Not long ago I had a remarkable experience: I got to visit the nursery for what might prove to be a new form of life. At Michigan State University, a group of computer scientists, biologists, and philosophers run the Digital Evolution Laboratory. There, they are developing software called Avida which allows them to create virtual worlds swarming with digital organisms. Avida’s residents show a lot of the important features that scientists consider essential requirements for life. Their evolution is particularly impressive, because it parallels evolution in the wet world in all sorts of subtle ways. And because you can run through a hundred thousand generations in a matter of hours, the Avida team can carry out experiments on some of the most important aspects of evolution that biologists could previously only study by looking at the natural world.
When you consider a tapeworm or an Ebola virus, it is easy think of them as being evil to their very core. That’s a mistake. It’s true that at this point in their evolutionary history these species have become well adapted to living inside of other organisms (us), and using our resources to help them reproduce themselves even if we get sick in the process. But one of the big lessons of modern biology is that there are no essences in nature–only the ongoing interplay of natural selection and the conditions in which it works. If the conditions change, organisms may evolve into drastically different things. Even the most ruthless parasite may discover the virtues of peace and harmony–if the conditions are right.
Evolutionary biologists face a challenge that’s a lot like a challenge of studying ancient human history: to retrieve vanished connections. The people who live in remote Polynesia presumably didn’t sprout from the island soil like trees–they must have come from somewhere. Tracing their connection to ancestors elsewhere hasn’t been easy, in part because the islands are surrounded by hundreds of miles of open ocean. It hasn’t been impossible though: studies on their culture, language, and DNA all suggest that the Polynesians originally embarked from southeast Asia. We may never be able to retrieve the full flow of history that carried people thousands of miles to the middle of the Pacific, but we can know some things about it, and we can rest assured that some things are definitely not true (such as the sprouting-from-the-ground theory).
The New York Times, December 30, 2004
Bigger is better, the saying goes, and in the case of evolution, the saying is apparently right.The notion that natural selection can create long-term trends toward large size first emerged about a century ago, but it fell out of favor in recent decades. Now researchers have taken a fresh look at the question with new methods, and some argue that these trends are real.
Biologists have recently found that in most animals and plants, bigger individuals are more successful at reproducing than smaller ones, whether they are finches, damselflies or jimsonweed.
Phyllis Schlafly has suddenly become interested in evolution! She has written the most staggering display of buffoonery on the subject that I’ve read in a long time. She can’t even tell the difference between Darwin and Lamarck–seriously. At least Steve Reuland at Panda’s Thumb candismantle this ignorant nonsense while retaining his sense of humor.