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Horizontal and vertical: The evolution of evolution

18 points by prat 17y ago

rogermugs 17y ago
not gonna lie... still a creationist.
rfreytag 17y ago
After years of work with genetic algorithms (GA) that used just these sorts of exchanges to search their function space it is fascinating to see that nature was there first. The GA literature is full of many useful mechanisms for advancing search. Perhaps GAs will be to evolutionary biology what mathematics is to physics - a suitable model to hint at promising experimental research.
berntb 17y ago
Horizontal transfer seems like genes as the pivotal item chosen in evolution, Selfish Gene style?
Tichy 17y ago
Correct me if I am wrong, but I think genes where not even known when Darwin created his theory. So to say his theory was incomplete because it's focus is too much on genes seems just plain wrong. I for one have always thought about evolution as a more general principle, that can also be seen in "things" without genes. For example products also evolve, even though in that case humans are the machines that do the reproduction. And thinking about how the first cell came to be also isn't new - it's not as if those two scientists from the article are the first to think about that problem. For example I have read "At Home In The Universe" by Stuart Kauffman 13 years ago, which suggests how networks of chemical reactions could evolve (not saying that is how it happened, but it is a possibility to consider). I guess they just had to make the article sound more dramatic, but it annoys me. Edit: OK, reading on, it just seems more silly every page. For example, they made a simulation and found that the optimal code wouldn't be found without "horizontal transfer". But couldn't it be equally possible that the code was evolved within one kind of "organism" (which would enable horizontal transfer between organisms, because they all belong to a compatible species), which then proceeded to wipe out the other organisms? It seems likely that the organism with the best code wiped out all the others - if that didn't happen in their simulation, I suspect the simulation wasn't very good. Also of course evolution is not specific to the particular way of transferring genes. There are viruses that insert foreign genes into an organism. There are plants that just split instead of having children, and whatnot. To suggest that biologist are somehow stuck on a narrow minded view of evolution seems to be just silly. And I feel confident saying that even though I am not a biologist myself. Even if this "horizontal transfer" is really as important as they say, it wouldn't change a thing. It would just mean that the mass of organism is "the environment", and partial strands of DNA (that get transferred horizontally) would still be suspect to evolution. The ones more compatible with the most organisms would survive better than the ones killing half of the organisms they would be transferred to. And so on.

18 points by prat 17y ago

not gonna lie... still a creationist.

After years of work with genetic algorithms (GA) that used just these sorts of exchanges to search their function space it is fascinating to see that nature was there first. The GA literature is full of many useful mechanisms for advancing search. Perhaps GAs will be to evolutionary biology what mathematics is to physics - a suitable model to hint at promising experimental research.

berntb 17y ago

Horizontal transfer seems like genes as the pivotal item chosen in evolution, Selfish Gene style?

Tichy 17y ago

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think genes where not even known when Darwin created his theory. So to say his theory was incomplete because it's focus is too much on genes seems just plain wrong. I for one have always thought about evolution as a more general principle, that can also be seen in "things" without genes. For example products also evolve, even though in that case humans are the machines that do the reproduction. And thinking about how the first cell came to be also isn't new - it's not as if those two scientists from the article are the first to think about that problem. For example I have read "At Home In The Universe" by Stuart Kauffman 13 years ago, which suggests how networks of chemical reactions could evolve (not saying that is how it happened, but it is a possibility to consider). I guess they just had to make the article sound more dramatic, but it annoys me. Edit: OK, reading on, it just seems more silly every page. For example, they made a simulation and found that the optimal code wouldn't be found without "horizontal transfer". But couldn't it be equally possible that the code was evolved within one kind of "organism" (which would enable horizontal transfer between organisms, because they all belong to a compatible species), which then proceeded to wipe out the other organisms? It seems likely that the organism with the best code wiped out all the others - if that didn't happen in their simulation, I suspect the simulation wasn't very good. Also of course evolution is not specific to the particular way of transferring genes. There are viruses that insert foreign genes into an organism. There are plants that just split instead of having children, and whatnot. To suggest that biologist are somehow stuck on a narrow minded view of evolution seems to be just silly. And I feel confident saying that even though I am not a biologist myself. Even if this "horizontal transfer" is really as important as they say, it wouldn't change a thing. It would just mean that the mass of organism is "the environment", and partial strands of DNA (that get transferred horizontally) would still be suspect to evolution. The ones more compatible with the most organisms would survive better than the ones killing half of the organisms they would be transferred to. And so on.