I Am Fascinated By Science, Religion, and Philosophy
Let's discuss evolution. Is knowledge of the origins of life necessary for the study of evolution? Can evolution be disproved?
70-79, M
This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »
CopperCicada · M
I'm trained as a scientist-- physics, not biology.
I've never really understood the angst and agony over evolution. In physics everything can be looked at as minimization-maximization problems. What trajectory does an object take? the one with least action. What direction does the thermodynamics of a system take? the one with the maximum entropy.
"evolution" really doesn't need to have a spooky or exotic connotation. The point is that genotypes are "naturally selected" by the survivability of the phenotypes they produce. It's another optimization problem like the ones we find in physics.
Put a bunch of organisms in a box called an environment, and they'll either thrive or die off. The ones that survive will carry their genes with them and give them to the next generation. Do this in the face of genetic mutations and new phenotypes manifesting because of changes in environment and all sorts of interesting things happen. Beings "evolve".
But there's no reason to have to pin down the origins of life. Just like there's no reason to have to pin down the origins of the universe for physics to work.
I've never really understood the angst and agony over evolution. In physics everything can be looked at as minimization-maximization problems. What trajectory does an object take? the one with least action. What direction does the thermodynamics of a system take? the one with the maximum entropy.
"evolution" really doesn't need to have a spooky or exotic connotation. The point is that genotypes are "naturally selected" by the survivability of the phenotypes they produce. It's another optimization problem like the ones we find in physics.
Put a bunch of organisms in a box called an environment, and they'll either thrive or die off. The ones that survive will carry their genes with them and give them to the next generation. Do this in the face of genetic mutations and new phenotypes manifesting because of changes in environment and all sorts of interesting things happen. Beings "evolve".
But there's no reason to have to pin down the origins of life. Just like there's no reason to have to pin down the origins of the universe for physics to work.
Bushranger · 70-79, M
@CopperCicada I agree with you. The simple answers are usually the correct ones, but they have to be testable. Love the analogy of the box.
Would be interesting to run that experiment with something like bacteria.
Would be interesting to run that experiment with something like bacteria.
CopperCicada · M
@Bushranger Bacteria is the simplest and most direct way to demonstrate natural selection. Expose cultures to bacteria to antibiotics. The ones who succumb fail to pass on their genetic material. Those who do survive pass on their genetic material-- and one has anti-biotic resistant bacteria. It's not a giraffe. But it demonstrates the principles. And one can sequence the DNA of the bacteria and see exactly what genetic material is being passed on through this natural selection.
Bushranger · 70-79, M
@CopperCicada I was thinking of a large scale experiment. It's been shown that bacteria can adapt to live on most organic compounds. Create a very large environment of a culture medium, then inoculate with several strains of bacteria. There should be some fairly rapid changes in phenotypes.
CopperCicada · M
@Bushranger That's already happened. In 2016 they found a bacteria in a dump in Japan that ate plastic. It was published in science. Without being exposed to plastics, the bacteria wouldn't have naturally selected traits that broke down plastic. They've also found bacteria that break down crude oil. Same idea.
Bushranger · 70-79, M
@CopperCicada I forgot about the plastic eating bacteria. There's even work being done to improve is performance with hormones. And it's not only crude oil. Can also break down some fuel oils. Given their very short generation periods, they have the opportunity to adapt very quickly as a species. Especially impressive when they reproduce asexually. Imagine if they ever developed diploid reproduction.
CopperCicada · M
@Bushranger Well. There's evidently no developmental benefit for bacteria to be diploid.
Bushranger · 70-79, M
@CopperCicada Their method of gaining genetic diversity is by passing block of DNA to each other. Imagine that combined with sexual reproduction. Damn, they'd take over the world lol.
Bushranger · 70-79, M
@CopperCicada I wonder if it would be possible to do a computer simulation on this. Would need some pretty hefty processing power, though. And imagine the number of variables and interactions that would have to be taken into account. On second thoughts, maybe not lol.
Alabamian · 26-30, F
@CopperCicada what about Alabamians and Tennesseans they seem to look different in different states, does evolution have something to do about it?