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I'm slightly bugged by "desire" type language because it does actually cause problems in how laymen think about evolution. It's not uncommon to hear them make t

I'm slightly bugged by "desire" type language because it does actually cause problems in how laymen think about evolution. It's not uncommon to hear them make the mistake of thinking evolution will "think ahead". But the bigger problem I have with it is the "anything we do ... bacteria will eventually discover". Some problems are just very difficult to evolve around, and it's hard to predict what they'll be even if you have a complete working knowledge of an organism's genome and biological workings. If the problem space doesn't contain a solution that can be climbed toward without sacrificing fitness in the short term, it is unlikely that it will ever be found by evolution. Evolution is actually a really crappy optimization algorithm. The reason it has worked so well is not that it is so effective, but because it's the only game in town. It took evolution billions of years to make machines that can run 60 miles per hour. It took humans a few thousand years to create machines that run about 12 times that fast. Bacteria work on a faster time scale than animals in terms of evolution, but five orders of magnitude? Somehow, I think we'll win in the long run.

icambron 13y ago
Or to put it a different way: extinction happens all the time. Entire branches of evolution are lost to its inability to adjust to rapid change. That bacteria evolve doesn't mean we can't beat them.
JumpCrisscross 13y ago
"If the problem space doesn't contain a solution that can be climbed toward without sacrificing fitness in the short term, it is unlikely that it will ever be found by evolution." This is a stunning visual - thank you. I see a multi-dimensional space of possible organism "configurations". Each dimension is a set of related alleles, spaced by the amount of energy it would take to shift from one to the other, i.e. the likelihood of switching that allele independently. Angles between dimensions indicate correlation, or more fundamentally the cost of holding similarly positioned alleles simultaneously. Each organism is a point in that space with a species being a cloud. When one shines a "light", i.e. an antibiotic, on the space it lights up with warmer colours signifying configurations which take less energy for the organism to survive as (are more favourable) and cooler colours denoting deadlier configurations. Thus, antibiotics become a game of chess. Humans try to box the organism into coolly coloured regions. That way, the amount of energy it would take to "tunnel" through the wall would be high. The organism, on the other hand, is trying to find warm "tunnels" by which to escape regions which are being boxed in. Advantage to the organism is it can build new dimensions.
thwarted 13y ago
It took evolution billions of years to make machines that can run 60 miles per hour. It took humans a few thousand years to create machines that run about 12 times that fast. It took evolution billions of years to make machines that could make machines that run about 700 miles per hours.
resu_nimda 13y ago
Evolution is actually a really crappy optimization algorithm. The reason it has worked so well is not that it is so effective, but because it's the only game in town. It took evolution billions of years to make machines that can run 60 miles per hour. You come off as being dismissive of the power and beauty of evolution, although I don't think that's your intent. Evolution assembled the most complex system known to exist, starting from a handful of molecules, without any "thought" or "reasoning." The entire concept/illusion of life and consciousness was fabricated out of simple natural elements and physical processes. Amazing. Sure, once all of that has been put in place, it's trivial to expand upon. I'm sure you agree, I just like to take any opportunity to point this out. :)
- darkmighty 13y ago
  Evolution is a very generalized but very slow optimization algorithm, actually, and it's velocity is sort of inherently connected to the population size and lifespan, meaning it has to make trade-offs, it is limited. But because it's generic that means it can evolve faster mechanisms. I like to think of intelligence as this faster mechanism -- it came about because for living beings with a large lifespan evolving through natural barriers takes too long, so that this more time-localized procedure is needed.
- revelation 13y ago
  I guess thats the curse of programming. We all have a very clear understanding of how very very simple logic gates give rise to systems of infinite complexity. It's a recurring pattern. SAT, the NP-complete problem, is at first glance a ridiculously simple task, yet solving it means being able to solve all other problems. When designing a language or a machine, it is very very simple to accidentally make it Turing compatible, the barrier is just so low, despite the reward being.. everything.
- mistercow 13y ago
  Sure, but the main power and beauty of evolution is a direct result of the fact that it is an optimization algorithm. The fact that such an algorithm could just happen is astounding (although possibly inevitable, if universes are common and varied). If I come across as cynical about this, it's a response to the way evolution as a process has been fetishized by people who don't understand it. People look at the application of evolutionary algorithms to solving difficult problems and conclude that evolution is smarter than humans. But evolution's power really comes from its dumbness. It works without understanding the problem, and so it can be used to solve problems we don't understand very well. But when we learn how to model a problem intelligently, we're generally able to crush the results of evolution.
stcredzero 13y ago
> Evolution is actually a really crappy optimization algorithm...Bacteria work on a faster time scale than animals in terms of evolution, but five orders of magnitude? Somehow, I think we'll win in the long run. However, it's one that doesn't need an agency to implement it. It just happens. A lot. Especially in the case of bacteria. You have a slow, crappy algorithm, but it's constantly running relentlessly in parallel in many trillions of instances. It doesn't need human attention. It doesn't need investment. It doesn't need society to be aware of its importance. On the other hand, progress in antibiotics needs all of the above. If one of those things flags a bit, bacteria gain the upper hand. This is the problem.

icambron 13y ago

Or to put it a different way: extinction happens all the time. Entire branches of evolution are lost to its inability to adjust to rapid change. That bacteria evolve doesn't mean we can't beat them.

JumpCrisscross 13y ago

"If the problem space doesn't contain a solution that can be climbed toward without sacrificing fitness in the short term, it is unlikely that it will ever be found by evolution." This is a stunning visual - thank you. I see a multi-dimensional space of possible organism "configurations". Each dimension is a set of related alleles, spaced by the amount of energy it would take to shift from one to the other, i.e. the likelihood of switching that allele independently. Angles between dimensions indicate correlation, or more fundamentally the cost of holding similarly positioned alleles simultaneously. Each organism is a point in that space with a species being a cloud. When one shines a "light", i.e. an antibiotic, on the space it lights up with warmer colours signifying configurations which take less energy for the organism to survive as (are more favourable) and cooler colours denoting deadlier configurations. Thus, antibiotics become a game of chess. Humans try to box the organism into coolly coloured regions. That way, the amount of energy it would take to "tunnel" through the wall would be high. The organism, on the other hand, is trying to find warm "tunnels" by which to escape regions which are being boxed in. Advantage to the organism is it can build new dimensions.

thwarted 13y ago

It took evolution billions of years to make machines that can run 60 miles per hour. It took humans a few thousand years to create machines that run about 12 times that fast. It took evolution billions of years to make machines that could make machines that run about 700 miles per hours.

resu_nimda 13y ago

Evolution is actually a really crappy optimization algorithm. The reason it has worked so well is not that it is so effective, but because it's the only game in town. It took evolution billions of years to make machines that can run 60 miles per hour. You come off as being dismissive of the power and beauty of evolution, although I don't think that's your intent. Evolution assembled the most complex system known to exist, starting from a handful of molecules, without any "thought" or "reasoning." The entire concept/illusion of life and consciousness was fabricated out of simple natural elements and physical processes. Amazing. Sure, once all of that has been put in place, it's trivial to expand upon. I'm sure you agree, I just like to take any opportunity to point this out. :)

darkmighty 13y ago
Evolution is a very generalized but very slow optimization algorithm, actually, and it's velocity is sort of inherently connected to the population size and lifespan, meaning it has to make trade-offs, it is limited. But because it's generic that means it can evolve faster mechanisms. I like to think of intelligence as this faster mechanism -- it came about because for living beings with a large lifespan evolving through natural barriers takes too long, so that this more time-localized procedure is needed.
revelation 13y ago
I guess thats the curse of programming. We all have a very clear understanding of how very very simple logic gates give rise to systems of infinite complexity. It's a recurring pattern. SAT, the NP-complete problem, is at first glance a ridiculously simple task, yet solving it means being able to solve all other problems. When designing a language or a machine, it is very very simple to accidentally make it Turing compatible, the barrier is just so low, despite the reward being.. everything.
mistercow 13y ago
Sure, but the main power and beauty of evolution is a direct result of the fact that it is an optimization algorithm. The fact that such an algorithm could just happen is astounding (although possibly inevitable, if universes are common and varied). If I come across as cynical about this, it's a response to the way evolution as a process has been fetishized by people who don't understand it. People look at the application of evolutionary algorithms to solving difficult problems and conclude that evolution is smarter than humans. But evolution's power really comes from its dumbness. It works without understanding the problem, and so it can be used to solve problems we don't understand very well. But when we learn how to model a problem intelligently, we're generally able to crush the results of evolution.

stcredzero 13y ago

> Evolution is actually a really crappy optimization algorithm...Bacteria work on a faster time scale than animals in terms of evolution, but five orders of magnitude? Somehow, I think we'll win in the long run. However, it's one that doesn't need an agency to implement it. It just happens. A lot. Especially in the case of bacteria. You have a slow, crappy algorithm, but it's constantly running relentlessly in parallel in many trillions of instances. It doesn't need human attention. It doesn't need investment. It doesn't need society to be aware of its importance. On the other hand, progress in antibiotics needs all of the above. If one of those things flags a bit, bacteria gain the upper hand. This is the problem.