Poll: Unconventional Evolution: A Thesis?

[cuddly_tomato]

Evolution is directly caused by random genetic mutations that spread through a population. Environment only indirectly affects evolution, through natural selection narrowing down the viable paths a population can take.

I have to confess to having doubts about some of these mechanisms of evolution. Some of what nature has created seems to defy conventional theories of natural selection (the apocrita suborder of life specifically, but there are one or two others, including humans). I don't quite think that humanities understanding of evolution is quite as comprehensive as we believe.

I would suggest that evolution does not need different categories.

Evolution is a natural, ongoing process. New genes appear and spread as they always will do, at the same rate. However, what you are calling "conventional" evolution is a perpetual culling of less survivable genes caused by constraints on a population. In that sense, it causes loss of genes.

In the modern world with better medicine and so on, new genes still come about at the same rate. However, there is much less of a constraint acting to cull the less survivable genes. This could account for the increased rate of evolution observed today (although the heavily increased mixing of previously separate populations may have a lot to do with it too).

It is a good guess, and pretty logical, however we don't really have anything solid to back the hypothesis that evolution is constant. It may well be that during times of extreme change organisms find some way to evolve faster, similar to the way locusts alter their physiology and swarm when their population grows to big. The increased rate of evolution (such as the "super" rat [http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/15/super-rats-infestations]) might be a result of human pressure acting upon the environment.

 

[Maze1125]

Evolution is directly caused by random genetic mutations that spread through a population. Environment only indirectly affects evolution, through natural selection narrowing down the viable paths a population can take.

I have to confess to having doubts about some of these mechanisms of evolution. Some of what nature has created seems to defy conventional theories of natural selection (the apocrita suborder of life specifically, but there are one or two others, including humans). I don't quite think that humanities understanding of evolution is quite as comprehensive as we believe.

I don't see how Apocrita defy conventional theories.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

Evolution is directly caused by random genetic mutations that spread through a population. Environment only indirectly affects evolution, through natural selection narrowing down the viable paths a population can take.

I have to confess to having doubts about some of these mechanisms of evolution. Some of what nature has created seems to defy conventional theories of natural selection (the apocrita suborder of life specifically, but there are one or two others, including humans). I don't quite think that humanities understanding of evolution is quite as comprehensive as we believe.

I don't see how Apocrita defy conventional theories.

Natural selection, in a nutshell, is about the must successful organisms passing on their own best traits to the next generation. The problem with the apocrita sub-order is that the vast majority of the organisms not only die without passing their genes on but they are genetically built that way. Workers in an ant nest, bees in a bee hive, the vast majority don't even breed. Indeed they are completely unable to breed.

Natural selection created creatures which are unable to breed, and they became among the most successful to ever wander this planet. How could such an evolutionary path have started if we take natural selection by survival of the fittest genes as the only mechanism acting upon evolution?

 

[Koeryn]

From what I read, it made a lot of sense, though I have no backing in genetics, and slept through my biology classes.

Also, it wasn't nearly as fun to read as the children's book about dinosaurs i read on Cracked.com last night. Which had so much awesome words can't describe.

But, it's good theory, I guess.

 

[Maze1125]

Evolution is directly caused by random genetic mutations that spread through a population. Environment only indirectly affects evolution, through natural selection narrowing down the viable paths a population can take.

I have to confess to having doubts about some of these mechanisms of evolution. Some of what nature has created seems to defy conventional theories of natural selection (the apocrita suborder of life specifically, but there are one or two others, including humans). I don't quite think that humanities understanding of evolution is quite as comprehensive as we believe.

I don't see how Apocrita defy conventional theories.

Natural selection, in a nutshell, is about the must successful organisms passing on their own best traits to the next generation. The problem with the apocrita sub-order is that the vast majority of the organisms not only die without passing their genes on but they are genetically built that way. Workers in an ant nest, bees in a bee hive, the vast majority don't even breed. Indeed they are completely unable to breed.

Natural selection created creatures which are unable to breed, and they became among the most successful to ever wander this planet. How could such an evolutionary path have started if we take natural selection as the only mechanism acting upon evolution?

That's only an apparent problem.
But in fact, due to how each worker shares at least 75% of their DNA with the queen, it can be shown mathematically that supporting the queen is more productive to passing on their genetics than reproducing themselves. Even though it seems at first glance to be counter productive.

And how would such a path have started? Via co-operation, there would have been a chain of creatures who helped each out but still reproduced individually, but at some point their co-operation and genetics would have passed the critical point where reproducing themselves became less effective then helping close family reproduce. At which point natural selection would have selected for the families that co-operated for a single member's reproduction rather than every-one's reproduction.

 

[Agema]

I would suggest that evolution does not need different categories.

Evolution is a natural, ongoing process. New genes appear and spread as they always will do, at the same rate. However, what you are calling "conventional" evolution is a perpetual culling of less survivable genes caused by constraints on a population. In that sense, it causes loss of genes.

In the modern world with better medicine and so on, new genes still come about at the same rate. However, there is much less of a constraint acting to cull the less survivable genes. This could account for the increased rate of evolution observed today (although the heavily increased mixing of previously separate populations may have a lot to do with it too).

It is a good guess, and pretty logical, however we don't really have anything solid to back the hypothesis that evolution is constant. It may well be that during times of extreme change organisms find some way to evolve faster, similar to the way locusts alter their physiology and swarm when their population grows to big. The increased rate of evolution (such as the "super" rat [http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/15/super-rats-infestations]) might be a result of human pressure acting upon the environment.

Well, to get all proper science about it, not really. Although bear in mind I haven't done genetics and evolution since the second year of my degree, it's not my area of expertise in biology.

Mutations are generally formed by random errors in DNA replication and mutagens (e.g. radiation, viruses). Increased evolution could be caused by an increasing amount of mutagens affecting the germ cells, and it's also more likely that older parents have germ cells with mutations, so that will increase the amount of new genes too. However, for the most part it's going to be about random errors in DNA replication, and that certainly is constant. I can't remember the reliability offhand, but it's something huge like 1 error in a trillion.

If you put a constraint on a population, it will cause a change in the population, as genes less useful for survival are weeded out. If you look through history, there are occasions of rapid evolution (particularly after mass extinction events) and periods of apparent slow evolution. However, this is about genes being selected for usefulness - it does NOT mean there's more or less mutation of genes occurring at a chemical level.

What I'm suggesting is that mankind has removed many of the constraints that would select for "less survivable" genes. People are still developing mutations though. Without any pressure for survival, these may increase, decrease, or given a large enough population probably remain constant (q.v. genetic drift).

By maintaining more individuals who would otherwise die from less survivable genes (thereby extinguishing those genes as well), it's likely that mankind is actually supporting a greater genetic variability.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

--cut for space--


By maintaining more individuals who would otherwise die from less survivable genes (thereby extinguishing those genes as well), it's likely that mankind is actually supporting a greater genetic variability.

Yarrr!!! I actually said this earlier [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/18.151693.3598750]! Nice to see we agree on something Agema. But tell me, would you agree with this - as humans become less "natural" in their functioning and way of life, and as they put more and more pressure on the natural world, will nature try to resist this? Note: I am not talking about a sentient nature here (although I do believe personally that nature is sentient). Think of this query more logically.... do you think it is possible that some of the organisms on this planet adapt to human activity, and someday possibly even adapt to prey on humans in some way?

Evolution is directly caused by random genetic mutations that spread through a population. Environment only indirectly affects evolution, through natural selection narrowing down the viable paths a population can take.

I have to confess to having doubts about some of these mechanisms of evolution. Some of what nature has created seems to defy conventional theories of natural selection (the apocrita suborder of life specifically, but there are one or two others, including humans). I don't quite think that humanities understanding of evolution is quite as comprehensive as we believe.

I don't see how Apocrita defy conventional theories.

Natural selection, in a nutshell, is about the must successful organisms passing on their own best traits to the next generation. The problem with the apocrita sub-order is that the vast majority of the organisms not only die without passing their genes on but they are genetically built that way. Workers in an ant nest, bees in a bee hive, the vast majority don't even breed. Indeed they are completely unable to breed.

Natural selection created creatures which are unable to breed, and they became among the most successful to ever wander this planet. How could such an evolutionary path have started if we take natural selection as the only mechanism acting upon evolution?

That's only an apparent problem.
But in fact, due to how each worker shares at least 75% of their DNA with the queen, it can be shown mathematically that supporting the queen is more productive to passing on their genetics than reproducing themselves. Even though it seems at first glance to be counter productive.

And how would such a path have started? Via co-operation, there would have been a chain of creatures who helped each out but still reproduced individually, but at some point their co-operation and genetics would have passed the critical point where reproducing themselves became less effective then helping close family reproduce. At which point natural selection would have selected for the families that co-operated for a single member's reproduction rather than every-one's reproduction.

Nope. It's a pretty big problem. The issue isn't how successful they are now, or how successful social behaviour is in animals. The issue one of brains, and exactly how a social insectoidal organism could have evolved at all, let alone evolved to the level of complexity a bee-hive or ant-nest enjoys. You see, insects are extremely vicious and aggressive little buggers. They don't really have much to say in life, and are don't particularly like company. They have extremely simplistic brains and (probably) thought processes. Social cohesion in any vertibrate requires some form of altered brain chemistry and low level reasoning. Basically the ability to see another member of the same sex and same species not as a threat, but as a potential ally (I would suggest this is how homosexuality evolved, as it is present in all social vertibrates and it would explain pretty well how useful it could be to be bisexual in the wild). Insects completely lack this.

If small steps and mutations, leading to weaker and stronger specimens, was the only method evolution worked then we are left with a problem of exactly where some insect met another insect of its own kind and decided, on some level, not to eat it or kill it or screw it, but to work together, when it simply doesn't have the apparatus to even start that process off.

To put this into perspective - it is like a mammal evolving an extra pair of limbs (all living vertibrates have two pairs).

They evolved along with the first flowering plants, so I have a theory this was some kind of symbiotic evolution, actually directed by the fauna and flora of the day somehow (ants appear to be natures gardeners, protecting trees and plants from predators, and even planting their seeds [http://www.pnas.org/content/105/12/4571.abstract]).

 

[Kaboose the Moose]

Natural selection, in a nutshell, is about the must successful organisms passing on their own best traits to the next generation. The problem with the apocrita sub-order is that the vast majority of the organisms not only die without passing their genes on but they are genetically built that way. Workers in an ant nest, bees in a bee hive, the vast majority don't even breed. Indeed they are completely unable to breed.

Natural selection created creatures which are unable to breed, and they became among the most successful to ever wander this planet. How could such an evolutionary path have started if we take natural selection by survival of the fittest genes as the only mechanism acting upon evolution?

There is more than one way to propagate a species! Humans, dogs, birds, and other similar animals have a relatively small number of young, so it's necessary for each offspring to be able to reproduce. On the other hand, bees, for example, have queens that lay many thousands of eggs in each lifetime, so it's not as necessary for a large number of offspring to be able to reproduce. Imagine a bee hive where every bee is a queen, and every offspring is also a queen. It would expand exponentially and would very quickly die off from lack of food. In that circumstance, bees who have population control are the fittest. Those who can't produce non-reproducing young won't last very long.

I assume ants (since they have a queen) behave in a similar way, but I honestly don't know much about ants.

 

[Maze1125]

If small steps and mutations, leading to weaker and stronger specimens, was the only method evolution worked then we are left with a problem of exactly where some insect met another insect of its own kind and decided, on some level, not to eat it or kill it or screw it, but to work together, when it simply doesn't have the apparatus to even start that process off.

All it would take is one insect being less aggressive to insects of the same family than ones of different families. And then the next generation been less aggressive than that and so on. This is a clear advantage, as not killing organisms with your genetics increases the chance of those genetics being passed on.

Once it reached a point where a particular species of insect abstained from hurting their family at all, then it could start evolving co-operative abilities, and this doesn't necessarily require a sophisticated brain, just slight instinctual changes in the way the insects would act around family members.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

If small steps and mutations, leading to weaker and stronger specimens, was the only method evolution worked then we are left with a problem of exactly where some insect met another insect of its own kind and decided, on some level, not to eat it or kill it or screw it, but to work together, when it simply doesn't have the apparatus to even start that process off.

All it would take is one insect being less aggressive to insects of the same family than ones of different families. And then the next generation been less aggressive than that and so on. This is a clear advantage, as not killing organisms with your genetics increases the chance of those genetics being passed on.

Once it reached a point where a particular species of insect abstained from hurting their family at all, then it could start evolving co-operative abilities, and this doesn't necessarily require a sophisticated brain, just slight instinctual changes in the way the insects would act around family members.

Exactly right.

But this is the exact problem.

Let me tell you something about insects - they are violent, moreso than us vertibrates can possibly understand [http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/2810/]. They are vicious in the extreme, in everything they do, sometimes even during mating [http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1801]. Each and every insect out there is either food for something else, and is constantly fighting for its life, or needs to be a minature killing machine of unparalleled ferocity to survive.

An insect being less aggressive towards members of the same family would wind up as dinner for those family members. I don't think you appreciate just how violent and savage an insectoidal life form is. The little buggers get around this by having squillions of young every time, thus increasing the odds of at least a few making it. This has another effect though - each and every one of those little critters has as much filial love as Cain and Able. The reason is their individual chances of success drop with each new brother or sister, as they need to compete with those brothers and sisters for food, territory, mates, etc.

The other thing about insects is that they are tiny, and thus have a very small and simple brain. To make matters worse for them, they don't have any red blood cells (if you ever see insect blood it is either clear or green [http://www.mcwdn.org/Animals/Insect.html]), thus they don't have a method of oxygenating their brain all that much (their heart is basically a tube in their body). And as we all know, the more social an animal the more oxygen-hungry its brain is.

For an insect to start having even basic co-operation with any other insect requires physiology they simply do not (and never could have) had. Even if those tools where there, socialization on any level is extremely complex and the advantages always come with drawbacks. There are definite disadvantages that come with being a social creature (having to share food, having less physical ability because more resources are devoted to thinking, higher frequency of nervous system diseases), and in the case of a small and uncomplicated insect those disadvantages would doom it to extinction instantly in the case of small, close knit family groups (look how European honeybees fare against Japanese giant hornets for instance [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDSf3Kshq1M]). Modern social insects only manage to do so well because they manage their division of labor so precisely and efficiently.

There is also the issue of a total lack of any other social invertibrate other than the apocrita suborder. It is a definite anomaly. Remember we are talking insects here, some of which have extremely unconventional methods of passing on their genes (read here [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v435/n7046/full/nature03705.html], and here [http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/08/25/0908357106.abstract], it's fascinating stuff).

 

[Agema]

[But tell me, would you agree with this - as humans become less "natural" in their functioning and way of life, and as they put more and more pressure on the natural world, will nature try to resist this? Note: I am not talking about a sentient nature here (although I do believe personally that nature is sentient). Think of this query more logically.... do you think it is possible that some of the organisms on this planet adapt to human activity, and someday possibly even adapt to prey on humans in some way?

Personally, I think nature is utterly without sentience, consciousness, emotion, intelligence, or any other cognitive process. I don't think nature - in the sense of biology - "resists", it just adapts. Some of that adaptation may seem like "resistance". I would argue that an infectious disease is far more likely to cause more damage with a higher and denser population to infect. However, I don't think it would be an attempt by nature to correct mankind's overpopulation and overactivity by killing humans.

I'm absolutely sure some animals adapt (or will do given time for evolution to occur) to human activity.

The chances of a large animal (e.g. bear, lion) adapting via evolution to kill humans is unlikely. Humans will kill any such adaptation because it's a threat. Should humans wipe out enough of such a predator's natural environment, that predator may be driven to attack humans for food, but that's behaviour, not evolution.

As for predators, humans are preyed on by many beings. Mosquitos and other biting insects, and bacteria would should adapt to live off humans. However, I doubt we compose enough of a part of the general diet of most creatures (e.g. lions, snakes, sharks) that do occasionally eat us to make it worthwhile them adapting to be better at eating us.

 

[Maze1125]

If small steps and mutations, leading to weaker and stronger specimens, was the only method evolution worked then we are left with a problem of exactly where some insect met another insect of its own kind and decided, on some level, not to eat it or kill it or screw it, but to work together, when it simply doesn't have the apparatus to even start that process off.

All it would take is one insect being less aggressive to insects of the same family than ones of different families. And then the next generation been less aggressive than that and so on. This is a clear advantage, as not killing organisms with your genetics increases the chance of those genetics being passed on.

Once it reached a point where a particular species of insect abstained from hurting their family at all, then it could start evolving co-operative abilities, and this doesn't necessarily require a sophisticated brain, just slight instinctual changes in the way the insects would act around family members.

Exactly right.

But this is the exact problem.

Let me tell you something about insects - they are violent, moreso than us vertibrates can possibly understand [http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/2810/]. They are vicious in the extreme, in everything they do, sometimes even during mating [http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1801]. Each and every insect out there is either food for something else, and is constantly fighting for its life, or needs to be a minature killing machine of unparalleled ferocity to survive.

An insect being less aggressive towards members of the same family would wind up as dinner for those family members. I don't think you appreciate just how violent and savage an insectoidal life form is. The little buggers get around this by having squillions of young every time, thus increasing the odds of at least a few making it. This has another effect though - each and every one of those little critters has as much filial love as Cain and Able. The reason is their individual chances of success drop with each new brother or sister, as they need to compete with those brothers and sisters for food, territory, mates, etc..

Then maybe the social aspects of bees evolved before such viciousness existed in insects. As was mentioned before, it would be impossible for humans to evolve extra arms now, but when proto-limbs were first appearing, there was the potential for any number of limbs.

And, as you said, the genetics of insects are quite complex, it seems unlike that anyone could deduce all the possible ways evolution could go.
If you reach a point where you can't think of a way that standard evolution could solve a problem, why instantly jump to the conclusion that there must be a more to evolution then natural selection rather than thinking that maybe you just haven't thought up the way it happened using natural selection yet?

 

[cuddly_tomato]

[But tell me, would you agree with this - as humans become less "natural" in their functioning and way of life, and as they put more and more pressure on the natural world, will nature try to resist this? Note: I am not talking about a sentient nature here (although I do believe personally that nature is sentient). Think of this query more logically.... do you think it is possible that some of the organisms on this planet adapt to human activity, and someday possibly even adapt to prey on humans in some way?

Personally, I think nature is utterly without sentience, consciousness, emotion, intelligence, or any other cognitive process. I don't think nature - in the sense of biology - "resists", it just adapts. Some of that adaptation may seem like "resistance". I would argue that an infectious disease is far more likely to cause more damage with a higher and denser population to infect. However, I don't think it would be an attempt by nature to correct mankind's overpopulation and overactivity by killing humans.

And I wouldn't try to persuade you otherwise. That is more of a spiritual belief of my own as opposed to a scientific theory.

I'm absolutely sure some animals adapt (or will do given time for evolution to occur) to human activity.

The chances of a large animal (e.g. bear, lion) adapting via evolution to kill humans is unlikely. Humans will kill any such adaptation because it's a threat. Should humans wipe out enough of such a predator's natural environment, that predator may be driven to attack humans for food, but that's behaviour, not evolution.

As for predators, humans are preyed on by many beings. Mosquitos and other biting insects, and bacteria would should adapt to live off humans. However, I doubt we compose enough of a part of the general diet of most creatures (e.g. lions, snakes, sharks) that do occasionally eat us to make it worthwhile them adapting to be better at eating us.

To be honest I wasn't thinking of the kind of predator that physically overpowers then feeds on a human (although the film Mimic was AWESOME). Hmmm... ever heard of botflies? DON'T FUCKING GOOGLE IT SERIOUSLY!

It just seems to me that humans are now extremely numerous, very wasteful in what we consume and what we discard, and must present a tempting target to many creatures out there. Rats are doing well, cockroaches, blue bottles, bed bugs, house spiders, mice, pigeons, all manner of animals that we generally don't like are, ironically, doing very well for themselves because of us. The thing is that some of these creatures are becoming dangerous. Pigeon lung, bubonic plague, malaria, and whole host of other nasty things. Nature seems to act like a single organism itself sometimes - when attacked tries to defend itself, much like macrophages in the human body do.

Then maybe the social aspects of bees evolved before such viciousness existed in insects. As was mentioned before, it would be impossible for humans to evolve extra arms now, but when proto-limbs were first appearing, there was the potential for any number of limbs.

And, as you said, the genetics of insects are quite complex, it seems unlike that anyone could deduce all the possible ways evolution could go.
If you reach a point where you can't think of a way that standard evolution could solve a problem, why instantly jump to the conclusion that there must be a more to evolution then natural selection rather than thinking that maybe you just haven't thought up the way it happened using natural selection yet?

Ants evolved when insects were long established (we are talking hundreds of millions of years) and were roaming all over the world. Indeed dinosaurs had been around long before ants and wasps and bees, but insects had been around long before dinosaurs. These creatures are very recent (source and back ground information on the "ponerine paradox" [http://www.pnas.org/content/102/21/7411.full]).

I didn't instantly jump to that conclusion. I question the conclusion that natural selection is the be all and end all of evolutionary function, and I am not alone in that questioning.

 

[Maze1125]

I didn't instantly jump to that conclusion. I question the conclusion that natural selection is the be all and end all of evolutionary function, and I am not alone in that questioning.

Fair enough.
But what type of other selective pressure could there be that couldn't be classed as another part of natural selection that we just hadn't discovered yet?

 

[cuddly_tomato]

I didn't instantly jump to that conclusion. I question the conclusion that natural selection is the be all and end all of evolutionary function, and I am not alone in that questioning.

Fair enough.
But what type of other selective pressure could there be that couldn't be classed as another part of natural selection that we just hadn't discovered yet?

The words "natural selection" are pretty broad and could potentially cover what I am thinking, which is more along the lines of symbiotic evolution. Insects started out 400 million years ago (early Devonian), when life was only just starting to appear on land in any kind of abundance. It took 300 million years for them to develop insect societies, which came at the same time as plants started to flower (in other words, they needed bees, protectors, etc). I find this to be too big a coincidence to ignore. Maybe those first examples of the apocrita family got started by being actually chemically/hormonally influenced by those earliest flowers (ants and bees can be influenced in such a way by plants today [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2290770/]). If this is the case, then it demonstrates that survival of the fittest might not always arise purely out of a "selfish" desire to compete with the rest of life, but sometimes it might arise from a beneficial arrangement between two very different organisms which do not share genes or off-spring with each other - this then provides a mechanism that might well be construed as being outside of conventional "selfish" evolution.

NOTE: Selfish in this instance refers to the genetic need to pass ones genes on, not someone bogarting the vodka bottle.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Evolution is directly caused by random genetic mutations that spread through a population. Environment only indirectly affects evolution, through natural selection narrowing down the viable paths a population can take.

I have to confess to having doubts about some of these mechanisms of evolution. Some of what nature has created seems to defy conventional theories of natural selection (the apocrita suborder of life specifically, but there are one or two others, including humans). I don't quite think that humanities understanding of evolution is quite as comprehensive as we believe.

Social insects? What's so surprising about them?

Humans are only mildly beholden to natural selection by this point, anyway. Evolution and natural selection are two different things.

It is a good guess, and pretty logical, however we don't really have anything solid to back the hypothesis that evolution is constant. It may well be that during times of extreme change organisms find some way to evolve faster, similar to the way locusts alter their physiology and swarm when their population grows to big. The increased rate of evolution (such as the "super" rat [http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/15/super-rats-infestations]) might be a result of human pressure acting upon the environment.

I'm fairly certain scientific consensus is that evolution isn't constant. At least, not at a constant rate. Genetic mutation is certainly a constant process.

As for the rat thing...the environment being changed by human pressure as opposed to natural change matters little, if at all. It's still an environmental change.

 

[Maze1125]

I didn't instantly jump to that conclusion. I question the conclusion that natural selection is the be all and end all of evolutionary function, and I am not alone in that questioning.

Fair enough.
But what type of other selective pressure could there be that couldn't be classed as another part of natural selection that we just hadn't discovered yet?

The words "natural selection" are pretty broad and could potentially cover what I am thinking, which is more along the lines of symbiotic evolution. Insects started out 400 million years ago (early Devonian), when life was only just starting to appear on land in any kind of abundance. It took 300 million years for them to develop insect societies, which came at the same time as plants started to flower (in other words, they needed bees, protectors, etc). I find this to be too big a coincidence to ignore. Maybe those first examples of the apocrita family got started by being actually chemically/hormonally influenced by those earliest flowers (ants and bees can be influenced in such a way by plants today [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2290770/]). If this is the case, then it demonstrates that survival of the fittest might not always arise purely out of a "selfish" desire to compete with the rest of life, but sometimes it might arise from a beneficial arrangement between two very different organisms which do not share genes or off-spring with each other - this then provides a mechanism that might well be construed as being outside of conventional "selfish" evolution.

NOTE: Selfish in this instance refers to the genetic need to pass ones genes on, not someone bogarting the vodka bottle.

But that's not really a new idea. Symbiotic relationships are well documented and are quite easily explained by standard evolutionary principles.

Insects that worked with plants were more likely to survive and so passed on their genes more.
And visa versa.

 

[Veylon]

I don't buy it. Your "unconventional" evolution seems to be little more than relabeling of "conventional" evolution in order to be more special. And possibly sparklier.

Evolution is not some bizarre mystical process. "Superior" genes are superior only in the sense that they provide benefits that increase the chance of reproduction. Modern society does not (genetic engineering aside) subvert or eliminate natural selection. It merely offers a different environment to adapt to. It's less evolutionary rigorous, virtually all individuals contribute to the gene pool.

But remember, you're claiming "unconventional" evolution has supposedly been going on from about 5000 years ago (or so), as per your linked article. Hardly modern society. This was the farming age, in which populations could often be wiped out wholesale in the event of a crop failure or invasion. Hunter-gatherers lack the violent upheaval and boom-and-bust cycles of civilization, so it's only natural that early organized societies would "evolve" faster. Hunter-gatherer's largely stay where they are and (sensibly) fear open conflict. Civilized people travel all over the place and kill one another in carload lots. Thus genes face greater pressures and opportunities in a "civilized" environment.

I still don't buy the overall theory, though.

 

[riskroWe]

I thought the biggest driving force behind evolution in an apex-predator was sexual selection where those who are more appealing to the opposite sex have more offspring.

And there's also an element of artificial selection, or eugenics, where society dictates (implicitly or explicitly) who is allowed to have how many kids with who.

Screw natural selection, that's for moths.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

Evolution is directly caused by random genetic mutations that spread through a population. Environment only indirectly affects evolution, through natural selection narrowing down the viable paths a population can take.

I have to confess to having doubts about some of these mechanisms of evolution. Some of what nature has created seems to defy conventional theories of natural selection (the apocrita suborder of life specifically, but there are one or two others, including humans). I don't quite think that humanities understanding of evolution is quite as comprehensive as we believe.

Social insects? What's so surprising about them?

The conversations since that post will clarify. Basically, social insects evolved against the grain of what their physiology and life cycles would normally allow for. If you are as much of an insect fan as I am you might find some interesting articles scattered throughout those posts.

Humans are only mildly beholden to natural selection by this point, anyway. Evolution and natural selection are two different things.

This is kind of my point. I think we tend to think of evolution as a process which is a by-product of natural selection. I personally think this is a bit like the tail wagging the dog, and that evolution is what forces natural selection. There are just too many big coincidences in evolution, and some odd anomalies, which make me think that there is far more too it than accidental mutation and simple survival of the fittest.

But that's not really a new idea. Symbiotic relationships are well documented and are quite easily explained by standard evolutionary principles.

Insects that worked with plants were more likely to survive and so passed on their genes more.
And visa versa.

How they work is well documented and well understood.

How they came about, in evolutionary terms, is a completely different question.

I have gone to great lengths in this thread to explain this position - the insects worked magnificently in symbiosis with the plants. Getting that process to a level it does work in a world where only the absolute pinnacle of evolutionary models survive is an insurmountable problem. Yeah sure those little buggers worked well with plants - what stopped them from simply being eaten to death by the other insects of the day who were bigger and stronger? It certainly wasn't (as it is in non-social insects such as aphids) that they produced masses of offspring, as the vast majority of those offspring don't reproduce. It wasn't that they were capable of defending themselves, because those kinds of defensive measures take division of labor which takes time to evolve.

You have to consider all the factors acting upon an organism during its evolution. Take humans. Forests disappearing, thus we need longer legs to become ground apes as opposed to tree apes. The need to run, to chase prey and flee from predators, thus we need to lose body heat, so we lose our fur and develop advanced sweat glands. This lack of fur leaves bare skin, which is vunerable to the sun, thus we grow extremely long hair on our heads which can help cover us from the suns rays. Each step can be explained, each step brings an advantage.

We can't do this with insectoidal life forms. Take the highly social insects, take the lonesome little solitary insects, and there is no middle ground (which is why there are no examples of "mildly" social insects in nature). If an insect species decides to be social it needs to be extremely social to stand even a possibility of survival. It's all or nothing. Look at what just a few hornets did to thousands of bees. But evolution doesn't "jump" like that.