Re: News: Replaying evolution.

dkomo wrote:
Ye Old One wrote:
Replaying evolution
By Patrick Barry
June 2nd, 2008

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/32801/title/Replaying_evolution_


Scientists show that happenstance mutations matter

WTF? The only thing this experiment shows is that *all* mutations matter, whether happenstance or not. Evolution is sequential. The way a species evolves in the future depends very much on how it evolved in the past. A fish will evolve as a fish because it followed the fish path in evolution in deep time. A fish won't evolve in the future like a mammal.

Duh!

Duh, indeed. Since a fish evolved in the past like a mammal, what exactly convinces you that another fish won't evolve like a mammal in the future? Or are you just trying to invoke Dollo's Law, and are stating it poorly enough that I can't tell?

If Stephen Jay Gould were alive today, he would be smiling. Maybe even
gloating.


No he wouldn't. Sorry.

He probably would. He was that sort of guy.

New research suggests that the famous evolutionary biologist was right
when he argued that, if the evolution of life were “wound back” and
played again from the start, it could have turned out very
differently.

This research shows nothing about the randomness of the mutations in those microbes.

This is all much ado about nothing.

Agreed. All that's shown here is that slight differences in initial conditions can result in big differences in evolutionary outcome. Is anyone surprised? Now in fact I think that's what Gould meant by "rewinding the tape of life". Obviously he couldn't have meant it as a literal analogy, since no matter how many times you rewind a tape, it still ends the same way. And a big effect from slight changes in initial conditions is exactly what "contingency" means.

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Relevant Pages

  • Re: News: Replaying evolution.
    ... A fish will evolve as a fish because it followed the fish path in evolution in deep time. ... You should also remember that, speaking cladistically, mammals *are* fish. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: News: Replaying evolution.
    ... A fish will evolve as a fish because it followed the fish path in evolution in deep time. ... You should also remember that, speaking cladistically, mammals *are* fish. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: News: Replaying evolution.
    ... A fish will evolve as a fish because it followed the fish path in evolution in deep time. ... You should also remember that, speaking cladistically, mammals *are* fish. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: What is Evolution?
    ... Evolution is a universal phenomenon that was explained by Charles Darwin ... It doesn't matter if the information to be copied is the genome of a ... or the blueprints for a jet aircraft. ... Animals evolve, plants evolve, aircraft evolve, languages evolve, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: What is Evolution?
    ... Evolution is a universal phenomenon that was explained by Charles Darwin ... It doesn't matter if the information to be copied is the genome of a ... or the blueprints for a jet aircraft. ... Animals evolve, plants evolve, aircraft evolve, languages evolve, ...
    (talk.origins)