is life about the survival of the fittest chemistry?

[Write4U]

Evolution creates the variety, Natural Selection weeds out the less efficient forms.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Evolution creates the variety, Natural Selection weeds out the less efficient forms.

AND promotes the most efficient.

 

[sideshowbob]

AND promotes the most efficient.

The slowest zebras get eaten - i.e. the population is eroded from the bottom end. For the ones that survive, it isn't particularly relevant who gets the gold, silver or bronze medal.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The slowest zebras get eaten - i.e. the population is eroded from the bottom end. For the ones that survive, it isn't particularly relevant who gets the gold, silver or bronze medal.

And now let's talk about breeding.

 

[iceaura]

- Life is a cooperation - for food, shelter, and breeding success. -
If this were broadly true, then evolution would have nothing to work on.

The best cooperator's DNA often out-reproduces the worst. That's the basic point of leverage for evolutionary advantage.

(Look at how much any given critter's physiology -

You mean the collection of millions of self-sacrificing cooperators we call "cells", harboring and embedded in their matrix of mutualistic and symbiotic bacteria and yeasts, wandering about a landscape of similar collections almost all of which are either indifferent or cooperative with it in some way?

Evolution generally doesn't tend to make critters smarter, more sociable or more cooperative nearly as much as it tends to make them more physically able to get their own food, shelter and breeding space.

By cooperating in various ways, at various levels, mostly.

Sure, some do get smarter, and that is one path that evolution exploits, but mostly it's making better physical adaptations to their environment.

Cooperation requires no more "intelligence" than competition - maybe less. The physical adaptations often involve loss of capability.

Non-herders tend to be loners

And more sparse on the landscape.

Herd animals collect for the sake of protection - though that is dubiously cooperative; it doesn't work out so well for the ones near edge of the herd.

The worse cooperators are at the edge of the herd, often - the ones that harbor disease, the ones that don't keep up or pay attention to others, the young of the less nurturing parents, etc.
And in the meantime, most of their DNA is at the center of the herd.

 

[pluto2]

There is still a lot we don't know about how the human body works.

For instance, we don't even understand the mechanism by which biological evolution happens.

We know that evolution happens but we don't know the process (or mechanism) by which it happens: It could also be aliens, it could also be God or it could also be magic?

We just don't know.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

There is still a lot we don't know about how the human body works.

For instance, we don't even understand the mechanism by which biological evolution happens.

We know that evolution happens but we don't know the process (or mechanism) by which it happens: It could also be aliens, it could also be God or it could also be magic?

We just don't know.

You just don't know, you mean.

 

[pluto2]

You just don't know, you mean.

What do you mean by that?

The scientific bureaucracy doesn't want to admit that there is still a lot we don't know about evolutionary biology and how the human body truly works.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

What do you mean by that?

The scientific bureaucracy doesn't want to admit that there is still a lot we don't know about evolutionary biology and how the human body truly works.

And how much do you know about the scientific bureaucracy? Met even one of them? Have then acknowledged your conspiracy ideas?

 

[Write4U]

What do you mean by that?

The scientific bureaucracy doesn't want to admit that there is still a lot we don't know about evolutionary biology and how the human body truly works.

Some 500 diferent types of bio-molecules ~(1.2 x 10^27 billions of them) is all. And a few metals.

some metabolic pathways as invariant features between the diversity of life forms is called "biochemical universals"[1] or "theory of material unity of the living beings", a unifying concept in biology, along with cell theory and evolution theory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomolecule#Types_of_biomolecules

 

[DaveC426913]

We know that evolution happens but we don't know the process (or mechanism) by which it happens: It could also be aliens, it could also be God or it could also be magic?

We just don't know.

Yes we do.

Here is a primer in less than ten sentences:

• A species is a population of organisms that interbreeds and has fertile offspring.
• Living organisms have descended with modifications from species that lived before them.
• Natural selection explains how this evolution has happened:
  • More organisms are produced than can survive because of limited resources.
  • Organisms struggle for the necessities of life; there is competition for resources.
  • Individuals within a population vary in their traits; some of these traits are heritable -- passed on to offspring.
  • Some variants are better adapted to survive and reproduce under local conditions than others.
  • Better-adapted individuals (the "fit enough") are more likely to survive and reproduce, thereby passing on copies of their genes to the next generation.
  • Species whose individuals are best adapted survive; others become extinct.

Evolution is a fact. Walk into any fish breeder's or dog breeder's lab and they'll show you evolution in action.

Now, what is not fact is evolution by natural selection. That is theory.

 

[Xmo1]

Yes we do.

Here is a primer in less than ten sentences:

• A species is a population of organisms that interbreeds and has fertile offspring.
• Living organisms have descended with modifications from species that lived before them.
• Natural selection explains how this evolution has happened:
  • More organisms are produced than can survive because of limited resources.
  • Organisms struggle for the necessities of life; there is competition for resources.
  • Individuals within a population vary in their traits; some of these traits are heritable -- passed on to offspring.
  • Some variants are better adapted to survive and reproduce under local conditions than others.
  • Better-adapted individuals (the "fit enough") are more likely to survive and reproduce, thereby passing on copies of their genes to the next generation.
  • Species whose individuals are best adapted survive; others become extinct.

Evolution is a fact. Walk into any fish breeder's or dog breeder's lab and they'll show you evolution in action.

Now, what is not fact is evolution by natural selection. That is theory.

I seen two one celled microorganisms. One was being chased, and eventually eaten by the other. How does that happen? My brain is 97% efficient. I am the other 3%. Sometimes it lets me be fully aware (getting streams from all 5 senses). I think we have a spirit we can command as well. I've asked my spirit for years if a certain road was clear or not. It flew out, and seconds later returned with a result. This occurred for more than 10 years, and it never gave me the wrong answer. That's mystical, but maybe not..

 

[DaveC426913]

I seen two one celled microorganisms. One was being chased, and eventually eaten by the other. How does that happen?

What about it confuses you?
It is simply predation, writ small.

 

[Write4U]

Now, what is not fact is evolution by natural selection. That is theory.

I understand the gist of your posit, but one could argue that evolution is a form of natural selection, but not exclusively so.

IOW, a very successfully evolved species can be wiped out by a natural cataclysmic event, such as a collision of earth with another planet, which may wipe out all life except for a few micro-organisms. So there is no competition involved.

A tardigrade is not a complex organism, but is able to withstand conditions where most other life forms might perish. Thus under such conditions a tardigrade might well become the dominant species.

Tardigrades are one of the most resilient known animals,[10][11] with individual species able to survive extreme conditions that would be rapidly fatal to nearly all other known life forms, such as exposure to extreme temperatures, extreme pressures (both high and low), air deprivation, radiation, dehydration, and starvation. About 1,150 known species[12][13] form the phylum Tardigrada, a part of the superphylum Ecdysozoa. The group includes fossils dating from 530 million years ago, in the Cambrian period

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade

This is not because a tardigrade is highly adapted to its environment, but its very simplicity allows it to adapt to almost any natural environment. A kind of reverse evolutionary process, where simplicity prevails. Where dinosaurs might perish, our lowly tardigrade survives.

Thus, IMO, natural selection is a higher order (probabilistic) survival mechanisms, whereas evolution is the gradual specialized deterministic adaption to the environment, enabling one species to out-compete other species for available resources.

 

[Write4U]

I seen two one celled microorganisms. One was being chased, and eventually eaten by the other. How does that happen? My brain is 97% efficient. I am the other 3%. Sometimes it lets me be fully aware (getting streams from all 5 senses). I think we have a spirit we can command as well. I've asked my spirit for years if a certain road was clear or not. It flew out, and seconds later returned with a result. This occurred for more than 10 years, and it never gave me the wrong answer. That's mystical, but maybe not..

If you haven't seen this yet, I suggest watching this lecture by Robert Hazen at the Carnegie Institute. (start viewing @ 25:25)

 

[DaveC426913]

This is not because a tardigrade is highly adapted to its environment, but its very simplicity allows it to adapt to almost any natural environment.

There are, broadly, two survival strategies: the generalists and the specialists.
Specialists are finely-tuned to their environment, and thrive during relatively inactive climatic and geological periods, when food and environment don't change a lot. Hummingbirds, Koalas, feed on some very specific foodstuffs. (Cacti are specialists too, based directly on climate.)

Generalists, have learned to take sustenance from a wide variety of sources. They do well during times of rapid climate change. Bears, rats, coons, humans.

A kind of reverse evolutionary process, where simplicity prevails. Where dinosaurs might perish, our lowly tardigrade survives.

There's nothing "reverse" about it. That is evolution. It doesn't have a forward direction, so it doesn't have a reverse either.

Creatures that are better adapted to an environment will flourish. It has nothing to do with complexity. (The simplest bacteria have been around billions of years, and are still rivaling our own success.)

 

[Write4U]

Creatures that are better adapted to an environment will flourish. It has nothing to do with complexity. (The simplest bacteria have been around billions of years, and are still rivaling our own success.)

That was the point I was trying to make. It's true that competition for avaiable food sources very quickly leads to complexity, but complexity demands special natural needs, as is obvious by the threat of drastc climate change, to name one. Our very complexity needs an orderly environment or things go wrong very quickly.

Whereas the simplest forms have almost no needs at all. Without decaying, they persevered very well as a species. The oldest fossil found was 500 milion years old.
Tardigrades are a remakable Species of animal.

When too cold they go dormant, when too hot they just dry up. As soon as the environment changes to within their range of functionality, ususally a little water will do the trick, they go merrily on their way..

Have you looked at the Waterbear wiki link? This little creature has survived the most extreme events and conditions in all of the history of life on earth. I would call that a triumphant existence. Everything changes but it won't bother the waterbear. It's simplicity is its strenght.

From Nature's perspective it's one of her crowning jewels. It needs no evolutionary improvement. It does require water. But that's about it.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

 

[pluto2]

After all this time scientists still don't have a clue as to how the human body really works so biology is rapidly becoming a pseudoscience.

Scientists still don't know why we feel pain and why certain people experience pain differently and much more intensely than others and biological science should be able to answer that question and the fact that it doesn't means that biology is becoming a pseudoscience.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

After all this time scientists still don't have a clue as to how the human body really works so biology is rapidly becoming a pseudoscience.

Scientists still don't know why we feel pain and why certain people experience pain differently and much more intensely than others and biological science should be able to answer that question and the fact that it doesn't means that biology is becoming a pseudoscience.

You know zip-shit-nada about biology, that's obvious.