4 ms·

Great question! It maybe can be, but what is the maxima that is being solved for exactly? There are usually tradeoffs, the most common and prevalent is our bo

Great question! It maybe can be, but what is the maxima that is being solved for exactly? There are usually tradeoffs, the most common and prevalent is our body's immune response. If it's under-active, we might die from an infection. If it's over-active, we get diabetes, lupus, chron's, and (probably) lots of mental health disorders. So, it's a bit context dependent, and definitely dependent on other mutations that have occurred in other parts of your DNA. Most complex diseases are "polygenic", meaning it's a culmination of quite a few factors that would contribute to a specific good or bad outcome. So, yes, it could be modeled as a sort very context dependent with a lot of highly correlated non-independent covariates. We do use quite a lot of statistical and ML methods to understand the genome (I work in statistical genetics), but the complexity of biology has so far proved a tough nut to crack.

yuretz 2mo ago
Great answer! Thank you!
codethief 2mo ago
> It maybe can be, but what is the maxima that is being solved for exactly? Survival rate/reproduction rate/rate of genes being spread?
- PetitPrince 2mo ago
  I think you're correct, but only if you add "for a given environment". It's good to develop the ability to store super efficiently fat when you're a Pacific Islander and food is scarce, but this advantageous trait becomes a liability with modern and plentiful (junk) food. see thrify gene hypothesis; I know it's not a good explanatory theory but it's a good illustration of my point
  - codethief 2mo ago
    Sure, the form of the function being maximized will usually depend on the environment.
    - i_love_limes 2mo ago
      That was kind of my initial point... there are far too many permutations that alter what you want to maximise to consider this as a good option right now. Environment, gene-environment interactions, epigenetics, polygenecity, pleiotropy, etc, etc.

yuretz 2mo ago

Great answer! Thank you!

codethief 2mo ago

> It maybe can be, but what is the maxima that is being solved for exactly? Survival rate/reproduction rate/rate of genes being spread?

PetitPrince 2mo ago
I think you're correct, but only if you add "for a given environment". It's good to develop the ability to store super efficiently fat when you're a Pacific Islander and food is scarce, but this advantageous trait becomes a liability with modern and plentiful (junk) food. see thrify gene hypothesis; I know it's not a good explanatory theory but it's a good illustration of my point
- codethief 2mo ago
  Sure, the form of the function being maximized will usually depend on the environment.
  - i_love_limes 2mo ago
    That was kind of my initial point... there are far too many permutations that alter what you want to maximise to consider this as a good option right now. Environment, gene-environment interactions, epigenetics, polygenecity, pleiotropy, etc, etc.