I have no idea what you mean by “thermodynamic stability in micro-environments”, so I am unable to determine the rightness or wrongness of your statement.
Perhaps you could make your point in a more direct manner…
Disclaimer: this is not a GD level response
Sorry, but I am not a research level PhD, so my terminology, and this response, are probably of bit shaky [that is pronounced ‘half-assed’].
Molecules will assume the most energetically stable formation in their particular environment; for example, hemoglobin will bind oxygen in one micro-environment, and release it, and bind carbon dioxide, in another. (Hemoglobin functions only within a very narrow range of conditions, and is surprisingly ‘inefficient’; another example of how evolution does not result in the ‘best’, but in the ‘good enough’.)
Similar mechanisms are at play in the formation of molecules, including the functional molecules in cells. They are also responsible for two molecules joining to form a new molecules with a different functions. (Evolution is also wonderfully conservative, isn’t it?)
So, evolution is not simply a matter of the mutation of genes, but the underlying thermodynamic stability of the three dimensional formation and shape of all cellular structures, including DNA & RNA.
I don’t think I can be more direct than ‘Science is influenced by cultural prejudice.’
My examples? The Impressionists were initially hated by the established cultural authorities; for decades scientists insisted homosexuality was unknown in ‘animals’, and that all examples of it were dominance games.
Personal experiences? I disliked Impressionism at our first meeting, but a gentle comment (“It’s not a photograph”) was enough for me to view the works outside of my expectations, and, therefore, expand my understanding. (Never quite worked for Abstract Expressionism, though.)
And in science? The first time I heard that homosexuality in non-humans are dominance games, I knew that ‘science’ did not develop in a cultural vacuum (and I’m straight). I can’t read a scientific article without looking for inherent cultural assumptions.
Is that what you’re looking for?
I haven’t been clear.
To focus on complex mammals, because that is what we know:
The ‘super-adapted’ individual (the one bigger, stronger, and/or more aggressive enough to get a detrimentally larger share of the resources) has plenty of opportunity to breed; however the group does not remain large, strong, or cohesive enough to rear the offspring.
Males, as well as females, are required to rear young (even lionesses keep a male around), and all group have a … ‘threshhold’ population, large enough to maintain and expand the group. (Breeding pools must be small enough to survive on the available resources, but large enough to supply all the groups needs; food acquisition, defense, and genetic diversity are the most obvious.)
It might help if you envisioned the ‘super-adapted’ individual as female. She is strong and aggressive; she is always the best fed, and will interfere with other females’ opportunities to mate with the most desirable male(s); she will kill other females’ offspring, that her own will have greater access to resources; she even will kill her own female off-spring, as they will compete for her ‘mating resources’.
You can probably see how destructive that kind of behavior would be to a group.
Similar behavior in a male would be equally destructive, with one important distinction; a group needs fewer males, as long as there are a few ‘lone wolves’ running around to provide the genetic diversity.
Cite … the best example I can think of is that documentary about lion prides (possibly on Nova) that developed into a chronicle of the disintegration of one particular pride (anyone know the show I mean?)
Does that make the point any clearer?
And I am not happy about that. I did not want to start a Debate, as I am not qualified.
I just wanted to offer a little bit more about evolution than the Beagle, the Peas, and the Machine Shop, since that just isn’t enough for some people, and I cannot fault them for that.
GD deserves cites; I don’t have cites. I have articles I’ve heard or read, whose names and authors I can not remember; I have random conversations with researchers; I have Nova episodes.
The things I’ve mentioned really aren’t very cutting edge or controversial, though.
Evolution is indeed not simply a matter of mutation of genes. Mere mutation just results in variety; it is the selection of those varieties that results in evolution.
My difficulty is that your statement does not appear to have any relevance to what I said. The focus of selection is a contentious topic in evolution, but it ultimately boils down to how one wishes to look at it, rather than one side or another being more “right” (within certain parameters, of course; I do believe that it is more accurate to regard the individual as the focus, rather than the gene, because selection can only operate against phenotypes. But that’s another discussion).
Where the hell were you 3 years ago. Jerk… :mad:
You’re the biologist, and I’m the third-year engineering student, so I’m not going to try and argue with you. But I feel that Dawkins made such a great case for his point of view in those two books that I would need a lot of evidence to overturn it in my mind.
I do agree that a significant amount of those books is interpretation and philosophy, as opposed to absolute truth. Dawkins even said as much in his introduction to The Extended Phenotype, comparing his point of view to a Necker cube ‘switching’ orientation. But would you care to make your case here against Dawkins, or at least point me to somewhere on the internet that does?
Neither of these sides disagree on the facts, as far as I can tell. They simply claim that evolution is easier to understand using one view or the other, and I suspect they are both correct.
Is there any prediction or experiment which would distinguish these two philosophies? That is the only way to tell for sure. I suspect the answer is no.
Exactly.
I am of the school of thought wherein natural selection can best be explained from an organismal point of view. Selection does occur at various other levels (e.g., gene, group, species), but those levels represent a minority case, whereas organismal selection represents the majority.
Dawkins orginally came up with his “selfish gene” as a metaphor to explain altruism. I think it works fine as exactly that, but fails (for me) to work as a general descriptor for evolutionary processes.
And I find the gene centered view often more useful, especially when considering organisms who reproduce and then die, like salmon and male black widow spiders. In this view it is also a bit harder to misinterpret the meaning of “survival of the fittest.”
But that’s just my chromosomes talking.
Let me try some ignorance-fighting of my own, with regard to this article on evolution, racism, and genocide.
It first contends that Darwin was not racist because he opposed some claims of mental differences between the races. He did, but he supported others. In Chapter 7 of The Descent of Man, he has a long discussion about whether all humans are one species, or whether dark-skinned races should be considered a separate species between animals and white people on the evolutionary scale. He points out that there are plenty of good arguments on both sides and refuses to take a stand, instead proposing that dark-skinned people should be a sub-species. In any case, his final judgement about race is fairly well known.
No reader of the time would have any confusion about which races he considered “savage” as opposed to “civilized”, but he’s kind enough to list them anyway. The “American tribes”, the “Negro”. the “Hottentot” [South African], the Australian Aboriginies, the Maori, and the Polynesians all have to go, in his vision.
And how will they go? Darwin says:
Now as the article says, Darwin did indeed say that we must bear the “bad effects of the weak surviving”. Killing them outright would simply be wrong. In the subsequent pages, however, he discusses the ways in which society affects human breeding. Again and again, anything which allows the poor or the sick to live and reproduce is described as “evil”. He laments that:
Luckily it’s not all gloom and doom. In the next paragraph, Darwin takes comfort in the fact that disease and starvation eliminate large numbers of poor people.
So to summarize, Darwin was opposed to the most direct type of eugenics as the Nazis practiced it, but was in favor of designing social institutions to pass along the right genes while squashing the wrong ones. That’s Eugenics as it was practiced in America and Britain. While New Scientist tries to blame eugenics on Evangelical Christians, the leading proponents of Eugenics are a veritable who’s who of scientific materials from the period: Bertrand Russell, George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Margaret Sangar, H. L. Mencken, and many more.
Lastly the New Scientist article says that the Holocaust “can hardly be called eugenics”. The Nazis were determined to improve society by promoting certain genes and exterminating others. That’s the exact definition of eugenics.
Ah, a lefty I take it.
I call ‘hijack’.
I don’t think exterminating Jews, ‘Gypsies’, homosexuals, and eventually Catholics would improve society.
Darwin was working on the cusp of Natural Philosophy and Science, was writing to his audience, and was, as we all are, a product of his time. Darwin and his work was flawed, as we and all ours are.
The theory of evolution IS NOT “Darwinism”!
I would be interested in following a GD thread by inherent cultural assumptions in science, though. Will you start one?
And some propose that selection can only operate within the population.
Absolutely, and that allows me a certain sideways view of evolution.
Why should such an odd little trait persist in so small a percent of the population? If it is ‘survival neutral’, shouldn’t more than ~ 10% of the population have the trait? If it is ‘survival negative’, why hasn’t it been weeded out? If it is ‘survival positive’, why do I have such a hard time finding left-handed shears?
Maybe there are some traits that are ‘survival negative’ to the individual but still so convenient to the breeding pool (and I learned that left-handed-ness can be damned convenient in plumbing, wiring, and auto repair, so I assume it has always come in handy), that the traits persist.
Or maybe some people are just a weird genetic fluke …
I would hope all propose that. A lone individual isn’t going to accomplish much, evolutionarily speaking. Indeed, it is only in the context of a population that selection makes any sense at all.
Actually, I understand that it’s not uncommon among some insects. It takes only a single mutation for them to produce male eggs that will poison and kill eggs that lack the mutation, which naturally includes all the female eggs. That’s a very efficient method for that gene to spread itself - for a few generations, when they start running out of females. In the long run it’s self-eliminating, but evolution lacks foresight.
And it seems that on a regular basis the X chromosomes ( of the species that have sex chromosomes like ours ) evolve methods of suppressing the birth of males. Which no doubt spreads quite well by suppressing the competition, then causes a population crash until a new mutant version of the Y chromosome appears that happens to be able to resist whatever that mutant X chromosome is doing. IF it appears.
Nitpick: “Theory” is a bit of a misnomer, because the evidence in favor of evolution is overwhelming. It’s not really simply a theory any longer, but rather established fact.
An old anthropology prof of mine took issue, too, with “survival of the fittest,” saying that implied a winner in a contest. He preferred “survival of the fit.”
And your prof was in line with current thinking. In addition to moving the focus away from individuals to species, the term underscores that species don’t have to be the best possible fit to the environment, they just have to be good enough. And a ‘perfect’ fit to the environment might be the result of a lack of genetic diversity, which can be fatal to a species (and, no, I don’t have a cite.)
However, just to keep the conversation friendly, I really have to point out that you can’t denigrate the word ‘theory’ in a scientific context. A scientific theory is not on the level of my theory that left-handed-ness survives because it is seldom necessary, but occasionally crucial.
Once things get more complicated than “1+1=2”, “theory” is about as committed as science gets.
A scientific theory:
- accounts for all observations
- can accurately predict future results
- has never been contradicted by observations.
A theory is not an hypothesis.
When it comes to intra-species aggression, I think plants beat out any animal. Plants can emit hormones from their roots specifically to prevent the germination of any seeds of their own species, to inhibit competition for the same resources. Plants are brutal; if you doubt that, just visit a young forest. Or plant a vegetable garden.
However, evolution may lack foresight, but is very good at patches; plants have evolved seeds that will germinate only after passage through an animal’s gut, the result being that seeds are deposited outside of the parent’s resource zone.