Dismissing the possibility because these changes are necessary, and that seems too dramatic, ignores how often subtle and gradual these changes really are, and really need to be.

TFW apparently okapi can't give a birth to okapi with a 2cm longer neck giving it an advantage at the buffet and making it popular with all the okapi ladies, thus securing more long boi okapis in the next generation

An Okapi wouldn't give birth to a giraffe, but an transitional organism between an Okapi and a giraffe, very much more resembling an Okapi, and being likely reproductively compatible with other Okapi, with which it would reproduce

In conclusion, long neck okapis are chads

All the biological features that make the giraffe unique are inter- and co-dependent. It needs to not only have the right vascular system, but the right growth patterns and the right leg hide thickness so it won't bleed out if injured.

The comparative rate of reproduction, and the familial isolation of these new characteristics would result in gradual change, and an eventual phenotypical and genetic departure from the root species

We don't have long-necked okapis, we have 30-foot tall giraffes and no intermediary forms to suggest a 10 and 20-foot intermediary.

because these intermediate forms aren't static, nor are they impervious to extinction

Your evidence doesn't exist.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4632521/

It doesn't need to, we got giraffes

They're a pretty solid evidence

This was literally posted already

QED cars grow on trees

Prrof: We have cars

And we have trees

That's a false equivalency

No it isn't because in this case you don't even have a tree

YOu have cars that run and you can't explain how they just HAPPEN to function with all their parts in the right order.

You're basically arguing the opposite of "if humans evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" both arguments are stupid, evolution necessitates that there isn't a uniform reproduction of all organisms and traits

some will go extinct

choke to death while drinking, and then argue with me that all the parts of an organism just *happen* to function together

Well, to use your analogy, we have cars that run, they were built by humans but humans went extinct and you're refusing to try and dig them up <:pepelaugh:544857300179877898>

Here's a thought: Maybe all the giraffes with cardiovascular system that couldn't keep up died before they could manufacture more faulty giraffes. I know, shocking.

Okay, but if the original giraffe was a mutation off a successful okapi or whatever, how did it come out perfect the first try and survive?

no organism is perfect

It has to be or it has the downs.

it just survived

basically, if it was flawed in some way, it wasn't flawed to a degree that it couldn't reproduce

you can be pretty flawed, and still reproduce

It randomly survived. The changes generation to generation aren't severe.

you know how many people with glandular, mental, and metabolic issues still breed?

Well you just reminded me that by having c-section, we're weakening humanity as a species <:smugon:512048583806025739>

Those people weren't stillborn missing half a heart.

^

WHich is what a half-giraffe would be.

The transitional okapi wouldn't need a giraffe sized heart, it would just need one effective enough to support whatever transitional elongation of its neck had occurred that generation

we're not talking a doubling of size in a single generation, but probably changes as little as a percent or less over a single generation

And then you'd need another random mutation that *just happens* to perfectly compliment the radical new design.

it doesn't half to be a half giraffe

Half-giraffe doesn'T mean half a giraffe duct taped to a half of okapi tho. The evolutionary midpoint could have half a meter long neck and slightly increased heart, just like the long boi five hundred years ago had 30 cm neck and the longer boi 500 years later would have meter and a half long neck.