Luck

Allister · Jan 25, 2007

I haven't really given this idea too much thought but it is something that has been nagging me at the back of my mind for a while now so I've decided to simply ask.

How much does elements of pure chance, luck and accidental incidents effect evolution?

A rodent, for instance, might have the mutation enabelling it to, let's say, run faster, and therefore evade the buzzards but this super-rodent might run into a dead end, or fall over, or encounter any number of inconvienant obstecles.

just because an animal has a genetic or physical ability does not mean that it will survive.

another point i wish to raise: has the human race, or at least the western cultural element of our species hit a genetic dead end? in this day and age there is not survival of the fittest or the continuation of strong and adventageous genes, today every person has the ability to reproduce and pass on his or her genetic material. will this not cause stagnation?

any thoughts?

rmwilliamsll · Jan 25, 2007

How much does elements of pure chance, luck and accidental incidents effect evolution?

first the problem is equivocation over exactly what the words: random or chance, are talking about.

OTOH, there is the idea of historical contingency. That things happened that we will not be able to recapitulation, nor ever no exactly what happened. for example, from mitochondrial DNA i know that my mother's mother's mother back 100 generations existed, but i will never know were she lived, nor her name, nor how she met her mate, nor exactly what caused the mutation that she bequeathed to me.
this usage of these words: random or chance, cover what is essentially a lack of knowledge. akin to exactly which atom in a nuclear power station's fuel rods will fission next.

The other usage of these words is more subtle and nuanced. It is the idea that anything could have happened, that no particular mutation is "favored" statistically, that mutations don't happen because organism want them to. this expresses the idea that the evolutionary investigation of phenotypic and genomic space is a "random walk", not simply because it is contingent, but because there is no functional teleology behind the events.

i'm sure there are few other usages of these interesting words: random and chance in the TofE, but these are the two i appreciate.

Skaloop · Jan 25, 2007

Allister said:
I haven't really given this idea too much thought but it is something that has been nagging me at the back of my mind for a while now so I've decided to simply ask.

How much does elements of pure chance, luck and accidental incidents effect evolution?

A rodent, for instance, might have the mutation enabelling it to, let's say, run faster, and therefore evade the buzzards but this super-rodent might run into a dead end, or fall over, or encounter any number of inconvienant obstecles.

You're correct; luck does play a role. An animal could have some super duper mutation that would allow it to evade predators at will, but could succumb to something else before reproducing. And there's no doubt that some useful traits were lost in such a way. But evolution deals not just with the individual; it deals with the entire population. So within the rodent population (to use your example), there is a natural variation in speed. Some are fast, some are slow. And say being faster is an advantage in evading predators. Now, by luck alone, say 5% of rodents will die before reproducing. That's 5% of the fast ones, and 5% of the slow ones. It cancels out. But a greater proportion of the slow ones will die from being caught by predators. So now there's say 15% of the slow ones that die, and only 10% of the faster ones (since they won't all escape all the time). Over time, this slight difference will lead to faster rodents being more successful within the entire population.

another point i wish to raise: has the human race, or at least the western cultural element of our species hit a genetic dead end? in this day and age there is not survival of the fittest or the continuation of strong and adventageous genes, today every person has the ability to reproduce and pass on his or her genetic material. will this not cause stagnation?

Again, you are somewhat correct. Because of our massive population, the ability to bridge geographical obstacles, and technology helping to keep us alive and safe, natural selection cannot exert as much pressure on our survival. So we're unlikely to undergo any rapid morphological changes (rapid in geological terms, of course). But natural selection can still work upon us. For instance, say there's some genetic disorder that leads to a fatal disease in children, and they die within a few years of birth. These children never get to reproduce, so this genetic defect cannot be passed along by them. Eventually, this genetic disorder will be weeded out by natural selection, and no more babies will have it. It'll take quite a long time, though, as parents could still be carriers. Conversely, a mutation that protects against the disease could arise, and it would be favoured.

Hydra009 · Jan 25, 2007

Allister said:
another point i wish to raise: has the human race, or at least the western cultural element of our species hit a genetic dead end? in this day and age there is not survival of the fittest or the continuation of strong and adventageous genes, today every person has the ability to reproduce and pass on his or her genetic material. will this not cause stagnation?

Sort of. The development of technology has no doubt hampered the ability of natural selection in humans, because humans can much more quickly use technology to meet needs rather than waiting for a needed genetic change, but humans can and do still adapt to the ever-changing environment, most obviously through disease resistance.

Also, it might be worth pointing out that an environment exerting strong selection in humans is typically NOT a very friendly place. Suffice it to say that most of us would do poorly in the lifestyle of our ancient ancestors.

[serious] · Jan 25, 2007

luck is a big part of it, especially in small populations. Fitness increases the odds an organism will "win" but it's not assured. It's like playing with a loaded die, not every roll will be a six, just more rolls than the next die.

FoeHammer · Jan 25, 2007

Allister said:
I haven't really given this idea too much thought but it is something that has been nagging me at the back of my mind for a while now so I've decided to simply ask.

How much does elements of pure chance, luck and accidental incidents effect evolution?

A rodent, for instance, might have the mutation enabelling it to, let's say, run faster, and therefore evade the buzzards but this super-rodent might run into a dead end, or fall over, or encounter any number of inconvienant obstecles.

just because an animal has a genetic or physical ability does not mean that it will survive.

another point i wish to raise: has the human race, or at least the western cultural element of our species hit a genetic dead end? in this day and age there is not survival of the fittest or the continuation of strong and adventageous genes, today every person has the ability to reproduce and pass on his or her genetic material. will this not cause stagnation?

any thoughts?

Having taken God out of the equation and without purpose, it comes down to 'abiogenesis/evolution must have happened because we are here'. It's chance and luck every step of the way.
How rational is that?

FoeHammer.

rmwilliamsll · Jan 25, 2007

FoeHammer said:
Having taken God out of the equation and without purpose, it comes down to 'abiogenesis/evolution must have happened because we are here'. It's chance and luck every step of the way.
How rational is that?

FoeHammer.

depends, how do you define "rational"?
and are you talking at the level of biology, metaphysics or human world views?

Chalnoth · Jan 25, 2007

FoeHammer said:
Having taken God out of the equation and without purpose, it comes down to 'abiogenesis/evolution must have happened because we are here'. It's chance and luck every step of the way.
How rational is that?

How would it be not rational?

And besides, large number of random processes frequently end up being highly deterministic. One can, for instance, derive the ideal gas law (PV = NkT) from assuming that the gas is composed of nothing but a large number of particles with random velocities. Randomness + large numbers = strongly-determined outcomes.

truth above all else · Jan 25, 2007

Allister said:
How much does elements of pure chance, luck and accidental incidents effect evolution

the mechanism of evolution is defined by chance, luck and accident; ie it is paraphrased with emphatic words to make it appear vaguely scientific "The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies and changing environments."

truth above all else · Jan 25, 2007

Chalnoth said:
How would it be not rational?

And besides, large number of random processes frequently end up being highly deterministic. One can, for instance, derive the ideal gas law (PV = NkT) from assuming that the gas is composed of nothing but a large number of particles with random velocities. Randomness + large numbers = strongly-determined outcomes.

surely you cant be serious, the bizzare thinking relating to abiogenesis cannot be associated the ideal behaviour of gases

grimbly · Jan 25, 2007

truth above all else said:
surely you cant be serious, the bizzare thinking relating to abiogenesis cannot be associated the ideal behaviour of gases

Actually, Chalnoth was very serious and by proposing the example he did, demonstrated a sophisticated level of understanding concerning how chemical processes proceed.

You on the other hand, by responding the way you did, demonstrated that

1.) Your clueless about chemistry
2.) You are proud of your ignorance and will display it for all to see.

So , on one hand we have somebody who has displayed some knowledge of how chemical reactions occur and on the other hand, somebody who is clueless.

Tough choice....................................NOT!!

Maxwell511 · Jan 25, 2007

truth above all else said:
surely you cant be serious, the bizzare thinking relating to abiogenesis cannot be associated the ideal behaviour of gases

Of course it can. With gases we have two important equations the Hamiltonian and the partition function. This formalisation gives us the ability to determine the probablities of different configurations of the system.

Unfortunately we don't have such a formalisation for systems that relate to certain interaction dominant systems. Therefore we cannot determine the statistical probability of the occurence of a given configuration during the evolution of the system. Someday hopefully we will and then be able to say how abiogenesis occured.

Chalnoth · Jan 25, 2007

truth above all else said:
surely you cant be serious, the bizzare thinking relating to abiogenesis cannot be associated the ideal behaviour of gases

Why not? It's the same underlying physics, just with different atoms and molecules acting in different ways. Though the results are much harder to compute, as Maxwell511 mentions, the basic idea is much the same.

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