Could there be more to evolution?

[too-open-minded]

Could evolution not just be limited to organisms?

 

I know evolution is the change in allele of a species over a period of time. I know rocks don't have DNA.

 

But is it possible that evolution evolved in itself?

[Ringer]

If you use a non-biological definition of evolution then yes, just about everything in the universe could be thought to evolve. If you use the biological definition the question doesn't really make sense.

[too-open-minded]

Yeah but i'm kind of saying the biological definition of evolution could be the kind of like the metamorphosis of a rock, just evolved. That's just an example.

 

Do you see what i'm trying to say?

[Ringer]

I think I see what you're saying, but my previous statement still stands. If you use the usual biological definition of evolution, change in allele frequency in a population over time, it doesn't make sense because there are no heritable traits in inanimate objects. Also, in a biological sense, individuals don't evolve. So if I were to say a rock evolved it wouldn't make sense in that definition because no there was no allele frequency change and it happened to an individual and not a population.

 

If you were to change the definition to simply 'change over time' the idea could easily be seen as very similar to evolution. Things are always changing, so in any system you observe, you can have something analogous to evolution.

[too-open-minded]

I wasn't arguing that, just asking if you saw the line I was trying to draw. Whether you agree with it or not, i'm just glad you see the point i'm trying to make.

 

 

 

I disagree with the individuals don't evolve statement. As you get older your immune system evolves and adapts to the diseases around it. Natural selection makes it to where the individuals who

adapt the best can spread their genes. I'm willing to bet their is more to DNA than we can see right now.

 

Unless i'm misunderstanding what your saying about individuals in a biological sense? I guess if you want to get literal about it an individual is not a population over time.

 

Everything evolves. Even the laws of science, as we know them.

[Ophiolite]

Again, you are using the word evolve in different ways in the same post. This is liable to confuse and introduce ambiguities. It is not a good idea.

 

Individuals change over time, but those changes are not heritable. Only mutations in the germ cells (sperm and ova) are heritable. Changes in the individual do not affect the germ cells.

 

Rocks certainly evolve, but in a quite different way from biological evolution or individual evolution. Drawing the terms together creates more confusion thant clarity. At the end the only thing it does is provide a less elegant way of saying "things change".

[studiot]

I believe Darwin introduced 'biological evolution' in 1838 with the publication of 'natural selection'

 

Mendel did no publish the basis for Alleles until 1865.

 

Today we perhaps have another more modified definiton

 

So the definiton of 'evolution' is itself evolving!!!

 

So why cannot this process continue and tomorrow too open minded be the scientist who introduces the newest definition?

[Phi for All]

I disagree with the individuals don't evolve statement. As you get older your immune system evolves and adapts to the diseases around it.

Science has very specific terminology for a very good reason. As has been mentioned, you can't use the word "evolve" in this way because it doesn't meaningfully describe the mechanism involved. It's like the problem scientists have with people misusing the word "theory" to mean "the half-baked idea I got this morning while waiting for the shower water to warm up".

 

Please don't make the mistake of redefining something and then finding problems with it based on your redefinition. You should be able to see by now where that road will lead.

[Ophiolite]

I believe Darwin introduced 'biological evolution' in 1838 with the publication of 'natural selection'?

No. He conceived the idea in 1838, but there was no publication. A paper outlining the concept was read at the Royal Society in 1858 along with one from Wallace whose independent proposal of the concept prompted Darwin to go public. The following year an expanded version of his theory was published: On the Origin of Species.

 

Mendel did no publish the basis for Alleles until 1865.

 

Today we perhaps have another more modified definiton

The current definition, I think, comes from the period when the Modern Synthesis was being developed. I suspect Dhobzansky rather than Mayr, but that's by the by.

 

So the definiton of 'evolution' is itself evolving!!!

 

So why cannot this process continue and tomorrow too open minded be the scientist who introduces the newest definition?

Why not? Perfectly possible. But not an ambigious, catch-all, ineffective, ill-constrained definition of the type porposed by too-open-minded.

[too-open-minded]

So the change in allele just happens over time? Every individual doesn't put in their own 2 cents?

[StringJunky]

So the change in allele just happens over time? Every individual doesn't put in their own 2 cents?

 

Apparently, what an organism experiences environmentally could be passed on to the next generation without change to its DNA:

 

Research into epigenetics has shown that environmental factors affect characteristics of organisms. These changes are sometimes passed on to the offspring. ETH professor Renato Paro does not believe that this opposes Darwin’s theory of evolution.

 

A certain laboratory strain of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has white eyes. If the surrounding temperature of the embryos, which are normally nurtured at 25 degrees Celsius, is briefly raised to 37 degrees Celsius, the flies later hatch with red eyes. If these flies are again crossed, the following generations are partly red-eyed – without further temperature treatment – even though only white-eyed flies are expected according to the rules of genetics. <snip>...the DNA sequence for the gene responsible for eye colour was proven to remain the same for white-eyed parents and red-eyed offspring.

 

For more: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090412081315.htm

Edited September 4, 2012 by StringJunky

[too-open-minded]

Are we still making finds about genes? Is their still more to learn about DNA?

 

The observable universe looks flat, but are we sure that the entire universe is flat?

[Ringer]

Are we still making finds about genes? Is their still more to learn about DNA?

 

The observable universe looks flat, but are we sure that the entire universe is flat?

 

We're always learning new things, that's what science is all about and why it is so interesting. From cellular/molecular biology, genetics, etc. all the way up to ecology we never have it all right and there are always things that are being discovered. Never get down thinking that all the answers are already there. There are a lot of answers out there but inevitably those answers tend to bring about new questions.

 

As a side note, Darwin didn't coin biological evolution. The idea had been around for a while, even toyed with by some ancients who disagreed with the immutability of organisms, but one of the first fully formed proposals was Lamarck's IIRC.

[too-open-minded]

Is their any evidence towards an individual having a change in allele?

 

For change in allele to occur is it something that happens every said number of generations?

[Ringer]

Is their any evidence towards an individual having a change in allele?

 

For change in allele to occur is it something that happens every said number of generations?

 

Alleles change in individuals happens quite often, mutations occur fairly often. It is part of the evolutionary process, but that variation changes the frequency of the population. Since an individual's trait is more or less boolean, i.e. it either has the trait or doesn't, it doesn't have a frequency. There may be mutations within that individual's cells throughout its life, but the odds that they would actually add up to a phenotypic change are virtually nil.

 

You're second question is missing a very important part of the definition. It is missing frequency. If an individual has a novel trait and it isn't passed on to further generations evolution didn't occur (for that trait). So for a period there was a change in allele, but the overall frequency of the allele stayed the same no evolution can be said to occur.

[studiot]

Actually this argument is another perfect example of some technical person or persons hijacking a perfectly well defined term from either the general languague or another technical discipline. Then later persons changed it again.

The British Navy had a perfectly clear definition of the term evolution before 1790.

 

An interesting question is:

 

The original (species) 'definition' attributed all change to random events, without premeditation.

 

We now have the possibility of a species interfering with the development of itself or others.

 

We have recently discussed this idea here at SF.

Edited September 5, 2012 by studiot

[too-open-minded]

Well we are actually self inducing most of our own evolution, its not just a possibility.

[studiot]

too open minded your are an example to all, my congratulations to the youth of today.

 

I say this because you are clearly demonstrating the ability to hold a respectful discussion with others.

 

I feel that is making more progress than the offerings of many older posters are achieving.

Edited September 5, 2012 by studiot

[too-open-minded]

I'm still biased towards my own idea, not going to lie lol. Although yes I do wish more people could try and respectfully acknowledge another's argument without just preaching their own.

 

Then again you can't really blame most posters for doing that. The arguments they propose are well documented and have evidence, they know their could be more to the situation but because the way scientific method works and the process of needing evidence to prove things; most don't like hearing something that can't be backed up.

 

I'm not really much of an example, everyone has their own flaws. One of my biggest ones being lack of organization and my intention span

 

[proximity1]

Science has very specific terminology for a very good reason. As has been mentioned, you can't use the word "evolve" in this way because it doesn't meaningfully describe the mechanism involved. It's like the problem scientists have with people misusing the word "theory" to mean "the half-baked idea I got this morning while waiting for the shower water to warm up".

 

Please don't make the mistake of redefining something and then finding problems with it based on your redefinition. You should be able to see by now where that road will lead.

 

Please pardon this raincloud over what, I agree, ought to be science's faithful adherence to "very specific terminology," (or, where that isn't possible, some very careful thinking about why it isn't possible) but, it seems that not only has that been a very recurrent problem over centuries but also, the more I learn about various theories in contemporary science, the more I worry that there is something going awry in too many (younger?) researchers' habits of thought and practice in their scientific work. Please note, for example, on this topic, the following excerpt, which I recently appended to a thread elsewhere:

 

 

"THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES" was printed in large bold letters on the title page of the 1859 edition of Darwin´s book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. I suspect that even then it was the publishers who

chose the layout of title pages and not the author. It would be interesting to know whether Darwin had indeed approved this accentuation, since his book is a magnificent introduction to the mechanism of natural selection, but contains relatively little about the origin of species. At the time, Darwin did not even have a workable definition of 'species', so how could he have written on speciation? Darwin´s (and Wallace´s) great achievement was realising that the blind force of natural selection can produce the adaptations that are the hallmarks of different species. But how existing species split into new ones was not directly addressed by them.

 

"This may sound like nit-picking, but it touches upon a serious problem. How can one discuss the general mechanisms underlying a process (speciation) when one does not have a definition for its outcome (species)?

There has of course been no lack of attempts to find such a definition. Many eminent biologists have tried it. In fact, almost every student of biology will have tried it, or will do so sooner or later. And everyone

will fail – like his or her predecessors – but will have learned a lot about biology in the process. It is simply impossible to combine all aspects of species into a single concept –especially when dealing with organisms as

diverse as palaeontological species, asexually reproducing species or bacteria. Thus, when discussing mechanisms of speciation, one tends to reduce this to the "normal" sexually reproducing taxa and to the so-called biological species concept."

 

by Dr. Diethard Tautz, from: Lab Times , 1-2009: "Speciation: from Darwin to Mayr and back again" , pp. 24-27

 

 

Could evolution not just be limited to organisms?

 

I know evolution is the change in allele of a species over a period of time. I know rocks don't have DNA.

 

But is it possible that evolution evolved in itself?

 

 

Some sort of "meta-Evolution"?

 

But in what respect would that, might that, be? Do you have anything in mind about where you're going in that?, if it's "meta-Evolution" you mean. Where (and how?) would we look for it?

[too-open-minded]

I'm going for an answer to life. We would have to look for how the first micro-organism came to be.

[proximity1]

I'm going for an answer to life. We would have to look for how the first micro-organism came to be.

 

 

In that case, I think your speculations are squarely within the realm of standard evolutionary biology; it seems to me that theory offers us an entirely compelling basis for this first organism's springing from a set of physical conditions which were conducive to a spontaneous appearance of matter/energy which possessed (please excuse the vagueness of our language limitations in this) a capacity to react to stimulus from the surrounding environment. In this case, there's be no reason to suspect some other "meta-Evolution" occurring in biological forms; but that doesn't preclude some greater or lesser variation in the rates at which various living organisms evolve. The biological statistician, Katherine S. Pollard, has written about what is known as "HAR-1" --- Human Accelerated Region 1" a segment of human DNA which has shown an exceptional rate of change compared to other segments. And, interestingly enough, the area concerned has particular importance for human brain activity.

 

I personally suspect, and perhaps many evolutionary biologists do, too, that living organisms emerged numerous times in numerous places and in some of them, the organisms didn't at first succeed in persisting, in multiplying, and so, that trial was lost.

 

I see all life, at every level of every organism, from the so-called "lowest" to the so-called "highest" as a fresh trial in nature---one which is wholly without any a priori or a posteriori purpose, point, aim, ambition, design, plan or any other directional or intentional device. That is, all these trials are and always have been entirely the products of a completely blind process of a certain set of naturally occurring (contingent) conditions. And, taking my cue from work by Jean-Jacques Kupiec and predecessors he cites (Claude Bernard, for example), I agree with the view that it is our prior evolutionary forms (i.e. our organs, as these evolved by and through our ancestry, human-like and non-human, which are the driving motives, rather than any of the higher aims and motives that derive from our brain's store of intelligences and reasonings---valid and immensely fascinating as these are.

 

There are some consequences which flow logically from this view. One of them is that the set of circumstances we live in is, from a biological point of view, simply impossible to estimate in its once-in-human-existance character. That is, if humans "blow it," ruin the life-sustaining properties of their environment, this planet, though other living organisms may eventually evolve, will never see homo sapiens again---even if some clever life form found ancient human DNA and successfully reanimated it in the laboratory, the result would be, strictly and figuratively speaking, a "freak of nature" at that point, hardly or no different than if by some wild chance, a meteorite brought some fragments of an extra-terrestrial life form which, upon some intervention by human efforts, was "reinvigorated". How would anyone know in what extent the "results" conformed to the living organism's original character?

Edited September 6, 2012 by proximity1

[too-open-minded]

I really do hope we don't blow it. Although I think we will.

[studiot]

I really do hope we don't blow it. Although I think we will.

 

I should take heart, the shadows over modern generations are much shorter than the one I grew up under.

 

In the 1950s and early 1960s we grew up expecting to fight a major nuclear war.

We thought that it was not a question of if, but when.

 

It is to the credit of all sides that it never happened.

Edited September 6, 2012 by studiot

[StringJunky]

 

It is to the credit of all sides that it never happened.

 

M.A.D. is doing its job and has done it for half a century...no credit due to anyone imo.