Evolution by Mistake

[Tank]

Evolution by Mistake: Major Driving Force Comes from How Organisms Cope With Errors at Cellular Level

ScienceDaily (Jan. 26, 2011) â€" Charles Darwin based his groundbreaking theory of natural selection on the realization that genetic variation among organisms is the key to evolution.

Some individuals are better adapted to a given environment than others, making them more likely to survive and pass on their genes to future generations. But exactly how nature creates variation in the first place still poses somewhat of a puzzle to evolutionary biologists.

Now, Joanna Masel, associate professor in the UA's department of ecology and evolutionary biology, and postdoctoral fellow Etienne Rajon discovered the ways organisms deal with mistakes that occur while the genetic code in their cells is being interpreted greatly influences their ability to adapt to new environmental conditions -- in other words, their ability to evolve.

"Evolution needs a playground in order to try things out," Masel said. "It's like in competitive business: New products and ideas have to be tested to see whether they can live up to the challenge."

Natural Selection is the engine of Evolution, the 'fuel' of Natural Selection is variation, this research reveals another source of variation, another source of 'fuel' for Natural Selection!

[terranus]

So what you're saying is...we're all technically product testers? Hmm. No wonder life sucks so much.

[ablprop]

I learned about one amazing insight regarding evolution while reading about the HIV virus. One reason it is so difficult to treat is that it keeps changing. Why? Because it is really bad making copies of itself. It makes lots and lots of mistakes. Most of those mistakes will be gibberish, but every once in a while an accidental mistake leads to a better-adapted virus. When you have billions of offspring, you can afford to try something strange with a few.

[Tank]

I learned about one amazing insight regarding evolution while reading about the HIV virus. One reason it is so difficult to treat is that it keeps changing. Why? Because it is really bad making copies of itself. It makes lots and lots of mistakes. Most of those mistakes will be gibberish, but every once in a while an accidental mistake leads to a better-adapted virus. When you have billions of offspring, you can afford to try something strange with a few.

That is one of the ironies of evolution that variation, while possibly harmful to the individual most of the time, can be beneficial to the species as a whole!

[Ultima22689]

I learned about one amazing insight regarding evolution while reading about the HIV virus. One reason it is so difficult to treat is that it keeps changing. Why? Because it is really bad making copies of itself. It makes lots and lots of mistakes. Most of those mistakes will be gibberish, but every once in a while an accidental mistake leads to a better-adapted virus. When you have billions of offspring, you can afford to try something strange with a few.

That is one of the ironies of evolution that variation, while possibly harmful to the individual most of the time, can be beneficial to the species as a whole!

So, would it be far-fetched to say that ADHD, Autism, etc could be examples of the above?

[Tank]

I learned about one amazing insight regarding evolution while reading about the HIV virus. One reason it is so difficult to treat is that it keeps changing. Why? Because it is really bad making copies of itself. It makes lots and lots of mistakes. Most of those mistakes will be gibberish, but every once in a while an accidental mistake leads to a better-adapted virus. When you have billions of offspring, you can afford to try something strange with a few.

That is one of the ironies of evolution that variation, while possibly harmful to the individual most of the time, can be beneficial to the species as a whole!

So, would it be far-fetched to say that ADHD, Autism, etc could be examples of the above?

A high functioning autist could well have been very useful before writing as a tribal information store.

[ablprop]

A reviewer of a piece I'd written once commented that mutations should not be referred to as "mistakes." I think it's a good point. Without some low level of mutation, evolution would be limited to the variation that already exists in the genome. In fact, I suppose that a species with zero tolerance for mutation would be doomed to extinction.

[Ultima22689]

Do you think it may be possible that the increase in number of people with Autism is due to evolution? Perhaps our biology is interpreting a need to be able to store and use information more efficiently in this age of information we live in where we are constantly bombarded by information. Note i'm just thinking of things as they come to mind, not doing any research or anything of the sort.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Indeed, that is what is meant by an "evolutionary dead-end, more-or-less: a species has so specialized to its environment -- it has lived in it so long -- that there is a great uniformity in their genome, which means not much chance to produce variety.  Which circumstances change rapidly (in geological terms -- say, one millenium), the genome's ability to adapt is outstripped, the species lags further behind less-specialized species, and eventually goes extinct.

[ablprop]

Do you think it may be possible that the increase in number of people with Autism is due to evolution? Perhaps our biology is interpreting a need to be able to store and use information more efficiently in this age of information we live in where we are constantly bombarded by information. Note i'm just thinking of things as they come to mind, not doing any research or anything of the sort.

I don't think so, unless it could be shown that autism somehow provides a reproductive advantage. The appearance of a species responding to a change in the environment is really just an illusion. The variation is always there, but as the environment changes variants that were once at an adaptive disadvantage are suddenly adaptively advantaged (the peppered moth example is of this type).