What happens when you put evolution on replay?
1–10 of 17 posts
Re: What happens when you put evolution on replay?
#2I feel like this article is pretty misleading in terms of the context and significance of the research. Inserting ancestral genes in extant organisms is a well-accepted approach to studying evolution. Evolution happens because of environmental pressure and random luck (mutations). There's no deterministic factor of evolution, and it's weird that the article tries to present it that way.
Re: What happens when you put evolution on replay?
#3I feel like this article is pretty misleading in terms of the context and significance of the research. Inserting ancestral genes in extant organisms is a well-accepted approach to studying evolution. Evolution happens because of environmental pressure and random luck (mutations). There's no deterministic factor of evolution, and it's weird that the article tries to present it that way.
Just because evolution is governed by randomness doesn't mean you can't make educated predictions about how an organism will evolve (at least given a set of otherwise constant environmental pressures, which is far from assured in the article's E Coli experiment). This is the whole premise behind convergent evolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution
Re: What happens when you put evolution on replay?
#4I feel like this article is pretty misleading in terms of the context and significance of the research. Inserting ancestral genes in extant organisms is a well-accepted approach to studying evolution. Evolution happens because of environmental pressure and random luck (mutations). There's no deterministic factor of evolution, and it's weird that the article tries to present it that way.
Just because evolution is governed by randomness doesn't mean you can't make educated predictions about how an organism will evolve (at least given a set of otherwise constant environmental pressures, which is far from assured in the article's E Coli experiment). This is the whole premise behind convergent evolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution
I completely agree. I think this is an excellent way to study evolution. I just don’t see anything particularly novel in the research (not saying it’s not deserving to be studied or published- But I don’t get why it was presented the way it was in the article other than drumming up publicity)
Re: What happens when you put evolution on replay?
#5I feel like this article is pretty misleading in terms of the context and significance of the research. Inserting ancestral genes in extant organisms is a well-accepted approach to studying evolution. Evolution happens because of environmental pressure and random luck (mutations). There's no deterministic factor of evolution, and it's weird that the article tries to present it that way.
Just because evolution is governed by randomness doesn't mean you can't make educated predictions about how an organism will evolve (at least given a set of otherwise constant environmental pressures, which is far from assured in the article's E Coli experiment). This is the whole premise behind convergent evolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution
You can make a prediction about what not how. Set things up and E Coli will develop antibiotic immunity, repeat the experiment 100 billion times and you might see 1+ billion different solutions. Insert fragments of a solution and repeat the experiment and you increase the odds to get the same solution, but the original solution space was still vast.
Consider, we say cancer mutates to disable specific genes, but not how those genes are disabled because it's outcomes not methods that are so common.
Re: What happens when you put evolution on replay?
#6I feel like this article is pretty misleading in terms of the context and significance of the research. Inserting ancestral genes in extant organisms is a well-accepted approach to studying evolution. Evolution happens because of environmental pressure and random luck (mutations). There's no deterministic factor of evolution, and it's weird that the article tries to present it that way.
I mean, there is no determinism in so much as the universe is chaotic, but we have evolved methods to nudge evolution into certain, helpful directions. For example mate selection guides evolution. Even aspects like lifespan influence gene flow. There is a hyper system that is smarter than mere random chance.
Re: What happens when you put evolution on replay?
#7The title reminds of Tierra. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tierra_(computer_simulation) It is astonishing. After Ray have cobbled together the best self replicating program he could and launched the simulation, all the familiar patterns emerged, including shorter programs than Ray could write, sexual reproduction, parasites ... It's one of the best demonstration of evolution I am aware of but the interpretation of it is not easy alas.
Re: What happens when you put evolution on replay?
#8If anyone is interested in arguments about winding back the clock and replaying evolution, I highly recommended Stephen Jay Gould's "Wonderful Life."
Re: What happens when you put evolution on replay?
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just because evolution is governed by randomness doesn't mean you can't make educated predictions about how an organism will evolve (at least given a set of otherwise constant environmental pressures, which is far from assured in the article's E Coli experiment). This is the whole premise behind convergent evolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution
You can make a prediction about what not how. Set things up and E Coli will develop antibiotic immunity, repeat the experiment 100 billion times and you might see 1+ billion different solutions. Insert fragments of a solution and repeat the experiment and you increase the odds to get the same solution, but the original solution space was still vast. Consider, we say cancer mutates to disable specific genes, but not h…
> repeat the experiment 100 billion times and you might see 1+ billion different solutions
You won't, though. There has been some excellent research on this done by amongst others Burmeister and Meyer in the Lenski group. Evolution is 'channelled' into certain solutions by its previous history and the process of co-evolving with other species.
Re: What happens when you put evolution on replay?
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can make a prediction about what not how. Set things up and E Coli will develop antibiotic immunity, repeat the experiment 100 billion times and you might see 1+ billion different solutions. Insert fragments of a solution and repeat the experiment and you increase the odds to get the same solution, but the original solution space was still vast. Consider, we say cancer mutates to disable specific genes, but not h…
> repeat the experiment 100 billion times and you might see 1+ billion different solutions You won't, though. There has been some excellent research on this done by amongst others Burmeister and Meyer in the Lenski group. Evolution is 'channelled' into certain solutions by its previous history and the process of co-evolving with other species.
That simply means some solutions are more probable than others, but there is a very long tail. Or at least as extrapolated from computer simulations.