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Nothing about evolution feels sensible or right: and the vast majority of people have severe misunderstandings about how it works (for example the Darwin awards
by robocat 18d ago
Nothing about evolution feels sensible or right: and the vast majority of people have severe misunderstandings about how it works (for example the Darwin awards are highly misleading). Even science reporting is often highly misleading[0]. Intuition is not trustworthy for this topic, and neither is our ambient knowledge.
and one group ate their dead relatives’ brains at funerals so consistently that they gave themselves a mad cow type disease called kuru, which killed a large percentage of their population and then, within a few generations, evolved a genetic mutation[1] that protects against it, one of the fastest cases of natural selection ever documented in humans
Referencing the Wikipedia article on kuru which references this paper: https://researchonline.lshtm.ac.uk/id/eprint/4514/1/nejmoa0809716.pdf https://researchonline.lshtm.ac.uk/id/eprint/4514/1/nejmoa08...
The suggested evolution is:
* there is one ancestor with a gene that protects against kuru.
* children and mothers without that ancestor often die from kuru
* children of that ancestor have a much higher chance of survival
* eventually everyone is a child of that ancestor
* any children of that ancestor that didn't get the protective gene also eventually die out
The gene is selected for. There are no population effects.
The key part in the paper is where they mention adult men with the gene, because they are measuring the counterfactual of the many males that died because they didn't have that gene (males that ate brains as young kids but then died because they didn't have the gene from that ancestor).
The paper is hard to understand in part because of the confounding effects of males not eating the brains. Plus the confounder of stopping cannibalism in 1960.
The idea of "Group selection" is fundamentally wrong - regardless of how sensible the belief feels. Anybody using the words "group selection" is indicating their belief system, and they usually then have biased narratives to 'support' their belief.
[0] horrifically incorrect sciencedaily link in Wikipedia.
[1] We don't fucking evolve genetic mutations
- HarHarVeryFunny 18d agoFundamentally evolution is selecting for genes, not individuals, and there is no 1:1 relationship between genes and individuals. Let's say that everyone has a skin color gene that makes them either red or blue. And a new predator turns up that only eats blue things. To you this is a tale about individuals, while it seems that an equally valid, and frankly preferable, view is this this isn't about individuals - it's about being red or blue and is a species level effect.
- hermitcrab 18d agoHave you studied evolution, or is this your own theory?
- HarHarVeryFunny 18d agoIf individuals share some genetics, and evolutionary selection pressures act on genetics, then it follows, right ?
- hermitcrab 18d agoI don't think so. But it isn't my area of expertise.
- robocat 18d agoNot even close. Evolutionary selection pressures don't usually act directly on genetics. Perhaps you are incorrectly attempting to rely on intuition, and over-simplistic phrases like selection pressures. Intuition is incredibly misleading with evolution. Your pink and blue example is actually a great model to work from. Think about the genes and the expression of those genes, and then think about what is being selected if all the blue animals are eaten. Or think about what would happen if there was a mountain range, and pink animals were eaten on one side and blue ones were eaten on the other side. Or think about what if one of the blue fathers has pink polka dots that gave it a 10% better chance of survival. Always concentrate on watching that genes are passed on by reproduction - getting eaten doesn't have to be a problem if reproduction has already occurred (unless parental investment is needed or you get complicated like kin selection). I am not a biologist. But 'The Selfish Gene' is one of my favourite books because of the concepts within. Unfortunately I think Dawkins went off the deep end later (with what I thought was religious zeal). The Extended Phenotype is even harder to read, but also worthwhile. It is a fun topic because many phrases about evolution seem misleadingly about death rather than reproduction. And the meaning of the word evolution is absolutely twisted in everyday conversation. Ignoring the troubles with bible bashers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_of_the_fittest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_of_the_fittest - "fittest" has an unobvious meaning.