16 ms·

Misconceptions about Evolution

102 points by alphanumeric0 12y ago

charlieflowers 12y ago
I recently read some HN posts about research to stop aging. Then this. Makes me curious -- does anyone do research involving some kind of organism with very short generation times, whereby the experimenters attempt to only allow the oldest individuals to reproduce? The idea would be to apply "artificial selection" that optimizes for longevity. Does anyone know of any research similar to this being done?
api 12y ago
My favorite is "survival of the fittest" -- a catch phrase so prone to misinterpretation and so oversimplified that it's basically wrong.
- Retric 12y ago
  IMO, "survival is fitness" is a much better phrase. The original form "survival of the fittest" is basically a tautology, but it's rarely taken a such. Even better people don't think of survival as a guarantee, at the individual level it’s fairly random, but people can easily see that some things help or hurt those odds.
  - cbd1984 12y ago
    "Survival of the fittest" is only a tautology if you interpret it to be one, which is pointless, so people tend not to.
    - griffinmahon 12y ago
      People tend not to interpret things in pointless ways because it's pointless. #taut
- talideon 12y ago
  I've always felt that 'survival of the fit enough' is closer to the intended meaning.
  - api 12y ago
    "Survival of some set of the fit" is my favorite.
    - ChrisGranger 12y ago
      I like "reproduction of the adequate."
      - api 12y ago
        That's great. Really accurate. Also explains why we're all here. :P
- Kiro 12y ago
  What's wrong with it? Or how do people misinterpret it?
  - IkmoIkmo 12y ago
    Two main ideas I think people may get wrong. One is that there needs to be survival of an individual (not dying), while it rather refers to survival of a species (not going extinct). This survival thus has little to do with actual life or death, rather it has to do with reproduction. For example a one-day-fly is, generally spoken, in a terrible situation when it comes to survival, it's life/death perspective is awful, just one day. But it survives as a species because its able to reproduce so rapidly that even a short life doesn't make the species go extinct. Evolution doesn't care for survival of an individual as long as that individual manages to reproduce before it does. The second is that there is somehow some 'fitness' variable, the better the more you survive. So a lion would be more fit than say a fly because it's stronger. But this too refers to a different concept, which is that 'fit' is in relation to the environment. A fly is quite fit to live in many environments over long periods of time, whereas a lion isn't fit for many environments and will have trouble surviving say changes in climate and habitat. Fitness is thus purely in relation to its environment. So really 'survival of the fittest' is more like 'species fit for the environment will survive long enough to reproduce', or something to that effect. From this then originates the argument that random mutations of a species will create different offspring that is more or less fit for the environment, and those more fit will survive, those less fit will not. That is survival of the fittest. And again, when I refer to survive, I mean the species, on the basis that when individuals of a species are fit for their environment, they have a good chance of reproducing enough offspring before death preventing the species from going extinct.
    - Retra 12y ago
      >Evolution doesn't care for survival of an individual as long as that individual manages to reproduce before it does. Evolution doesn't care ever, regardless of whether you reproduce or not. You can evolve to the point of extinction just fine.
  - ChrisGranger 12y ago
- weeksie 12y ago
  The big problem lies in misunderstanding what fitness is. Fitness _only_ means surviving long enough to reproduce (and doing it). A genetically fit organism is one that reproduces. To be more fit the organism must reproduce more than others in its species. Conflating fitness with so-called desirable traits is what I most often see.
maskedinvader 12y ago
The biggest misconception in most people (at least from my perspective from conversations involving evolution) is what constitutes a scientific theory, By definition from [1] , "A scientific theory is a series of statements about the causal elements for observed phenomena. A critical component of a scientific theory is that it provides explanations and predictions that can be tested. ". People I speak to think its just a theory, hence a guess, a hunch, and not a fact, not proven etc, where as its actually the opposite of that, i.e we can test the predictions it makes, its as close to being proven as anything can be. If people can simply recognize the definition I bet more people can learn and accept Evolution. [2] explains this better. [1]: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Scientific_theory http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Scientific_theory [2]: http://www.notjustatheory.com/ http://www.notjustatheory.com/
- sz4kerto 12y ago
  I keep telling these people that we have things like number theory as well that's as hard science as it can get :) - and it's still a theory. I'm not sure how 'strong' is the word 'theory' in English though, but in my mother tongue it definitely has the feeling of being a 'guess'.
  - ashark 12y ago
    In informal English communication "theory" is a synonym for "hypothesis". It's also far more commonly used in everyday communication than hypothesis, which looks/sounds more formal or technical.
    - hsitz 12y ago
      This is mostly the problem, I think. In this sense, both 'theory' and 'hypothesis' are antonyms of 'fact'. Leads directly to uninformed people saying that evolution hasn't been established as a fact, or that it's not "true".
  - Ar-Curunir 12y ago
    Mathematics is not a science, and number 'theory' is not theory as meant in the sciences. Unlike in science, where enough evidence for a particular hypothesis makes it generally believed to be true, in math empirical evidence is not and will never be enough to classify a statement as true.
marcelsalathe 12y ago
I just recently published a book called "Nature, in Code" [https://leanpub.com/natureincode https://leanpub.com/natureincode] that is largely about Evolution - explained by implementing key concepts in JavaScript. It is also a beginner's book for people to learn programming. From a personal perspective, I've always understood a concept much better once I implemented it in code. Because of that, I started teaching population genetics primarily as a computer lab class. This book is an attempt to be more broad (in terms of subject, and reach).
organsnyder 12y ago
Unfortunately, I'm afraid that the berkeley.edu domain alone will be enough to raise the hackles of the people that really need to read this. My employer has a blog series that covers many of these issues with skeptical Christians as the intended audience: http://biologos.org/blog/series/evolution-basics http://biologos.org/blog/series/evolution-basics
- WillNotDownvote 12y ago
  Lots of people need to read it, including many who consider themselves scientifically literate. Evolution is a very widely misunderstood field, to the extent that many people with biology degrees harbor a number of misconceptions about it.
  - eatonphil 12y ago
    Then how can we expect anyone else to understand it? If this is the case, why should anyone even try? I'm not saying you're wrong, it just begs the question: "If the people who have undergone training to be prepared in this field can not understand it correctly, why should I (who am not remotely related to the field) understand it correctly or even try to?"
    - beeworker 12y ago
      sago hits the nail on the head to answer the "why". When the People have any sort of influence at all, everything becomes politicized, and those who don't want the system to crumble insist that all voters be educated in an ever-increasing set of things in order to vote sanely about them. To question the need to learn a particular thing that's already been politicized like evolution is to question democracy itself.
    - sago 12y ago
      People with CS degrees can still harbour misconceptions about programming or computers. That doesn't mean there is no way to understand computer science, nor no reason to try. In fact, in an ideal world, evolution wouldn't be an important thing for most people to understand. It is disproportionately important because it is the point of attack of fundamentalists against scientific modernity, and a naive view of evolution can leave people susceptible to their propaganda, and therefore more likely to politically oppose science.
mark-r 12y ago
The article itself contains a misconception. Genetic variation doesn't always come from random mutation. Firstly, there may already be genes in the population that just have never been combined yet. Secondly, DNA can integrated from the environment under the right conditions. The amount of human DNA that is estimated to originate from viruses is astounding. And bacteria have been known to develop antibiotic resistance by taking it from unrelated bacteria that already have resistance.
- sago 12y ago
  > Genetic variation doesn't always come from random mutation. The article didn't imply it did. It says mutation generates genetic variation, not that all genetic variation is generated by mutation. A -> B does not imply B -> A
  - mark-r 12y ago
    I was speaking specifically of this line: > That genetic variation is generated by random mutation — a process that is unaffected by what organisms in the population want or what they are "trying" to do. I have nothing against the second half of that sentence. Perhaps a better explanation was available elsewhere in the article and I missed it. The link originally went to the middle of the page instead of the beginning, so I wasn't taking it in order.
    - sago 12y ago
      Ah, sorry. Earlier on it gave the version I was responding to. Still I think in science it is better to not assume universal qualifiers unless they are explicit.
cubano 12y ago
From my experience, it seems that the biggest misconception about Evolution is that species evolve through some sort of conscious decision-making process, and not really by natural selection and random mutation. For example, I often hear that a big step in the primate-to-human evolution was when one of our common ancestors "left the trees and started walking bipedally", implying to me at least, that it was some sort of "hey, maybe we should try this today" decision made by an individual to attempt it. It wasn't. What really happened was that a mutation in the population allowed one individual the ability to walk a bit more upright, and this conferred a special ability for this individual to gather more food or have more offspring, thus propagating the mutated gene(s). I watch the pop-sci channels regularly, and even they fall victim to this anthropomorphic trap about species "evolving-by-choice". [edit] I just read this in the OP just below where I stopped... MISCONCEPTION: Natural selection involves organisms trying to adapt.
- astrodust 12y ago
  It's more subtle than that. For example, if walking enabled you to gather more food, then anything that helps you walk better confers an advantage. If food was in trees, walking would be useless. The best hypothesis for what triggered this change was a shift in climate where trees became less productive and thinned out more, meaning you often had to move quickly from one tree to another on the ground. Anything that enabled you to hustle faster like that gave you a big advantage. With natural selection you do not have any choices. You survive or you die.
  - ars 12y ago
    > for what triggered this change You are doing it too. A change is not triggered by anything - you are talking as if there is some latent change waiting to be activated.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - tomrod 12y ago
      It was. The change was a shift in the tree population due to a latent factor; this latent factor is what resulted in walker-better-groups to outcompete tree-clinging-groups. There is no anthropomorphizing here; it's simply semantics.
jfb 12y ago
This is a good page, but one thing it doesn't touch on (presumably because of the intended audience) is the fact that an understanding of genetics is necessary but insufficient to explain speciation, variation in heritable traits, much of modern biology. Epigenetics is tremendously important, and a reductivist use of genetics via metaphor is what gets people talking about a "gene for X". It ends up, IMO, causing more harm than good.
senthil_rajasek 12y ago
I highly recommend Richard Dawkins' 1991 Royal Institution Christmas lectures. Dawkins is also an evolutionary biologist. http://www.richannel.org/christmas-lectures/1991/richard-dawkins http://www.richannel.org/christmas-lectures/1991/richard-daw...
Someone1234 12y ago
First thing I did was search this article for "gene expression." Had nothing. I think it is safe to say that this article is behind our current understanding about "evolution" and is in fact spreading some new myths as a direct result. In the last five or so years it has become more and more clear, that while a mother cannot alter her unborn child's DNA, the mother's environment can cause different gene's within the child's DNA to be activated or deactivated. So our traditional understanding about "random mutations" and "survival of the fittest" being the primary means by which organisms change or evolve looks to be a gross oversimplification. Since discovering gene expression, the environment may very well shape how the offspring's DNA is used. There are tens of studies on this, but the vast majority since 2010 (so literally last five years). But the results they're providing give us an entire new avenue to look down and the impact on our understanding of evolution likely needs to shift as a result. Keep in mind nobody is suggesting people (or animals) have direct control over gene expression, in fact our understanding of how it works is still undeveloped. This paper covers the topic briefly [PDF]: "Evolution of Gene Expression" http://www.umich.edu/~pwlab/Wittkopp%20et%20al%20reprints/Principles_of_Evolution_V-7.pdf http://www.umich.edu/~pwlab/Wittkopp%20et%20al%20reprints/Pr...
- redblacktree 12y ago
  The field is called "epigenetics," correct?
  - Someone1234 12y ago
    Yes but "transgenerational epigenetics" as it is sometimes known has a lot of baggage (and bad ideas). In fact if you look at it historically it has a very bad track record. Gene expression is something relatively recent that may shake things up (and the research is looking positive). However it doesn't mean that everything within the field of transgenerational epigenetics is accurate or proven.
tokenadult 12y ago
I have previously read the site kindly submitted for discussion today and have recommended it (here on Hacker News, too, as I recall) before. This site is well worth a read. A comment asks for a recommendation of a book about macroevolution, transformation to new species among descendant organisms, and I can not only recommend two books, but also a free website. The website is 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution,[1] which I have recommended often to readers here on Hacker News. The books are Why Evolution Is True by Jerry Coyne[2] and The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins.[3] Both books are very readable and interesting and well deserve your attention. There are other good recent books about evolution that help fill in the research findings that have occurred since you or I finished our formal schooling.[4] [1] http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ [2] http://www.amazon.com/Why-Evolution-True-Jerry-Coyne/dp/0143116649 http://www.amazon.com/Why-Evolution-True-Jerry-Coyne/dp/0143... [3] http://www.amazon.com/The-Greatest-Show-Earth-Evolution/dp/1416594795/ http://www.amazon.com/The-Greatest-Show-Earth-Evolution/dp/1... [4] http://www.amazon.com/The-Ancestors-Tale-Pilgrimage-Evolution/dp/061861916X/ http://www.amazon.com/The-Ancestors-Tale-Pilgrimage-Evolutio... http://www.amazon.com/Your-Inner-Fish-Journey-3-5-Billion-Year/dp/0307277453/ http://www.amazon.com/Your-Inner-Fish-Journey-3-5-Billion-Ye... http://www.amazon.com/Endless-Forms-Most-Beautiful-Science/dp/0393327795/ http://www.amazon.com/Endless-Forms-Most-Beautiful-Science/d... http://www.amazon.com/Making-Fittest-Ultimate-Forensic-Evolution/dp/0393330516/ http://www.amazon.com/Making-Fittest-Ultimate-Forensic-Evolu...
debacle 12y ago
The biggest confusion I have seen from evolution comes from the causality. "$x evolved $y so it could $z" The reality is much messier and involved a lot of $x dying before one of them was born with something sort of like $y.
snowwrestler 12y ago
A misconception that affects the way people think of both evolution and climate change, is the idea that the study of the past is a necessary and integral part of the theory. That's not necessarily true. Darwin generated his theory of natural selection by observing living species throughout the world, and Mendel developed this theory of genetic inheritance by working with living plants. Biologists studying evolutionary processes today continue to work with living creatures like viruses, bacteria, and insects. Likewise, the theory of global warming was developed by observing current-day phenomena, like the Earth's surface temperature, absorbtion and re-emission of light by certain gases, the rate of CO2 absorbtion by the ocean, the quantity of manmade and natural emissions, solar energy inputs, orbital variations, etc. In both cases, it was this study of the present that created additional questions that could be answered by looking at the past. Evolution gave scientists a new way of organizing and studying the fossil record--that was a result of the theory of evolution, not the cause. Likewise, the study of current climate change raised a whole host of questions that scientists could try to answer about the past. Quite a lot of science works this way. Astrophysics is well known for the Big Bang theory, but the roots of the science are in observing the stars we see today, including our own sun.
- IkmoIkmo 12y ago
  > A misconception that affects the way people think is the idea that the study of the past is a necessary and integral part of the theory. > the roots of the science are in observing the stars we see today I agree with your point, but just made me smile in that we tend to look at a lot of (possibly) long dead stars from our past, too!
  - maskedinvader 12y ago
    >I agree with your point, but just made me smile in that we tend to look at a lot of (possibly) long dead stars from our past, too! haha, well said. Although to take it to an extreme, every observation or study would have to have been by studying the past right from the milliseconds in the past to light years in the past.
  - snowwrestler 12y ago
yugai 12y ago
I think most people have a missconception about the mutation-process, recent research find that it's not very random and environment influences a lot. That is a radical difference from previous evolutionary-biology which was a missconception about the evolution process in itself, the new neo-evolutionary theory is closer to reality. The old evolution-theory is spread more than other scientific theories primarily because it has inferences onto politics, society and religion. It acts as a scientific narrative of life, most often the information spread is inaccurate according to the theory itself, but it's primarily used to justify politics. While the old evolution theory had inferences in beginning of 1900 of anti-race, anti-weakness and anti-homosexuality (nazi, racial-biology) after 1970 the inferences instead change to be pro-race, pro-homosexuality (homosexuality is created by evolution for a purpose instead of a error now). The interesting thing is that while the inferences from evolution theory changed, the theory itself was the same, it's just the politics around it that change. Evolution theory is used to support politics as a contemporary narrative. You can pretty much justify anything by creating a purpose of why evolution wanted something to occur, like "The evolution wants us to create babies and progress technology.", "The evolution theory wants women to be better at hearing baby screams." The new neo-evolution theory instead brings a whole range of new inferences. If the environment can change mutations and progress itself then environment becomes important. Inferences from the old theory was that people were predefined from birth by their biology and this became the basis for many sciences today like psychiatry. When the premises of other sciences become questioned, the sciences need to updated. Without having a discussion about epistemology I think it's impossible to understand the difference from fact, theory, hypothesis and truth. Just because predictions from a theory is true it doesn't mean that the theory is the truth, it just means that it does accurate predictions. Most of scientific theories have been revised and it would be naive to think that neo-evolution theory is the definitive end definition about evolution. If evolution-theory would be distributed without inferences on politics I don't think it would be a hot topic at all
ThomPete 12y ago
The biggest conception about evolution is the question about whether it's true. But evolution is not true or false it's simply just a model to describe how life evolves, the best model we have.
VikingCoder 12y ago
My brain always goes meta when people attack evolution as "just a theory." I start to think to myself - "Well, you don't understand... New theories are formed all of the time, but the ones that are the most fit survive..." And then I realize I'm practically using evolution to explain what a scientific theory is, so that the person can understand that evolution is not "just a theory." D'oh!
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
redeemedfadi 12y ago
I'm curious if there are any HN readers that don't believe that evolution is the best explanation for the current state of life on this planet (other than me). Any IDers (intelligent design) out there?

102 points by alphanumeric0 12y ago

I recently read some HN posts about research to stop aging. Then this. Makes me curious -- does anyone do research involving some kind of organism with very short generation times, whereby the experimenters attempt to only allow the oldest individuals to reproduce? The idea would be to apply "artificial selection" that optimizes for longevity. Does anyone know of any research similar to this being done?

api 12y ago

My favorite is "survival of the fittest" -- a catch phrase so prone to misinterpretation and so oversimplified that it's basically wrong.

Retric 12y ago
IMO, "survival is fitness" is a much better phrase. The original form "survival of the fittest" is basically a tautology, but it's rarely taken a such. Even better people don't think of survival as a guarantee, at the individual level it’s fairly random, but people can easily see that some things help or hurt those odds.
- cbd1984 12y ago
  "Survival of the fittest" is only a tautology if you interpret it to be one, which is pointless, so people tend not to.
  - griffinmahon 12y ago
    People tend not to interpret things in pointless ways because it's pointless. #taut
talideon 12y ago
I've always felt that 'survival of the fit enough' is closer to the intended meaning.
- api 12y ago
  "Survival of some set of the fit" is my favorite.
  - ChrisGranger 12y ago
    I like "reproduction of the adequate."
    - api 12y ago
      That's great. Really accurate. Also explains why we're all here. :P
Kiro 12y ago
What's wrong with it? Or how do people misinterpret it?
- IkmoIkmo 12y ago
  Two main ideas I think people may get wrong. One is that there needs to be survival of an individual (not dying), while it rather refers to survival of a species (not going extinct). This survival thus has little to do with actual life or death, rather it has to do with reproduction. For example a one-day-fly is, generally spoken, in a terrible situation when it comes to survival, it's life/death perspective is awful, just one day. But it survives as a species because its able to reproduce so rapidly that even a short life doesn't make the species go extinct. Evolution doesn't care for survival of an individual as long as that individual manages to reproduce before it does. The second is that there is somehow some 'fitness' variable, the better the more you survive. So a lion would be more fit than say a fly because it's stronger. But this too refers to a different concept, which is that 'fit' is in relation to the environment. A fly is quite fit to live in many environments over long periods of time, whereas a lion isn't fit for many environments and will have trouble surviving say changes in climate and habitat. Fitness is thus purely in relation to its environment. So really 'survival of the fittest' is more like 'species fit for the environment will survive long enough to reproduce', or something to that effect. From this then originates the argument that random mutations of a species will create different offspring that is more or less fit for the environment, and those more fit will survive, those less fit will not. That is survival of the fittest. And again, when I refer to survive, I mean the species, on the basis that when individuals of a species are fit for their environment, they have a good chance of reproducing enough offspring before death preventing the species from going extinct.
  - Retra 12y ago
    >Evolution doesn't care for survival of an individual as long as that individual manages to reproduce before it does. Evolution doesn't care ever, regardless of whether you reproduce or not. You can evolve to the point of extinction just fine.
- ChrisGranger 12y ago
weeksie 12y ago
The big problem lies in misunderstanding what fitness is. Fitness _only_ means surviving long enough to reproduce (and doing it). A genetically fit organism is one that reproduces. To be more fit the organism must reproduce more than others in its species. Conflating fitness with so-called desirable traits is what I most often see.

maskedinvader 12y ago

The biggest misconception in most people (at least from my perspective from conversations involving evolution) is what constitutes a scientific theory, By definition from [1] , "A scientific theory is a series of statements about the causal elements for observed phenomena. A critical component of a scientific theory is that it provides explanations and predictions that can be tested. ". People I speak to think its just a theory, hence a guess, a hunch, and not a fact, not proven etc, where as its actually the opposite of that, i.e we can test the predictions it makes, its as close to being proven as anything can be. If people can simply recognize the definition I bet more people can learn and accept Evolution. [2] explains this better. [1]: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Scientific_theory http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Scientific_theory [2]: http://www.notjustatheory.com/ http://www.notjustatheory.com/

sz4kerto 12y ago
I keep telling these people that we have things like number theory as well that's as hard science as it can get :) - and it's still a theory. I'm not sure how 'strong' is the word 'theory' in English though, but in my mother tongue it definitely has the feeling of being a 'guess'.
- ashark 12y ago
  In informal English communication "theory" is a synonym for "hypothesis". It's also far more commonly used in everyday communication than hypothesis, which looks/sounds more formal or technical.
  - hsitz 12y ago
    This is mostly the problem, I think. In this sense, both 'theory' and 'hypothesis' are antonyms of 'fact'. Leads directly to uninformed people saying that evolution hasn't been established as a fact, or that it's not "true".
- Ar-Curunir 12y ago
  Mathematics is not a science, and number 'theory' is not theory as meant in the sciences. Unlike in science, where enough evidence for a particular hypothesis makes it generally believed to be true, in math empirical evidence is not and will never be enough to classify a statement as true.

marcelsalathe 12y ago

I just recently published a book called "Nature, in Code" [https://leanpub.com/natureincode https://leanpub.com/natureincode] that is largely about Evolution - explained by implementing key concepts in JavaScript. It is also a beginner's book for people to learn programming. From a personal perspective, I've always understood a concept much better once I implemented it in code. Because of that, I started teaching population genetics primarily as a computer lab class. This book is an attempt to be more broad (in terms of subject, and reach).

organsnyder 12y ago

Unfortunately, I'm afraid that the berkeley.edu domain alone will be enough to raise the hackles of the people that really need to read this. My employer has a blog series that covers many of these issues with skeptical Christians as the intended audience: http://biologos.org/blog/series/evolution-basics http://biologos.org/blog/series/evolution-basics

WillNotDownvote 12y ago
Lots of people need to read it, including many who consider themselves scientifically literate. Evolution is a very widely misunderstood field, to the extent that many people with biology degrees harbor a number of misconceptions about it.
- eatonphil 12y ago
  Then how can we expect anyone else to understand it? If this is the case, why should anyone even try? I'm not saying you're wrong, it just begs the question: "If the people who have undergone training to be prepared in this field can not understand it correctly, why should I (who am not remotely related to the field) understand it correctly or even try to?"
  - beeworker 12y ago
    sago hits the nail on the head to answer the "why". When the People have any sort of influence at all, everything becomes politicized, and those who don't want the system to crumble insist that all voters be educated in an ever-increasing set of things in order to vote sanely about them. To question the need to learn a particular thing that's already been politicized like evolution is to question democracy itself.
  - sago 12y ago
    People with CS degrees can still harbour misconceptions about programming or computers. That doesn't mean there is no way to understand computer science, nor no reason to try. In fact, in an ideal world, evolution wouldn't be an important thing for most people to understand. It is disproportionately important because it is the point of attack of fundamentalists against scientific modernity, and a naive view of evolution can leave people susceptible to their propaganda, and therefore more likely to politically oppose science.

mark-r 12y ago

The article itself contains a misconception. Genetic variation doesn't always come from random mutation. Firstly, there may already be genes in the population that just have never been combined yet. Secondly, DNA can integrated from the environment under the right conditions. The amount of human DNA that is estimated to originate from viruses is astounding. And bacteria have been known to develop antibiotic resistance by taking it from unrelated bacteria that already have resistance.

sago 12y ago
> Genetic variation doesn't always come from random mutation. The article didn't imply it did. It says mutation generates genetic variation, not that all genetic variation is generated by mutation. A -> B does not imply B -> A
- mark-r 12y ago
  I was speaking specifically of this line: > That genetic variation is generated by random mutation — a process that is unaffected by what organisms in the population want or what they are "trying" to do. I have nothing against the second half of that sentence. Perhaps a better explanation was available elsewhere in the article and I missed it. The link originally went to the middle of the page instead of the beginning, so I wasn't taking it in order.
  - sago 12y ago
    Ah, sorry. Earlier on it gave the version I was responding to. Still I think in science it is better to not assume universal qualifiers unless they are explicit.

cubano 12y ago

From my experience, it seems that the biggest misconception about Evolution is that species evolve through some sort of conscious decision-making process, and not really by natural selection and random mutation. For example, I often hear that a big step in the primate-to-human evolution was when one of our common ancestors "left the trees and started walking bipedally", implying to me at least, that it was some sort of "hey, maybe we should try this today" decision made by an individual to attempt it. It wasn't. What really happened was that a mutation in the population allowed one individual the ability to walk a bit more upright, and this conferred a special ability for this individual to gather more food or have more offspring, thus propagating the mutated gene(s). I watch the pop-sci channels regularly, and even they fall victim to this anthropomorphic trap about species "evolving-by-choice". [edit] I just read this in the OP just below where I stopped... MISCONCEPTION: Natural selection involves organisms trying to adapt.

astrodust 12y ago
It's more subtle than that. For example, if walking enabled you to gather more food, then anything that helps you walk better confers an advantage. If food was in trees, walking would be useless. The best hypothesis for what triggered this change was a shift in climate where trees became less productive and thinned out more, meaning you often had to move quickly from one tree to another on the ground. Anything that enabled you to hustle faster like that gave you a big advantage. With natural selection you do not have any choices. You survive or you die.
- ars 12y ago
  > for what triggered this change You are doing it too. A change is not triggered by anything - you are talking as if there is some latent change waiting to be activated.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - tomrod 12y ago
    It was. The change was a shift in the tree population due to a latent factor; this latent factor is what resulted in walker-better-groups to outcompete tree-clinging-groups. There is no anthropomorphizing here; it's simply semantics.

jfb 12y ago

This is a good page, but one thing it doesn't touch on (presumably because of the intended audience) is the fact that an understanding of genetics is necessary but insufficient to explain speciation, variation in heritable traits, much of modern biology. Epigenetics is tremendously important, and a reductivist use of genetics via metaphor is what gets people talking about a "gene for X". It ends up, IMO, causing more harm than good.

senthil_rajasek 12y ago

I highly recommend Richard Dawkins' 1991 Royal Institution Christmas lectures. Dawkins is also an evolutionary biologist. http://www.richannel.org/christmas-lectures/1991/richard-dawkins http://www.richannel.org/christmas-lectures/1991/richard-daw...

Someone1234 12y ago

First thing I did was search this article for "gene expression." Had nothing. I think it is safe to say that this article is behind our current understanding about "evolution" and is in fact spreading some new myths as a direct result. In the last five or so years it has become more and more clear, that while a mother cannot alter her unborn child's DNA, the mother's environment can cause different gene's within the child's DNA to be activated or deactivated. So our traditional understanding about "random mutations" and "survival of the fittest" being the primary means by which organisms change or evolve looks to be a gross oversimplification. Since discovering gene expression, the environment may very well shape how the offspring's DNA is used. There are tens of studies on this, but the vast majority since 2010 (so literally last five years). But the results they're providing give us an entire new avenue to look down and the impact on our understanding of evolution likely needs to shift as a result. Keep in mind nobody is suggesting people (or animals) have direct control over gene expression, in fact our understanding of how it works is still undeveloped. This paper covers the topic briefly [PDF]: "Evolution of Gene Expression" http://www.umich.edu/~pwlab/Wittkopp%20et%20al%20reprints/Principles_of_Evolution_V-7.pdf http://www.umich.edu/~pwlab/Wittkopp%20et%20al%20reprints/Pr...

redblacktree 12y ago
The field is called "epigenetics," correct?
- Someone1234 12y ago
  Yes but "transgenerational epigenetics" as it is sometimes known has a lot of baggage (and bad ideas). In fact if you look at it historically it has a very bad track record. Gene expression is something relatively recent that may shake things up (and the research is looking positive). However it doesn't mean that everything within the field of transgenerational epigenetics is accurate or proven.

tokenadult 12y ago

I have previously read the site kindly submitted for discussion today and have recommended it (here on Hacker News, too, as I recall) before. This site is well worth a read. A comment asks for a recommendation of a book about macroevolution, transformation to new species among descendant organisms, and I can not only recommend two books, but also a free website. The website is 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution,[1] which I have recommended often to readers here on Hacker News. The books are Why Evolution Is True by Jerry Coyne[2] and The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins.[3] Both books are very readable and interesting and well deserve your attention. There are other good recent books about evolution that help fill in the research findings that have occurred since you or I finished our formal schooling.[4] [1] http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ [2] http://www.amazon.com/Why-Evolution-True-Jerry-Coyne/dp/0143116649 http://www.amazon.com/Why-Evolution-True-Jerry-Coyne/dp/0143... [3] http://www.amazon.com/The-Greatest-Show-Earth-Evolution/dp/1416594795/ http://www.amazon.com/The-Greatest-Show-Earth-Evolution/dp/1... [4] http://www.amazon.com/The-Ancestors-Tale-Pilgrimage-Evolution/dp/061861916X/ http://www.amazon.com/The-Ancestors-Tale-Pilgrimage-Evolutio... http://www.amazon.com/Your-Inner-Fish-Journey-3-5-Billion-Year/dp/0307277453/ http://www.amazon.com/Your-Inner-Fish-Journey-3-5-Billion-Ye... http://www.amazon.com/Endless-Forms-Most-Beautiful-Science/dp/0393327795/ http://www.amazon.com/Endless-Forms-Most-Beautiful-Science/d... http://www.amazon.com/Making-Fittest-Ultimate-Forensic-Evolution/dp/0393330516/ http://www.amazon.com/Making-Fittest-Ultimate-Forensic-Evolu...

debacle 12y ago

The biggest confusion I have seen from evolution comes from the causality. "$x evolved $y so it could $z" The reality is much messier and involved a lot of $x dying before one of them was born with something sort of like $y.

snowwrestler 12y ago

A misconception that affects the way people think of both evolution and climate change, is the idea that the study of the past is a necessary and integral part of the theory. That's not necessarily true. Darwin generated his theory of natural selection by observing living species throughout the world, and Mendel developed this theory of genetic inheritance by working with living plants. Biologists studying evolutionary processes today continue to work with living creatures like viruses, bacteria, and insects. Likewise, the theory of global warming was developed by observing current-day phenomena, like the Earth's surface temperature, absorbtion and re-emission of light by certain gases, the rate of CO2 absorbtion by the ocean, the quantity of manmade and natural emissions, solar energy inputs, orbital variations, etc. In both cases, it was this study of the present that created additional questions that could be answered by looking at the past. Evolution gave scientists a new way of organizing and studying the fossil record--that was a result of the theory of evolution, not the cause. Likewise, the study of current climate change raised a whole host of questions that scientists could try to answer about the past. Quite a lot of science works this way. Astrophysics is well known for the Big Bang theory, but the roots of the science are in observing the stars we see today, including our own sun.

IkmoIkmo 12y ago
> A misconception that affects the way people think is the idea that the study of the past is a necessary and integral part of the theory. > the roots of the science are in observing the stars we see today I agree with your point, but just made me smile in that we tend to look at a lot of (possibly) long dead stars from our past, too!
- maskedinvader 12y ago
  >I agree with your point, but just made me smile in that we tend to look at a lot of (possibly) long dead stars from our past, too! haha, well said. Although to take it to an extreme, every observation or study would have to have been by studying the past right from the milliseconds in the past to light years in the past.
- snowwrestler 12y ago

yugai 12y ago

I think most people have a missconception about the mutation-process, recent research find that it's not very random and environment influences a lot. That is a radical difference from previous evolutionary-biology which was a missconception about the evolution process in itself, the new neo-evolutionary theory is closer to reality. The old evolution-theory is spread more than other scientific theories primarily because it has inferences onto politics, society and religion. It acts as a scientific narrative of life, most often the information spread is inaccurate according to the theory itself, but it's primarily used to justify politics. While the old evolution theory had inferences in beginning of 1900 of anti-race, anti-weakness and anti-homosexuality (nazi, racial-biology) after 1970 the inferences instead change to be pro-race, pro-homosexuality (homosexuality is created by evolution for a purpose instead of a error now). The interesting thing is that while the inferences from evolution theory changed, the theory itself was the same, it's just the politics around it that change. Evolution theory is used to support politics as a contemporary narrative. You can pretty much justify anything by creating a purpose of why evolution wanted something to occur, like "The evolution wants us to create babies and progress technology.", "The evolution theory wants women to be better at hearing baby screams." The new neo-evolution theory instead brings a whole range of new inferences. If the environment can change mutations and progress itself then environment becomes important. Inferences from the old theory was that people were predefined from birth by their biology and this became the basis for many sciences today like psychiatry. When the premises of other sciences become questioned, the sciences need to updated. Without having a discussion about epistemology I think it's impossible to understand the difference from fact, theory, hypothesis and truth. Just because predictions from a theory is true it doesn't mean that the theory is the truth, it just means that it does accurate predictions. Most of scientific theories have been revised and it would be naive to think that neo-evolution theory is the definitive end definition about evolution. If evolution-theory would be distributed without inferences on politics I don't think it would be a hot topic at all

ThomPete 12y ago

The biggest conception about evolution is the question about whether it's true. But evolution is not true or false it's simply just a model to describe how life evolves, the best model we have.

VikingCoder 12y ago

My brain always goes meta when people attack evolution as "just a theory." I start to think to myself - "Well, you don't understand... New theories are formed all of the time, but the ones that are the most fit survive..." And then I realize I'm practically using evolution to explain what a scientific theory is, so that the person can understand that evolution is not "just a theory." D'oh!

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

redeemedfadi 12y ago

I'm curious if there are any HN readers that don't believe that evolution is the best explanation for the current state of life on this planet (other than me). Any IDers (intelligent design) out there?