pokémon Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee, it seems like an appropriate time to take a look at one of the most adorable Pokémon ever created.(I've got my costumes) No, Not Pikachu, geez, that guy has enough screen time. (Come on Matthew J. Patrick) We're talking about Eevee. (Eh) Who is unique within the Pokémon universe for being the first Pokémon to have a branch.

evolution

(so, it is a tree), that is. the ability to evolve into one of several Pokémon (oh, it can be a tree).

Starting with three options in Generation 1, Jolteon (thunder), Flareon (heat), and Vaporeon (water). And since Gen 1, the list of possible Eeveelutions has gotten ridiculous (like what?). You can now evolve eight possible Pokémon (8 now!?!). From cute Alien to cute Kawaii to cute eco-friendly (like a tree?). Since then, there have been other Pokémon that gained access to branch evolution (a literal BEAR THAT DOES NOTHING?!?!). But to this day, Eevee is still the king (the king of losing!). And so I started researching Eevee's unique evolutionary abilities. And then the pieces started to fit together, and then more pieces, and more (ERROR!).

Until finally, the entire mystery of Pokémon evolution was solved before my eyes (who is that Pokémon?). That's how it is. Eevee is the key that solves what Pokémon evolution (keyvee) really is. For years, we've made jokes about "that's not how evolution works." (Failboat) And it clearly isn't. But we've never been able to put a label on what's really happening. At least, until today. (GTlive) Today, we solve the riddle of Pokémon evolution once and for all. (The oak will make candy!) And it all starts with this little guy. (ugh) According to Eevee's Pokédex entry in Diamond and Pearl, (memes) Eevee is a rare Pokémon that adapts to hostile environments by adopting different evolutionary forms. (A FAMILIAR BEAR!?!) If you squint at this explanation, (like the fnaf fan-made poster from 2019) it's how it seems to align with the principles of evolution they teach us in school. (How?) Where over time living organisms change their appearance (like A BEAR!?!) Traits and abilities to adapt to their environments through Darwinian survival of the fittest. (Like a PANDA!?!) But the problem is, by Darwin's definition, this is happening over hundreds of generations.

What is happening to Eevee happens instantly when he shoves a colored rock in its face. (ded) What we see happening in Pokémon would be like taking a turkey to the North Pole, putting it next to an iceberg, and it suddenly evolved into a penguin. While it's true that that would be really cool, and judging by how desperate Game Freak sometimes seems to be for new Pokémon ideas, I really wouldn't be surprised if a Penkey or Turguin were in Gen 8 (that happened in come on matpat). That's just not how things happen in nature. So evolution alone doesn't explain how Eevee's physical changes are happening.

But believe it or not, there is actually a scientific explanation for Eevee. Which is good because I like Eevee and we already have a lot of cute video

game

characters on the show. (#shrekt sonic and mario) It's called Epigenetics. Epigenetics is something you typically don't get involved in unless you majored in this topic in college. So all you younger viewers get ready to blow your teacher's MIND. When you drop this knowledge bomb in the middle of your lesson on Punnett squares. That's like 4 years ago on this show. So what is epigenetics? In essence, it is essentially the phenomenon by which animals are born with a set of genes.

But they potentially have parts of their DNA that are locked at birth. And then it can be unlocked by certain things happening in the environment. If this sounds strange, think of it this way: you have a ton of DNA in your body, 2.9 billion base pairs. But not all that DNA works at the same time. Without getting into the nitty-gritty of genetics. Your cells have specialized proteins that turn different genes on and off throughout your life. When you're a kid, you have a ton of genes turned on to do things like grow your bones, develop your brain cells, and create the hormones that make you fall in love with literally every creature you pass in the hallway at school.

Although later in your life. Some of those genes are blocked again. When that happens, perhaps your metabolism starts to slow down. You stop producing color for your hair and it turns gray. As you age, you have the same genes you started with the day you were born. But what you look like depends on which ones are on and off in your epigenetics. Right now my baby Oliver has blonde hair, but Steph and I have brown hair. So should I be worried about Steph's relationship with the milkman? (incidentally) Is Steph cheating on me? Of course not, at least I don't think so.

Steph! Steph, are you cheating on me? (No!) Oh yeah, right, that's what you'd say. (I'm not lying) Now, what's really going on here is that right now, most of the genes in Oliver's system produce melanin. That turns your hair brown, they are off. Like very far away, just like me when I was his age. But when it grows, those genes are activated. And his hair will turn brown like ours, his physical features will change as his genes turn on and off. Now with animals, what epigenetic researchers have discovered. It's just that some animals will be born with a set of genes.

But they potentially have parts of their DNA that can be unlocked by certain triggers in their environment. A great example of this is honey bees. Yes, yes, I know I just dedicated an entire episode to bee talk in relation to Peachette. Maybe I'm just going through Bee Movie meme withdrawals, I don't know. (Sienfield) Bees are fascinating creatures, and in this case, they are the perfect example of Eevee. As I mentioned in that episode. Female bee larvae can become queen bees or worker bees. What makes the difference here is the food they are given at birth. Bees given royal jelly become queens, and everyone else becomes workers.

So in this case, royal jelly is basically the evolutionary stone of bees, which determines what form the bee larva evolves into. It even physically changes the bee. Where in their adult stage, queen bees and worker bees look very different. But in their larval stages, they are practically identical. (EEW) It's exactly like two different Eeveelutions. (kaboom) Who end up with two different appearances, despite starting with the same Eevees. (what) Queen and worker bees don't start out being genetically different. But differences in their environment, whether royal jelly or lack thereof, led to wildly different genetic expressions. And bees aren't the only place in nature where this happens.

Another Eevee-like example occurs in the mouse Agouti. Which has a gene that changes the coat of its coat. These two mice are genetically very similar at birth (moms gone!), but due to differences in nutrition. They have very different genetic expressions (like inside out). One of them has a genetic expression that causes him to become obese and have a lighter coat. Same DNA sequence different phenotypes. All due to environmental factors. In humans, it is not just about hair color by any means, in the case of diabetes. Specifically type 2 diabetes. We are often told two things about diabetes that seem to be in direct conflict with each other.

First, diabetes is a genetic disease, if your parents and grandparents had it. Well, they're more likely to pass it on to you. But also secondly, that poor diet and lack of exercise can be causes of diabetes. Then what is? Is it something genetic that you are born with? Or is it a condition that develops from eating too many solo Vermonster Challenges at Ben & Jerry's (what?!?). That's a dangerous perspective, by the way. Don't try to do a solo Vermonter. Oh Vermonster, you are so good but so dangerous. The answer is: it's both, (WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?!) You may inherit a genetic potential for diabetes that is part of the DNA sequence you are born with, but that diabetes can only be unlocked if you have a bad diet.

And if you maintain a good diet, you may never have to suffer from the diabetes that was coded in your genes, since those genes remain turned off. On the other hand, someone without a genetic predisposition to diabetes might never get it, no matter how many Big Macs they eat along the way. And this type of epigenetics aligns perfectly with what we know about Eevee. To become Vaporeon, for example, a Pokémon not only needs to be exposed to a specific environmental factor, in this case, the water stone, (it will evaporate), but it also needs to have the correct DNA sequence (as broken). bones) Your Pikachu will not turn into a Vaporeon, no matter how many water stones you throw at it.

That's because Pikachu wasn't born with the genetic potential to become a Vaporeon (like more broken bones) while Eevee was. You need both the genetic component that is born as Eevee and the environmental component, the water stone, to produce the epigenetic result, Vaporeon. And where all of this starts to take shape is when you stop and think about what doesn't change here: the DNA sequence you were assigned at birth. It remains the same, it is what does not change when these genes are expressed. Epigenetic changes will cause you to gain or lose certain characteristics, but you will always remain the same species.

A queen bee and a worker bee will always just be bees. No matter what the fur coat looks like, that Agouti mouse will always be an Agouti mouse. Oddly enough, that "staying in the same species" thing is actually the case with Eevee. Sure, exposure to a thunder stone will cause an Eevee to turn yellow and grow pointy spikes, and it will also somehow gain the ability to attack its enemies with electricity. But if you leave it in a daycare with another Pokémon that loves it very much, it will not lay a Jolteon egg. Lays an Eevee egg.

While Eevee and Jolteon may have different Pokédex entries, biologically speaking, they appear to be exactly the same species. The DNA sequence between Eevee and Jolteon remains the same. The only thing that has changed is which parts of the DNA sequence have been activated. No matter how quote-unquote Eevee “evolves,” when it comes time to breed, it will always lay an Eevee egg. Sylveons do not lay Sylveon eggs, Flareons do not lay Flareon eggs. They do not transmit their phenotypic traits to their offspring. But what they do transmit is the genetic potential to express those phenotypic traits.

Of course, there are some exceptions to this. For example, how Roselia can give birth to another Roselia or little Budew. Depending on whether she has a rose incense. But this also relates to another part of epigenetic

theory

, which is Natal Conditions: The conditions of the mother during pregnancy and how she can affect her offspring. Do you know that pregnant women are not allowed to smoke or drink alcohol? Well, it's because those substances change the environment for the developing baby. Like a change of environment for Eevee or a queen bee. This occurs just before the baby is born. (Phew!).

In the case of alcohol, a change in the baby's environment can cause birth defects. Birth defects are simply another name for a change in the baby's genetic expressions. Really bad changes in a baby's gene expression. But still, that's what it means. Basically, from the moment you have genes, you can have epigenetic differences depending on your environment. And this is where it starts to get crazy when you apply it to Pokémon. Because epigenetics goes far beyond the evolutionary family. This edition of the egg actually unlocks the evolution of virtually every single Pokémon in all of these games. (Hallelujah) What we've been calling Pokémon evolution for literally decades, is simply epigenetics.

Check out any other Pokémon. Charizard, for example. If Charizard were a true evolution of Charmander, when you crossed two Charizards together, you could get another Charizard. Because animals do not regress or evolve. having Charizard come together to produce a Charmander egg would be the equivalent of raising two cats together and getting a saber-toothed tiger egg, since at some point cats evolved from tigerswith saber teeth, which would be the most amazing pet ever created, but that's not how genetics works. What all this tells us is that the basic DNA of that Charizard is still just a Charmander that becomes a Charizard, it was just the genetic expressions within that Charmander that changed certain genes into a big scary Dragon monster that breathes fire and dies. excited and the environmental trigger that Wasn't it a stone like the case of an Eevee?

But here he was, struggling, he was being forced to fight hard to level out and this is where all the pieces start to come together. You see being forced into stressful situations like a fight to death or I guess a fight to the point of passing out is exactly the type of thing that can affect the methylation of your genes and in turn affect the way your body develops. Studies conducted on laboratory rodents demonstrate how exposing rats or mice to stressful and threatening situations can affect the phenotype that their genes express. According to research conducted at Columbia University in New York, where rats were exposed to aggressive social interactions, i.e. , a much simpler version of a Pokémon battle.

In situations where rodents were repeatedly defeated by larger, more dominant mice, some animals responded to the challenge by avoiding further threats, which is a reasonable survival strategy. But another strategy was to rise to the occasion by becoming stronger and more threatening. Almost as if they were leveling up and gradually becoming stronger unlocking more and more of their genetic potential. Epigenetic theory even says that. So far it cannot be explained why it is so difficult to find higher evolutionary forms of Pokémon in nature. Why is it so difficult to find a Blastoise swimming, a Venusaur or stomping through the grass?

Well there are costs to being big, bigger beasts maybe have a lot more weight, which means they need to have proportionally stronger legs, they need a lot more food. There is a reason why there are many more termites and ants in the world than elephants and rhinos. But if a wild squirtle will simply live a peaceful existence. I would do it in the sea, having a small body that requires less food to maintain itself will actually be much more advantageous from an evolutionary point of view. However, if that squirtle suddenly finds itself trapped by a trainer and in a battle for its survival or a battle for its trainers' glory and status on a regular basis, what becomes more important is how good a fighter it is, making Evolution a war portal and, ultimately, Blastoise, the best way to ensure your chances of survival.

It was the environment. being captured and forced into battles by trainers who forced the genes of the giant turtle mechanical animals to activate inside a squirtle when in the wild those types of genes would need to be largely unexpressed. They don't need them to survive. It's epigenetics in action. So, there you have it. Now you're equipped to go around unpleasantly correcting your friends when they talk about Pokémon evolution. You could say something like well, actually, Pokémon just alter their phenotypic gene expression through epigenetic signals in their environment and Congratulations, no one will know what. means.

But you and me and all the other loyal theorists out there. But in the process, what we will all understand is that what we have unlocked here today is a real biological principle that not only fits with what we observe in the Pokémon universe, but also fits with real models of how animals are born with unexpressed traits that can be unlocked when they encounter specific factors in their environment. It may look pretty fantastic when you use a stone leaf to turn into a Leafeon, but it's no different from an agouti mouse that grows yellow. fur because of the Nutrition he received and it was all thanks to this little Let's go Eevee indeed.

But hey, that's just a theory, a game theory. Thanks for watching the quick reminder. The game theory product is still available. Order now and you'll receive it in plenty of time for the holidays. It is the softest and warmest collection of hoodies, pajama pants and socks. The

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