Evolutionary Theory Evolves? - Survival Of The Fittest Is Likely False Study shows

reply to post by FriedBabelBroccoli


I just don't see how they arrived at the red group as being the fittest.

Fitness (often denoted w in population genetics models) is a central idea in evolutionary theory. It can be defined either with respect to a genotype or to a phenotype in a given environment. In either case, it describes the ability to both survive and reproduce, and is equal to the average contribution to the gene pool of the next generation that is made by an average individual of the specified genotype or phenotype. If differences between alleles of a given gene affect fitness, then the frequencies of the alleles will change over generations; the alleles with higher fitness become more common. This process is called natural selection.

From their study:

As there are so few possible mutations resulting in the fittest phenotype in red, the odds of this mutation are a mere 0.15%. The odds for the slightly fitter mutation in grey are 6.7% and so this is far more likely to fix

Read more at: phys.org...

See the underlined part.

The percentage of the red phenotype are 0.15% and the grey is 6.7%, meaning I don't understand how the red is considered the fittest.

and is equal to the average contribution to the gene pool of the next generation that is made by an average individual of the specified genotype or phenotype

Un-natural selection is currently at work. TPTB have a goal to eliminate white European Christians.

reply to post by boncho


It is a simulation based on the data of gene mutations.

They did a meta analysis of what was available in regards to what they wanted to study and the resultant model is what the article is presenting. The percentage chance for the genes was taken from the frequency with which the most fit genes were likely to result from a mutation.

This is a model, like climate modeling, based on the observation data.

If you want to argue that they don't know the definition of "fit" then I suggest you take it up with them, the academic body they associate with, and those who peer reviewed their study before they published it.

-FBB

I do find it hilarious how all the "experts" come in here are start insinuating the researches don't know what they are talking about or that they are making mistakes when this taken from a peer reviewed journal of science.

Maybe I should post some of the studies I have encountered lately about cognitive dissonance associated with propaganda and social constructs.

I want to remind everyone that these are all theories and not absolute truths. So we can fantasies all night and we will get nowhere except to satisfy our egos.

Luck is also a huge factor that is hugely over looked. Some just got lucky. Some were at the wrong place at the wrong time. How do you account for that? You can't to many variables, possibilities. These models are pointless and show us what? How to live? Where we come from? They don't show anything, they are all beliefs because we can't prove them beyond a reasonable doubt.

Some will plan all their lives to survive and die without passing seed and others will be careless and have many seeds passed on. Explain that? Some couples who are saints try to conceive and can't and on the other hand some crack heads have perfectly healthy babies. Evolution? Survival of the fittest?

Conclusion:
Theories, hopes and beliefs. Humans need them to survive.

The mechanisms of evolution seem to be a very complicated thing. Survival of the fittest tends to slowly whittle down the genetic pool and hone in on the best traits. But if a species becomes too specialized and too perfect at what they do then a slight change in the environment could put the whole species at risk because suddenly they are not a perfect fit for their new environment and they don't have the degree of genetic variation required to adapt to the changes. Mass extinctions can also cause a species with a lot of genetic variance to suddenly have a small degree of genetic variance because most of the population is killed off and only a very small subset of the species will survive because they are the most fit for surviving what ever event cause the mass extinction, but if the species doesn't have enough genetic variation then none of them may survive. A mass extinction can be a good way to quickly cull all the weakest individuals from the population, but at the same time it also removes much of the genetic variance from the population, and that makes the species less adaptable overall.

gosseyn
So what they are saying is that quantity prevails over quality. When you have 100 not so good mutations and only one "perfect" mutation, the one perfect mutated organism is very likely to survive, but a certain % of the 100 others "not perfect" will also survive and reproduce. Thus today on our planet, a great % of all the existing genetic material is the offspring of those "not perfect" organisms. Am I right ?

That's communism !!!

But seriously, what does that say about us humans ? In which category do we fit ? The quantity or the quality ? What about consciousness ? And what about those great tools that we call hands ? What about language ?

It's hard to understand how the "fittest" phenotypes (or whatever they call them) do not go on to dominate the population over evolutionary timescales. That's where I get confused. Somehow the greater number of "lesser fit" phenotypes makes them dominate the population over evolutionary timescales. How does that happen? Are they CERTAIN the "fittest" phenotypes are not in fact going to dominate at some point in the future? How can they say the "fittest" failed to dominate?

reply to post by bitsforbytes And post by ChaoticOrder


I don't think extinction, or death, should be factored into determining the control mechanism of evolution,as you cannot evolve, if you are dead.

That is, evolution is change, or adaptation, of life, not death. Death doesn't evolve.

reply to post by ChaoticOrder


I like your reasoning, but I doubt ti's scientific. I used similar logic when I wondered if nature produces crazy people because in rare moments they can save the species. My reasoning was the "rest" were herding and only the crazy person broke from the herd to find a safe passage to the land of milk and honey.

In most cases the crazy person dies, but sometimes.... sometimes the herd goes off a cliff and it's the crazy sheep that wandered off that survived.

Nature doesn't have all the answers so sometimes it leaves the door open just a little bit. Just a little bit so the crazy person is created. The vast majority of people aren't crazy, so a couple won't hurt. It's a calculated gamble.

My thinking is if we overcontrol nature we'll make hte mistake of being like a herd going off a cliff. We just have to be wrong about a couple things.

reply to post by Bleeeeep

I don't think extinction, or death, should be factored into determining the control mechanism of evolution,as you cannot evolve, if you are dead.

There have been many mass extinction events in the history of the Earth, so obviously it must be factored into how species on Earth have evolved. What matters is the creatures who survive the mass extinction event, not the ones who die.

Damn double post.

reply to post by ChaoticOrder


I understand what you are saying, but it is not a mechanism of the function.

Think of it like this.

1 + 1 = 2

You are looking at the numbers, when instead, you should be looking at the calculating function that is addition. (evolution / "good" concept (re)production)

The numbers can be anything from an ants spit (assuming ants spit) to the brightness of the sun on any given day. Those are, however, not the mechanism to the function.

Death is a number and not a function and thus should not be factored in.

reply to post by Bleeeeep

Death is a number and not a function and thus should not be factored in.

A mass extinction event is analogous to a function which dramatically alters the number of individuals in the population, and in doing so it very much reduces the level of genetic variance in the population, and that change plays a large role in how the species will continue to evolve.

reply to post by FriedBabelBroccoli

If you want to argue that they don't know the definition of "fit" then I suggest you take it up with them, the academic body they associate with, and those who peer reviewed their study before they published it.

I hadn't read the paper yet, at that time I was just going off the Q&A. In any case, peer review means it is supported by peers. A single paper does not answer questions, and it still allows many others to elaborate or expand on whatever is being proposed (which then too is peer reviewed before a major shift). In this case, they do not have supporting evidence and they state as such. They are doing predictive modelling, it's all theoretical and the data they are basing it on very simple life. And they actually state in the paper that survival of the fittest applies, only that because of environmental factors it's possible to see something else arise (survival of the prevalent (only under the right conditions)) With zero environmental influence, phenotypes that are fittest are still found.

Of course one always needs to be careful because these models inevitably include simplifying assumptions in order to make them tractable. In our calculations we include difference in rates of the arrival of variation, something not traditionally taken into account in population genetics. But our models so far only apply to fairly simple examples of molecular evolution. Much more work is needed before we could claim that these effects are also important for more complex phenomena such as the evolution of animal behaviour.

Read more at: phys.org...

The most interesting would be the following:

The many orders of magnitude difference in the arrival rate of variation between phenotypes should have many important implications for evolutionary dynamics. Consider for example the situation where the population has equilibrated to a phenotype (q), which was the fitness peak, when subsequently the environment changes so that a different phenotype (p) has a higher fitness (1+s). In order to fix, the alternative phenotype must first be found.

If the time-scale (Te) on which the environment changes again is much longer than (Tp) then it likely that the population will discover and fix (p). However, if (Te [[ Tp) , then a new phenotype (p') may become more fit before (p) has time to fix. (Tp) can vary over many orders of magnitude, so many potentially highly adaptive phenotypes may satisfy (Tp]Te) and thus never be found.

^^

That's what I was looking for.

The definition of "fit" changes depending on environment. And they encountered there novel idea only when they changed the variable for environment.

They say, "If the time-scale (Te) on which the environment changes again is much longer than (Tp) then it likely that the population will discover and fix (p)"

In the example above, the difference in discovery times between (p1) and (p2) is rather modest, and so at large enough mutation rates (p2) is found fairly regularly and free-fitness could be used to analyse results in that regime. But as can be seen for instance in Figure 2 for L= RNA, differences in discovery times can vary over many more orders of magnitude than is the case for our particular example, so that in practice highly adaptive yet rare phenotypes may not be discovered at all, even on very long timescales.

So. I still think it's semantics, but it's interesting semantics none-the-less.

And, given that there seems to be a huge discrepancy on phenotype discovery vs. time, I wonder if, either, there model accounts for everything, or if it does, how it applies to larger creatures.

But you're the expert, not me.

reply to post by ChaoticOrder


Would evolution change its function if things did not die? Would our offspring not continue to evolve? Would our minds, bodies, and spirits cease to evolve as we live each new day?

Are we just arguing to argue now? If so, I don't wanna play anymore.


Things do not evolve to defeat death. They evolve as they strive to produce variances of "good", or pleasure.

Materialism is dead, long live spiritualism.

ChaoticOrder
reply to post by Bleeeeep

 

Death is a number and not a function and thus should not be factored in.

A mass extinction event is analogous to a function which dramatically alters the number of individuals in the population, and in doing so it very much reduces the level of genetic variance in the population, and that change plays a large role in how the species will continue to evolve.

Actually, this paper covers that quite clearly if you read it top to bottom. Their whole premise is based on environmental change before fit phenotype discovery, or environmental change which reclassifies which is "fittest".

boncho
I hadn't read the paper yet, at that time I was just going off the Q&A.

In any case, peer review means it is supported by peers. A single paper does not answer questions, and it still allows many others to elaborate or expand on whatever is being proposed (which then too is peer reviewed before a major shift). In this case, they do not have supporting evidence and they state as such. They are doing predictive modelling, it's all theoretical and the data they are basing it on very simple life. And they actually state in the paper that survival of the fittest applies, only that because of environmental factors it's possible to see something else arise (survival of the prevalent (only under the right conditions)) With zero environmental influence, phenotypes that are fittest are still found.

LoL

Boncho are you admitting that you were arguing and making a fuss challenging the study without ever reading it? Because that is what I think I just read from your statement.

They did a meta analysis that appears to be just as thorough as that which is used to "justify" abiogenesis and several of the supporting theories involving mutations of genotypes. They are clearly stating that the model is not supporting the simple "survival of the fittest" prediction. Environmental factors are the only reason survival of the fittest would apply and you are simultaneously using it to justify that the survival of the prevalent is a non factor when it is the driving force of both.

Thank you for participating but my own personal interpretation cannot factor in that of someone who argued against the findings without ever reading the study.

-FBB

reply to post by FriedBabelBroccoli


But why do they become prevalent? Why do they not flee from one another instead of striving to reproduce their idea of good?

And then, why do we view the act of reproduction any differently than any action, since all actions are just trying to produce their version of good?

reply to post by FriedBabelBroccoli

Boncho are you admitting that you were arguing and making a fuss challenging the study without ever reading it? Because that is what I think I just read from your statement.

No actually, if you look at my first posts most of them have question marks. I was asking you. And as the OP, and if you read and understood the study, you might have answered me.

They are clearly stating that the model is not supporting the simple "survival of the fittest" prediction.

Yet, but I don't think anyone says evolution is simple. And even in natural selection, it is more complicated than survival of the fittest.

Your title is, "Study shows, survival of the fittest is likely false." I don't think that's even close.

Environmental factors are the only reason survival of the fittest would apply and you are simultaneously using it to justify that the survival of the prevalent is a non factor when it is the driving force of both.

No, I am merely questioning their cross section of the process.

In their words, everything is q, environmental shift happens, fitness now increases for p1 and p2, if given enough time, p2 will become prevalent, but without p1 (the fitter phenotype) fixing.

But what about q vs p2.

p2 is not fitter than q? And which phenotype is next?

We show, using the RNA model, that frequent phenotypes (with larger F p ) can fix in a population even when alternative, but
less frequent, phenotypes with much higher fitness are potentially accessible. In other words, if the fittest never ‘arrive’ on
the timescales of evolutionary change, then they can’t fix. We call this highly non-ergodic effect the ‘arrival of the frequent’.

I think that they are saying that if a trait (phenotype) is so unlikely (because very few genotypes can create that trait) then it may never occur in the population. If it never occurs (arrives) in the population then natural selection cannot act on that trait. This does not in any way invalidate the theory of natural selection in terms of acting on traits that come to exist in reality. It just says something must exist before natural selection can act on it (it cannot act on a trait that is only "potentially accessible").

PS: the idea that other factors act on evolution besides natural selection is not new. look up genetic drift (which is mentioned in the paper). However, theories like these do not invalidate the theory of natural selection, they merely state that other factors must be taken into account.

reply to post by Malthus


Your explanation of it makes sense since this is what was confusing me. If they're truly the "fittest" then shouldn't they dominate? Your explanation answers this because they never appeared, so they never had the chance to dominate.

Is it more complicated than this?

Initially I was thinking it had something to do with a threshold. Another words, a certain number of "fittest" were needed for them to eventually dominate. This is a confusing idea because shouldn't they dominate immediately? HOwever, perhaps normal mortality rates and other factors prevent even the "fittest" from dominating on evolutionary timescales, unless they reach a certain population threshold. Apparently, the reason they don't reach this crucial threshold is because the "fittest" phenotypes themselves occur too rarely.

That was just an idea, though.

In the linked article and in the linked paper, are the terms discovery and fixed the same thing, or does a phenotype have to be both discovered AND fixed to dominate? If they're not the same thing then this suggests a rare phenotype can exist on small time scales, but it also needs to fix on evolutionary time scales. What does "fix" exactly mean? Why don't they immediately fix if discovered?

Why does the paper go through the pain of saying discovered and fixed?