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Shitty design tbh. Just look at modern plants. Chlorophyll is immensely inefficient because it only filters the green part of light. A tree literally misses out

by zaarn 6y ago

Shitty design tbh. Just look at modern plants. Chlorophyll is immensely inefficient because it only filters the green part of light. A tree literally misses out on 80% of the energy provided by the sun. We did have purple photosynthesis for a quite a while but either competition or something else wiped them away minus some remaining bacteria families. Or look at ATP, the power currency of all lifeforms we know off minus virii. Almost all bigger lifeforms converted to mitochondrial production but then you have things like slime mold that doesn't for some reason and plants which have both mitochondria and photosynthesis. The entire ATP system is a mess because it has it's fingers in every other process. Impossible to optimize because any change just kills the cell. If that is designed, it's garbage.

tantalor 6y ago
> Shitty design ... Chlorophyll is immensely inefficient A simpler explanation is chlorophyll is balancing energy production vs. safety. Instead, for a safe, steady energy output, the pigments of the photosystem had to be very finely tuned in a certain way. The pigments needed to absorb light at similar wavelengths to reduce the internal noise. But they also needed to absorb light at different rates to buffer against the external noise caused by swings in light intensity. The best light for the pigments to absorb, then, was in the steepest parts of the intensity curve for the solar spectrum — the red and blue parts of the spectrum. https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-are-plants-green-to-reduce-the-noise-in-photosynthesis-20200730/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-are-plants-green-to-reduc...
- zaarn 6y ago
  Purple is both red and blue, both from the steepest parts of the spectrum. The green part of the spectrum is literally nowhere near that. And again, organisms with purple chlorophyll have and continue to exist, so it's not like it's impossible or produces very incompetitive lifeforms.
  - tantalor 6y ago
    See discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23998793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23998793
jcims 6y ago
I think the shittier design is that it hasn't figured out a way to develop intelligence without hubris.
carapace 6y ago
> optimize For what? Along what metrics? To what end? Evolution has no purpose. There's nothing to optimize for.
- cee_el123 6y ago
  it does tend to optimise for survivability - not that it consciously intends to - but because survivability leads to survival, and survival in combination with lucky mutations leads to developing more survivability... and so on
  - carapace 6y ago
    I know what you're saying, I think, but there's a subtle point that often gets overlooked. There's no "it" there in evolution. Life is a chemical tautology, a molecular fever dream sandwiched between hard vacuum and magma, between cold sky and Sun. There is no purpose or goal, so there can be no optimization. I think it was Alan Watts, "The way the oceans ways, the Universe peoples." Since "it" has no goals, "it" can't optimize for anything, even survivability. That just happens. - - - - It's a matter of wonder that this apparently meaningless gyration of agitated molecules gives rise evidently to teleological entities, you and me friend, who can have goals. The question before us is can we optimize for survivability, if that is our goal, or, if not, harmonize our goals with that goal (for those who do not shall surely perish, eh? Or do we take that on faith?) How do you know what will work? It seems naive to me to criticize the only example we have, that has been successful so far for nearly four billion years and counting.

by zaarn 6y ago

tantalor 6y ago

> Shitty design ... Chlorophyll is immensely inefficient A simpler explanation is chlorophyll is balancing energy production vs. safety. Instead, for a safe, steady energy output, the pigments of the photosystem had to be very finely tuned in a certain way. The pigments needed to absorb light at similar wavelengths to reduce the internal noise. But they also needed to absorb light at different rates to buffer against the external noise caused by swings in light intensity. The best light for the pigments to absorb, then, was in the steepest parts of the intensity curve for the solar spectrum — the red and blue parts of the spectrum. https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-are-plants-green-to-reduce-the-noise-in-photosynthesis-20200730/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-are-plants-green-to-reduc...

zaarn 6y ago
Purple is both red and blue, both from the steepest parts of the spectrum. The green part of the spectrum is literally nowhere near that. And again, organisms with purple chlorophyll have and continue to exist, so it's not like it's impossible or produces very incompetitive lifeforms.
- tantalor 6y ago
  See discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23998793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23998793

jcims 6y ago

I think the shittier design is that it hasn't figured out a way to develop intelligence without hubris.

carapace 6y ago

> optimize For what? Along what metrics? To what end? Evolution has no purpose. There's nothing to optimize for.

cee_el123 6y ago
it does tend to optimise for survivability - not that it consciously intends to - but because survivability leads to survival, and survival in combination with lucky mutations leads to developing more survivability... and so on
- carapace 6y ago
  I know what you're saying, I think, but there's a subtle point that often gets overlooked. There's no "it" there in evolution. Life is a chemical tautology, a molecular fever dream sandwiched between hard vacuum and magma, between cold sky and Sun. There is no purpose or goal, so there can be no optimization. I think it was Alan Watts, "The way the oceans ways, the Universe peoples." Since "it" has no goals, "it" can't optimize for anything, even survivability. That just happens. - - - - It's a matter of wonder that this apparently meaningless gyration of agitated molecules gives rise evidently to teleological entities, you and me friend, who can have goals. The question before us is can we optimize for survivability, if that is our goal, or, if not, harmonize our goals with that goal (for those who do not shall surely perish, eh? Or do we take that on faith?) How do you know what will work? It seems naive to me to criticize the only example we have, that has been successful so far for nearly four billion years and counting.