NationStates Jolt Archive

No beloved readers, this is not a topic about Creationism. It is instead about the question if allowing the process of evolution - including extinction - to occur is desireable. Confused ? Then read on...

I was reading the sci fi novella "True Names" (http://ia310804.us.archive.org/2/items/TrueNames/TrueNames.pdf) by Benjamin Rosenbaum and Cory Doctorow when I came across the following sentence:

Where replication arises, so does evolution. And what is evolution? The tyranny of that which can make itself more common

Does this have a point ? Is "survival of the fittest" something that will ultimately lead to more and more of the same, increasing dullness and killing off diversity ? If so - is that bad or not ? Some people may believe in "the weak should perish" after all.

No beloved readers, this is not a topic about Creationism. It is instead about the question if allowing the process to occur is desireable. Confused ? Then read on...

I was reading the sci fi novella "True Names" (http://ia310804.us.archive.org/2/items/TrueNames/TrueNames.pdf) by Benjamin Rosenbaum and Cory Doctorow when I came across the following sentence:



Does this have a point ? Is "survival of the fittest" something that will ultimately lead to more and more of the same, increasing dullness and killing off diversity ? If so - is that bad or not ? Some people may believe in "the weak should perish" after all.I'm wondering how you would go about preventing it even if it were...
Forced breeding programs come to mind, and they strike me as a greater evil.

I'm wondering how you would go about preventing it even if it were...
Forced breeding programs come to mind, and they strike me as a greater evil.

The intruiging part is that intelligence is the problem. Non-intelligent life in fact tends to move towards greater and greater diversity, especially specialisation and the filling of niches.
Intelligent life (well.. at least the only type we know) otoh tries to fill ALL niches, replacing what was already there with itself.

The solution provided by one party in the novella was to have intelligent life deliberately limit its own growth so other forms have a chance. Downside was that other intelligences were not so nice, and as such threatened to destroy this "benevolent" one.

Another solution was to deliberately split oneself off from the main species, delibaretely seeking out mutations.

Does this have a point ? Is "survival of the fittest" something that will ultimately lead to more and more of the same, increasing dullness and killing off diversity ? If so - is that bad or not ? Some people may believe in "the weak should perish" after all.

In some instances, yes. Sharks for example. There are many kinds, but they mostly follow the same basic body plan for a marine predator, and haven't changed all that much in the millions of years they've been around. Mammals that have evolved to live their entire lives in the sea even superficially resemble them.

However, in other instances, environmental factors will drive species to split if conditions favor individuals at the extremes of their diversity rather than the middle. For example, if for some reason, it was advantageous to be unusually tall or advantageous to be unusually short, but not somewhere in between, you'd eventually get speciation, or divergence of species if these conditions persisted. This would result in two very closely related species: One being markedly tall, and the other being notably short. That's a very very simplified example, but it's basically how things go and how evolution can produce two species where before there was one.

Another way this can happen is when part of a species migrates to a different area. Over time, given separation from the rest of the species, they will develop independently to suit the environmental conditions in their current habitat.

Currently, I'm not sure that humans are really evolving in any particular direction. This is because advancements have made it quite likely in many areas for the vast majority of offspring to live long enough to mate and have offspring of their own.

Does this have a point ? Is "survival of the fittest" something that will ultimately lead to more and more of the same, increasing dullness and killing off diversity?
Yes, that is kind of the point, the organism adapts to it's environment.

If so - is that bad or not ? Some people may believe in "the weak should perish" after all

Yes and no. If the environment doesn't ever change then it would make sense to be as homogenous to that environment as possible, allowing the optimum number of offspring to survive. Diversity just reduces that efficiency.

On the other hand, having more genetic diversity allows you to hedge your bets - the species can adapt 'good enough' to an environment to thrive, and can keep some alternative traits arround in the off chance the environment goes belly-up (though a quick, severe environmental change can destroy even the best adaptable organism).

That's why sexual reproduction is a good thing in the long run; It allows a species to adapt to an environment, whilst also forcing mixing up of traits throughout a population, an excellent thing since mutation is the source of all diversity. Some organisms even have a non-sexual stage to build up numbers in a new environment and sexual stage to get diversity in the population.

Humans trying to look after frail members of their own species is also a way to retain diversity in a population (as well as allow specialisation in roles without making it a hardcoded element of a particular 'breed').

Bare in mind that some organisms stay at the 'good enough' period, being unable to adapt further due to inheritances from ancestors, the Panda's small gut being an example.

We're getting to the point where we can retain a lot more 'unadapted' people though apply technological solutions to their problems, allowing a greater amount of diversity to be retained in humans.

popular misconception of darwin's meaning of "fitness" just keeps rollin' along.

as does, appearently, the whole idea of natural ecological communities and how they work.

We're getting to the point where we can retain a lot more 'unadapted' people though apply technological solutions to their problems, allowing a greater amount of diversity to be retained in humans.

In humans.
See - that is the problem ;)

Let us use the whole quote:

Look at the asteroid now—wild and rich and strange. See how the chaos
of incineration wrought these veins of ore, folded this fernlike pattern; see
how many kinds of glass proceed along this line, like bubbles here, like battered
polyhedra here. Here where the fissiles have scattered in an arc—see
this network of fields? Here, look, here is the math. See? There is a possibility
of self-organization. It is more common than you know. Replicators may
arise, here, in these fluctuations.Will they be as computationally complex as
you-in-the-asteroid? Of course not. But they will be something else.
Where replication arises, so does evolution. And what is evolution? The
tyranny of that which can make itself more common. I love life, Paquette-of-Beebe;
I love the strange new forms that bloom so quickly where life is afoot. But
life tends toward intelligence and intelligence toward ubiquitous computation—
and ubiquitous computation, left unchecked, would crush the cosmos
under its boot, reducing “world” to “substrate.”

As has been noted, the natural process of evolution actually favors genetic diversity. However, today we're losing a lot of biodiversity because of human interference in the environment, e.g. global warming and introducing alien species into ecosystems. And even if some species would go extinct anyway, we have an interest in preserving them for the sake of scientific inquiry.

As Richard Dawkins notes in The Selfish Gene, evolution, like all natural processes, is fundamentally amoral. It doesn't carry any sort of moral imperative, and anyway, it occurs over such a vast timescale that we might not even have the capacity to take it into consideration.

In humans.
See - that is the problem ;)

Let us use the whole quote:

That's my problem for not reading a link.

I love the strange new forms that bloom so quickly where life is afoot. But life tends toward intelligence and intelligence toward ubiquitous computation—and ubiquitous computation, left unchecked, would crush the cosmos under its boot, reducing “world” to “substrate.”
I don't quite get what it's talking about. Is it saying we have to appreciate the whole, and not just the components?

Also life doesn't tend towards intelligence - the most common organisims (and largest biomass) are single cell organisms.

As has been noted, the natural process of evolution actually favors genetic diversity. However, today we're losing a lot of biodiversity because of human interference in the environment, e.g. global warming and introducing alien species into ecosystems. And even if some species would go extinct anyway, we have an interest in preserving them for the sake of scientific inquiry.

Actually the natural process of evolution favour genetic homogenity, to adapt to an environment. Mutation is the source and cross breeding between groups spreads it around. You could argue that evolution indirectly promotes it by populations adapting, then thriving in an environment, causing a greater population and larger number of mutation events.

The problem is that the various eco-systems throughout the world can't adapt fast enough to these problems, even if one or two elements of them could.

Does this have a point ? Is "survival of the fittest" something that will ultimately lead to more and more of the same, increasing dullness and killing off diversity ? If so - is that bad or not ? Some people may believe in "the weak should perish" after all.

This question has little meaning. There's no "absolute" scale to measure "weakness". This planet is so complex and so full of different environments that the ecological niches are incredibily numerous. The "survival of the fittest" leads to extreme variety, because of the various niches.

When life began, it was just a single filament of DNA. Now, after at the very least 3 Myears of evolution, we have tens of thousands of different species... just of ANTS. Then we have all other insects, etc, etc, etc... living beings ranging from bacteria to blue whales!

That's my problem for not reading a link.

The story is almost 100 pages. You are forgiven ;)

I don't quite get what it's talking about. Is it saying we have to appreciate the whole, and not just the components?

The thing speaking is an AI. All intelligences in the story are.
It laments that everything else ultimately gets replaced by things not that different from itself - and that ultimatel everything in the universe will be one.

When life began, it was just a single filament of DNA. Now, after at the very least 3 Myears of evolution, we have tens of thousands of different species... just of ANTS. Then we have all other insects, etc, etc, etc... living beings ranging from bacteria to blue whales!

Which we exterminate quite efficiently.

As has been noted, the natural process of evolution actually favors genetic diversity.

I don't think it does, I think it's an illusion of competition, diverse habitat and low migration.

Where a species manages to cover the globe and create its habitat, I think evolution would tend towards uniformity.

There will always be mutation but where there's no pressure for change, they are what they are.

Which we exterminate quite efficiently.

Ironically we're best at exterminating the more complicated life forms.

Which we exterminate quite efficiently.

It's their fault, they're too yummy.:D

Btw: Even by creating cities, we create new niches.

When life began, it was just a single filament of DNA.

Ah, so you're a DNA origin person, and not a RNA or Protein person.

The thing speaking is an AI. All intelligences in the story are.
It laments that everything else ultimately gets replaced by things not that different from itself - and that ultimatel everything in the universe will be one.

Well it would be relatively easy to create a randomnisation code for new AI systems. ;)

It would be interesting if an AI was so bored it decided to wreck everything and start anew.

Actually the natural process of evolution favour genetic homogenity, to adapt to an environment. Mutation is the source and cross breeding between groups spreads it around. You could argue that evolution indirectly promotes it by populations adapting, then thriving in an environment, causing a greater population and larger number of mutation events.

The problem is that the various eco-systems throughout the world can't adapt fast enough to these problems, even if one or two elements of them could.

What I meant was that the maintenance of intra-species diversity is actually healthy, and thus evolution doesn't suggest that we should eliminate traits deemed inferior. Suppose, for example, that you eliminated the sickle cell trait in a population, and then had a malaria outbreak. My point is that if evolution suggests that we "should" do anything, it is to preserve diversity rather than reduce it, since that provides greater adaptability.

Ah, so you're a DNA origin person, and not a RNA or Protein person.

No, actually I named DNA because it was the first thing that came up my mind.

I don't think it does, I think it's an illusion of competition, diverse habitat and low migration.

Where a species manages to cover the globe and create its habitat, I think evolution would tend towards uniformity.
Also when the populations link up there would be a better spread of various traits, making some people believe that diversity has increased.

The habitat could not be uniform (though clearly more uniform that just choosing a never habitat), so the species wouldn't be completely uniform, just very similar. It take a drastic reduction in diversity before settling new areas for such a uniform species, such as the Cheetah.

In humanities case it depends on what path of technology application we choose - focus on the 'apex' (which would almost always be a socially derived subjective) or focus on diversity?

There will always be mutation but where there's no pressure for change, they are what they are.
It depends on the pressures involved, if the change has no detriment or advantage it may still become prevalent through chance, or though the minority population being broken off from the main stock and then increases numbers (same goes for negative/positive traits).

The 'competition' in eco-systems is not a perfect one; some negative traits may not make enough of an impact, or impact only during certain times in which other species are affected so that an organism may be more prevalent than another, even though the other is better adapted. Hell, in some populations a minor advantage may never take off due to the trait not being passed on to offspring (due to chance), an especially bad problem in very small populations.

Mutation guarantees some change, which is why sexual reproduction is good for a second reason - the preservation of neutral traits (or minor negative/positive) that may be useful, or not, in the future. The only problem is that if you have a small population it becomes much, much easier to lose such a trait than in an asexual reproduction, though that is not too much of a problem since most humans are able to access a large population of mates.

What I meant was that the maintenance of intra-species diversity is actually healthy, and thus evolution doesn't suggest that we should eliminate traits deemed inferior. Suppose, for example, that you eliminated the sickle cell trait in a population, and then had a malaria outbreak. My point is that if evolution suggests that we "should" do anything, it is to preserve diversity rather than reduce it, since that provides greater adaptability.
I'll agree with that, though unfortunately our technology is not capable with quite a few problems just yet, meaning it probably would be beneficial to marginalise some traits in the short term, whilst also preserving them for the long term.

Well it would be relatively easy to create a randomnisation code for new AI systems. ;)

It would be interesting if an AI was so bored it decided to wreck everything and start anew.
birth of god? begining of the NEXT universe?
how do we KNOW that isn't what happened that resaulted in the creation of THIS one?

(well actually there IS an answer to that maybe, something about neccessary structural complexity for it to physically run on, but then again, if there WERE some nonphysical way arround that ... )

birth of god? begining of the NEXT universe?
how do we KNOW that isn't what happened that resaulted in the creation of THIS one?

(well actually there IS an answer to that maybe, something about neccessary structural complexity for it to physically run on, but then again, if there WERE some nonphysical way arround that ... )

There's a physical way around it - Make alterations to the big things and not care about the little ones. If you want a little thing done, simply do that and leave the rest.

Though if there were some way to make a second smaller universe you could quite easily use the max computation of the larger to generate the smaller.

For me, there's two related points of interest in this.

First, will humans cause a serious loss of diversity by being so advanced compared to other animals, advanced in terms of being able to wipe them out with little to no danger to ourselves. Clearly we can't wipe out all living things, our own body is an entire ecological system in itself but I don't hold much hope for mammals, reptiles and fish over a certain size, certainly not in their natural state.

Second, will diversity among humans disappear to some extent? The easiest example is brown eyes, is it not inevitable that, over time, other eye colours will merely be an odd mutation here and there. What about skin colour, hair? We're only at the beginning of mass human migration but in 10, 000 years, given we last that long?

It's really only been about 200 years since we really started moving, the train probably had something to do with that.

I don't even think we've begun to realize the consequences of technology, technology enabled by the evolution of our brain.

First, will humans cause a serious loss of diversity by being so advanced compared to other animals, advanced in terms of being able to wipe them out with little to no danger to ourselves. Clearly we can't wipe out all living things, our own body is an entire ecological system in itself but I don't hold much hope for mammals, reptiles and fish over a certain size, certainly not in their natural state.

That is, we're way too much apical predators.


Second, will diversity among humans disappear to some extent? The easiest example is brown eyes, is it not inevitable that, over time, other eye colours will merely be an odd mutation here and there. What about skin colour, hair? We're only at the beginning of mass human migration but in 10, 000 years, given we last that long?

Hmm... not in the near future, because of permanent cultural factors (like fair skin being seen as more beautiful etc). Don't ask me about the far future, though.


It's really only been about 200 years since we really started moving, the train probably had something to do with that.

Mass migrations happened already before. The Mongols invaded more than half of Eurasia without trains. Also, ships.

I don't even think we've begun to realize the consequences of technology, technology enabled by the evolution of our brain.
We don't even know how the bloody brain works!

Does this have a point ? Is "survival of the fittest" something that will ultimately lead to more and more of the same, increasing dullness and killing off diversity?
No, by the very nature of evolution.

Some people may believe in "the weak should perish" after all.
Those people, social Darwinists, fail to grasp the process of evolution.

Where replication arises, so does evolution. And what is evolution? The tyranny of that which can make itself more common

Does this have a point ? Is "survival of the fittest" something that will ultimately lead to more and more of the same, increasing dullness and killing off diversity ?

hmm, i might actually agree to a certain extent. with (imperfect) replication, you get diversification. but when you add in some selective factor, what you are doing is weeding out many/most of those variations. now in nature it turns out that there are enough 'spaces' to occupy (and the existence of things occupying them creates further spaces) that we still get lots of diversity. but it is less diversity than we would have with no or weaker selection.

Second, will diversity among humans disappear to some extent? The easiest example is brown eyes, is it not inevitable that, over time, other eye colours will merely be an odd mutation here and there.

That's because brown eyes are dominant. Blue, green, and the other phenotypes manifest themselves less, but the genes themselves aren't disappearing. It's a result of the world's gene pool becoming more diverse by disparate populations mixing. Demographic trends are another thing, but I think it's somewhat unhealthy to worry about the differential birthrates of groups of people.

Second, will diversity among humans disappear to some extent? The easiest example is brown eyes, is it not inevitable that, over time, other eye colours will merely be an odd mutation here and there.

only if there is some selective advantage to brown eyes. otherwise we'll wind up in a mathematically calculable equilibrium.

Darwinism isn't a philosophy, it's more like an observation or fact. It's not that the weak should perish, it's that the weak do perish. Thus, those that don't perish aren't weak.

Neither the proponents or opponents of darwinism can influence this inevitable course of nature. Whether it's good or not... it depends on what you think is good or bad. Nevertheless, it'd be wise to simply accept this fact, as coping with reality will increase YOUR survivability.

Darwinism isn't a philosophy, it's more like an observation or fact. It's not that the weak should perish, it's that the weak do perish. Thus, those that don't perish aren't weak.

'weak'? 'perish'?

i think you took a metaphor a bit literally

Neither the proponents or opponents of darwinism can influence this inevitable course of nature. Whether it's good or not... it depends on what you think is good or bad. Nevertheless, it'd be wise to simply accept this fact, as coping with reality will increase YOUR survivability.

we have no control over the selective forces that impact us? really?

Darwinism isn't a philosophy, it's more like an observation or fact. It's not that the weak should perish, it's that the weak do perish. Thus, those that don't perish aren't weak.
Someone needs to read up on his/her Darwin.

Evolution has nothing to do with 'weak' or 'strong'; it's about adaptability. A very weak organism can, if adapted well to its environment, survive long after the extinction of other, stronger organisms.

Just take a look at mammals and dinosaurs.

So, pish and nonsense to your social Darwinism; a term that Darwin would have been ashamed to have his name attached to.

Neither the proponents or opponents of darwinism can influence this inevitable course of nature.
The history of medicine proves you wrong.

'weak'? 'perish'?

i think you took a metaphor a bit literally
Quoth the OP: Some people may believe in "the weak should perish" after all.
I was addressing this belief, using "weak" and "perish" just as metaphorically.

we have no control over the selective forces that impact us? really?
No, not in the long run. We exterminate other species on a regular basis. Laws against poaching and regulations on whaling (for example) only manage to decrease the detrimental activity humans have on the global ecosystem, but never eliminate or reverse it. These kinds of controls are rarely enforced, especially in parts of the Earth, where law enforcement's a luxury, but plants and wildlife are diverse (see: rainforests).
As for our own survivability, it only takes a virus or two that can't be eradicated and populations can be (and are being) purged. See HIV in Africa for example. The only thing keeping the heavily AIDS-affected regions from depopulating is an abnormally high reproduction rate. As Eric Pianka said: "I'd say we're dumb because we're letting our population grow just like bacteria grow on an agar plate until they've reached the limits; and that's dumb."

To return the question to you, what do you think have we (humanity as a whole) done to limit or reverse the effects we have on our environment? And did it work?

For me, there's two related points of interest in this.

First, will humans cause a serious loss of diversity by being so advanced compared to other animals, advanced in terms of being able to wipe them out with little to no danger to ourselves. Clearly we can't wipe out all living things, our own body is an entire ecological system in itself but I don't hold much hope for mammals, reptiles and fish over a certain size, certainly not in their natural state.
.

We've already wiped out basically all the world's megafauna except that which resides in Africa, and we're quickly getting rid of that exception.

Is "survival of the fittest" something that will ultimately lead to more and more of the same, increasing dullness and killing off diversity ?

Why would it start now? It (combined with genetic mutation - otherwise it is not quite evolution) caused that diversity in the first place, why would it suddenly have the opposite effect?

Why would it start now? It (combined with genetic mutation - otherwise it is not quite evolution) caused that diversity in the first place, why would it suddenly have the opposite effect?

survival of the fittest must lead to a decrease in diversity - if not everything survives, then there are fewer things around.

Actually, the biggest mistake people make is assigning moral value to evolution, or for that matter any natural phenomenon. Their operations are completely amoral and devoid of any of the ethical meaning we assign to our actions and the world around us, and couldn't care less (or care about anything at all, for that matter) whether we're here or not should evolutionary circumstances begin to turn against us.

As Richard Dawkins puts it:

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.

That is the natural world.

Out of curiosity, I was looking up eye colour and, aside from what seems to be a rather racist book on immigration, I discovered that blue eyes only came into existence for humans between 6-10, 000 years ago, most likely in Afghanistan or around the Black Sea.

Them ladies do loves them blue eyes.

Actually, the biggest mistake people make is assigning moral value to evolution, or for that matter any natural phenomenon. Their operations are completely amoral and devoid of any of the ethical meaning we assign to our actions and the world around us, and couldn't care less (or care about anything at all, for that matter) whether we're here or not should evolutionary circumstances begin to turn against us.


But since we CAN take action and actively interfere, the issue does become a moral one. If you see someone drowning, it is not your fault that they are dying in the first place - but you probably can jump in the water and save them nevertheless. Are you morally obligated to ?
If so, are we morally obligated to preserve other species as well as other humans ?