3 ms·
Where do you get those population sizes from? My research shows on the order of 10^18 organisms on earth. And the shortest generation time is on the order of mi
by yters 7y ago
Where do you get those population sizes from? My research shows on the order of 10^18 organisms on earth. And the shortest generation time is on the order of minutes for bacteria. As we go up the complexity scale to higher animals reproduction time drops drastically. If its just a matter of reproduction cycles, bacteria should be more advanced than humans. How does this efficiency jump happen where suddenly we only need a few offspring over the course of decades to outpaced the evolution of much more fecund populations? Additionally, humans should be evolving at a blinding rate with each new generation compared to bacteria. The whole thing doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
- MaximumYComb 7y agoI googled "number of bacteria in the world" and the number is around 5 * 10^30. I mean, there are 7 * 10^9 humans and each human has trillions (10^12) bacteria, so the human population + bacteria in the body totals over 20^22 living organisms alone.
- yters 7y agoEven so my point remains. Why do bacteria seem significantly less complex than humans, yet have an extremely greater rate of evolution?