New Findings Confirm Darwin's Theory — Evolution Not Random 386
ScienceDaily is reporting a team of biologists has demonstrated that evolution is a deterministic process, rather than a random selection as some competing theories suggested. "When the researchers measured changes in 40 defined characteristics of the nematodes' sexual organs (including cell division patterns and the formation of specific cells), they found that most were uniform in direction, with the main mechanism for the development favoring a natural selection of successful traits, the researchers said."
Thus eliminating the usual trite rhetoric (Score:3, Interesting)
O'course, it'll probably be misquoted endlessly by the 'intelligent design' folks, given that--at least superficially--it could be seen to "endorse" the concept of a directed design, rather than being an inevitable consequence of the process.
Am I missing something? (Score:5, Interesting)
This seems to say that the mutations aren't random, but that they are biased into a specific direction - one that is more advantageous to begin with. As an example, this would indicate that instead of there being random variations of the length of the neck of the giraffe, the mutations tend, on average, to favor a longer neck to begin with.
I'd say that's pretty new and spiffy. Did I miss something?
Misleading title (Score:1, Interesting)
The summary and title are misleading. http://www.current-biology.com/content/article/abstract?uid=PIIS0960982207021938 [current-biology.com]
Selection is deterministic, drift is random. This is really no news, other than for developmental question at hand, whether a variation observed can be explained through deterministic or stochastic process.
Re:Wait... what's different here? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've always thought that the rate of mutation should be alterable as well.
Depending on the creature, it may take more effort or less effort to ensure the integrity of its DNA. Some creatures can take massive doses of radiation and survive, some can survive massive exposures to what would be carcigenic in humans, etc.
So shouldn't evolution heuristically arrive at a rate of mutation that is beneficial to a species?
I thought this was obvious, but maybe I should write a paper on it. :p
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Interesting)
Evolution is part of the larger picture, and isn't really possible to test or reproduce, as it explains the consequences of natural selection. "Proving" evolution requires lots of indirect/consequential/incomplete evidence, and the extensive use of statistics (which helps indicate trends and correlations, but can't actually *prove* anything) to interpolate/extrapolate what evidence we have.
It follows from logic that if species breed randomly, and the mutation doesn't greatly affect an organism's ability to reproduce, the short-term effects of natural selection won't propagate to the long-term, which leaves us with a paradoxical situation wherein Natural Selection is required for evolution to occur, but that the population dynamics associated with natural selection simultaneously prevent long-term evolution from occurring.
The significance of this study is that we now have some evidence that the "species breed randomly" assumption might not necessarily have been a good one.
As always, further study on the matter should be pursued.
Re:Ah, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
"If you thought that science was certain - well, that is just an error on your part."
Richard Feynman
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
-- Albert Einstein
Re:Ah, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
You may want to reconsider reference.com as a reliable source of unbiased information on controversial subjects.
Re:Missing the point DNA never really evolved ! (Score:5, Interesting)
You bring up a point that many do not understand. Evolution says nothing about how life or DNA started. It simply explains how once life started with DNA, the process by which it evolves. Similarly the "big bang" theory says nothing about how the universe started. It explains how it expanded and changed from a hot, dense, nearly uniform state to its cold, sparse, unevenly distributed state. There are hypotheses about life starting with an RNA world, or starting with undirected metabolism, but these are completely separate from the theory of evolution, for which we have ample evidence.
Your other point seems to do with the fact that some evidence is not completely explained by evolution. In science, there is always some observation left unexplained, which is why Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum theory superseded Newton's laws. It does not mean that there must be a supernatural explanation for the observations that are currently unexplained.
Re:Ah, but... (Score:1, Interesting)
There do exist religions and religious texts that take an open-minded view on understanding the processes of creation. I recommend reading the Hymn of Creation from the Rig-Veda. There are numerous translations available online. I quote the following from a translation available at: http://www.princeton.edu/~howarth/573/rig-veda.html [princeton.edu]
"Who really knows, and who can swear,
How creation came, when or where!
Even gods came after creation's day,
Who really knows, who can truly say
When and how did creation start?
Did He do it? Or did He not?
Only He, up there, knows, maybe;
Or perhaps, not even He."
Re:Ah, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Just as the term "creationism" is somewhat of an umbrella term, covering a whole spectrum of more specific beliefs, so the term "evolution", at least in popular usage, seems to conflate a whole bunch of the terms I outlined above. Some elements of evolutionary theory are compatible with some aspects of creationist belief, some are not. Saying that the two are incompatible is a generalization that is probably not justified.
Re:Ah, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting stuff, how systems with simple rules can create such amazingly complex systems as ourselves... and in a sense, blindly.
Re:Ah, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hume--and Kant--are also a lot 'smarterer' than me ;-)
However, Kant did come up with quite a plausible theory for why Hume was not quite right about that (and in doing so, essentially invented epistemology as a separate area of study). Whether or not he successfully demonstrated that his theory was correct is (still) an open question.
Very briefly what he supposed was that any experience whatsoever of the 'world' is only accessible through certain features of our perceptual and cognitive apparatus. Chief among these are time and space, but in addition, there are twelve a priori categories, including "causality and dependence" according to which experiences are ordered.
To put it in plainer language, time and space have to do not with reality as such, but with how we perceive reality, while the categories (including causality) and reason allow us to systematize our experiences. It's possible to think of time and space as analogous to being stuck in a space suit with a yellow-tinted visor. You can look through the visor, but everything will look yellow. You can't really be sure that everything--or anything--is yellow, but the only way you can see anything at all is to see it as something yellow.
The practical upshot of this is that according to Kant, while (contra Hume) genuine scientific inquiry is possible without recourse to faith in causation etc, and while our experience is of a real world, there are definite limits to human knowledge:
For more information, you can go to the Stanford Encyclopedia [stanford.edu], or to the source [cuhk.edu.hk], but when reading Kant, always be sure to take the proper precautions: take adequate food and water, allow plenty of time to get back before dark, and always let somebody know where you're going...