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Sadly this doesn't work. There is close to zero selection pressure for genes that improve evolution. Because of sexual reproduction, evolution operates on the l
by Houshalter 10y ago
Sadly this doesn't work. There is close to zero selection pressure for genes that improve evolution. Because of sexual reproduction, evolution operates on the level of genes. And genes are randomly mixed up every generation. A gene that increases the probability of beneficial mutations doesn't help itself spread. See my other comment on this thread for more specific examples.
- whack 10y agoThis seems like the individual-selection vs group-selection debate. Some genetic behavior, such as altruism to give a crude example, hurt the individual but help the group as a whole. By your argument, all such genes will be weeded out, and the only genes remaining will be those that strictly help the individual. However, the entire field of group-selection is predicated on the idea that such altruistic genes can indeed flourish, through the process of group-selection. Admittedly this is a contentious topic and there are many people who dispute that natural selection can ever occur at the group level. However, if you do buy the premise behind group-selection, a similar argument can be made for the success of genes that improve evolution. It's also worth considering that the "marketplace of nature" isn't as cut-throat as you're presenting it to be. There's enough inefficiencies in the ecosystem, to allow for imperfect organisms to survive. Imperfect organisms that have sufficient "slack" to "invest/divert" into genes that don't produce an immediate payout, but do snowball in the long-term. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection