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Scientists predict and witness evolution in a 30-year marine snail experiment
- rgbswan 2y ago[flagged]
- mdp2021 2y agoExplain what you tried to say.
- rgbswan 2y agoLate (in their thirties) bloomers facing the question of their adequacy, sociability, fuckability, mental stability, resilience, physical fitness, cognitive abilities and of course liquidity will gain motivation and hope from the info in the title.
- mosaic360 2y ago[flagged]
- sigzero 2y agoHe is talking about what most people do, MACRO evolution or one species becoming another. That doesn't happen. Micro evolution does happen and this was just observing that (finally).
- AlexandrB 2y agoThis is a distinction without difference. I could go on a "micro" trip to the corner store or a "macro" trip to the other side of the world. All that changes is the timescales required. There are swathes of evidence for """macro""" evolution, but the timescales involved are tens of thousands or millions of years. Can't run a controlled experiment on that timescale.
- treyd 2y ago> MACRO evolution or one species becoming another. That doesn't happen. Can you elaborate on what you mean by this?
- bena 2y agoWhat they mean is that since another argument is shot down, they have to move the goalposts and change the definition of what they actually wanted. You show one species becoming another, they’ll complain about how it was done. Or how long it took, etc. For instance, ring species are pretty good evidence of speciation. But that’s not good enough because all those animals exist right now.
- mdp2021 2y ago> another argument is shot down, they have to move the goalposts and change the definition of what they actually wanted Actually, a version of that is good part of the (scientific) game. Of course you have to criticize the theory, the experiments etc. Only, it has to be done in good faith - to look for the truth, not to defend a position. The difference between Newton and Bohr, and Freud and Marx (to go for classical examples), is subtle, not gross. There is an entire Science, a whole field, about that.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- shellfishgene 2y ago"MACRO evolution or one species becoming another" That's a weird way of thinking about it. What actually happens is that one species splits into two, when two populations of the species are separated for long enough to make them incapable of interbreeding.
- unnamed76ri 2y agoThe article frequently interchanges the terms evolution and adaptation as if they were the same thing. The snails adapted and were able to do so by expressing genes they already had.
- tejohnso 2y agoThe paper uses the term "adaptive evolution", so using the words interchangeably seems almost encouraged, definitely understandable.
- HPsquared 2y agoEpigenetic changes (build system and preprocessor) can move a lot faster than genetic changes (C code).
- j7ake 2y agoCan you elaborate on your parentheses more? Not sure why epigenetics is to genetics as build system is to C code. I was thinking more like genetics is the code base, epigenetics are like decorators that can modify function without changing the behavior without changing code.
- HPsquared 2y agoEpigenetics is about regulating gene expression. That is, controlling which of the many genes in the organism's genome actually get "printed out" into actual proteins in a given situation). Every cell, after all, contains the entire DNA library of the organism, but not every cell needs all of those proteins, and they must not all simply be made into proteins constantly. It's a little bit like preprocessor directives ("if we're on x86, compile this bit; if we're on ARM, compile that bit"). Transcription and translation turns DNA into protein, in my analogy this is the compilation step.
- setopt 2y agoI like the build system analogy for the epigenetics, it is quite apt since the mechanism is to “turn and off features that are already in the code base”. Not sure I get the preprocessor analogy though. Unless you mean specifically changing some #define constants and not stuff like preprocessor macros?
- utkarsh858 2y agoNice, micro evolution got demonstrated. Now it's time to show macro-evolution/speciation to actually observe emergence of new species.
- FrustratedMonky 2y agoThis took 30 years. For Macro, isn't it just longer. 300 years, 3000 years. How would that be done in a lab to the satisfaction of anybody that would deny evolution to begin with. There is no experiment that will satisfy people of this because they don't want to know.
- zamadatix 2y agoRunning an experiments isn't just about proving others wrong, it's also about adding confidence to current understandings and finding new details that might have been overlooked so far. Even as one who considers evolution a very solidly shown mechanism I'd like to see something like this be a bit of a "pitch drop experiment" equivalent where we run it as long as possible. Partially for the novelty, partially to see what the lab conditions result in over an extended period that we might not have intended, and partially to try and shore up even more support for what we think we're certain of. It'd also be nice to control for a few other considerations in the experiment... but I'll take what I can get on something so long running :).
- Amezarak 2y agoDarwin himself noted in the Origin of Species that there is not really any such thing as a "species." It is a poor abstraction we use to describe a group of closely related organisms, but the classifications are necessarily arbitrary and the lines are fuzzy. To visualize this more clearly, imagine that we resurrected every organism that ever lived. It would be easy to say that, say, your cat is felis catus, and so was his father, but scanning back through say, 2^32 ancestors, it would be impossible to point to any ancestor n, compare it with ancestor n + 1, and say this is one species, and that another. Of course, hybridization events make the picture even more complicated. This problem was of course already known at the time, and nothing has changed since, because of the nature of the underlying biological reality. Thus, there is no distinction at all between "microevolution" and "macroevolution".
- addicted 2y ago[flagged]
- OrvalWintermute 2y agouncivil language to match the weakness of a position :) Adaptation != Evolution The article demonstrated adaptation
- sigzero 2y agoMICRO evolution. Never was in question but cool to see it observable.
- sethammons 2y agoWhat is the difference besides timescales?
- benjamaan 2y ago[flagged]
- zerhant 2y agoThe article describes how a strong variation of the snail species "evolved" to a weak, degenerate version of the same species due to lack of predators. Could it have been lack of food as well? Humans got taller after having wide access to milk etc. How did they control the experiment, given that it was on a rock in the ocean? Could the smaller variation have come from somewhere else? Experiments like this one will not turn skeptics into even micro evolution believers.
- shellfishgene 2y agoA "weak, degenerate" version? It's just better adapted to an environment without crabs and strong wave action.
- LegibleCrimson3 2y agoI'm a little shocked at the number of creationists on here. I thought it was a joke at first. Does this happen for every submission about evolution? Do we have young Earth creationists doing the same thing on posts about Earth's distant past as well?
- beardyw 2y agoTwo long comments by the same person as far as I can see.
- zamadatix 2y agoThe number of creationists here is probably higher than you think but also keep in mind a small single digit percentage that feels strongly about something would more than enough to create the number of comments you see in the thread. E.g. if you posed the question of whether animals have evolved by natural selection to a group of 1000 biologists you may still well end up with a handful of comments denying it for creationism vs the majority not really commenting much because they consider it a mundane question despite supporting evolution fully. I'll also add creating a throwaway account to mention you thought other comments were jokes doesn't feel in particularly good taste, regardless of how surprised you were about it. Just asking how many here hold different creationist views suffices to start the discussion.
- LegibleCrimson3 2y agoThat's a fair enough point. A minority with more fervently held opinions is more likely to voice them. I am mostly surprised because of where we are. The hacker mindset is far more compatible with evolution than creationism, so I'd expect vanishingly few people who consider themselves hackers to be creationists. Creationism is kind of an antithesis of intellectual curiosity (even from somebody who has read lots of creationist philosophy and apologetics; there's always a logical leap of faith to God). Not all new accounts are throwaways. I did create an account for this purpose, but not to avoid association with any main identity (I habitually delete or permanently abandon social media accounts on a regular basis, when I feel that my behavior is becoming too addictive, to enforce a break on myself). I did actually think the comments were jokes at first. I took the first one I saw as sarcasm. I didn't think the microevolution/macroevolution argument was still seriously peddled around. The last time I saw that one was in a Chick Tract, but I don't tend to see evolution discussed in places where creationists hang out often. And though I am curious about the numbers, I'm also alarmed and dismayed that such intellectually dishonest positions are being seriously posited here, and I don't think they deserve to be treated as neutral and valid positions. They are offensive and extremist, and in many cases, actively harmful and disruptive. Almost every comment here is directly or indirectly debating the existence of macroevolution as a result.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]