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Predator/Prey Mechanism


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It is often stated that nature made species "just good enough" and our genes are programmed to be more efficient in youth and are less efficient as you age. Has anyone considered that species are made "just good enough" is to reduce the amount of energy needed for predation to be successful?

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That's good to know. I think I'll avoid the evolutionists on EVC forum.

 

Let's look at the thesis. It's actually in two parts. First part - our genes are programmed to be more efficient in youth and are less efficient as you age. Sort of true in a warped sort of way. Somewhere along the line natural selection stumbled on the fact that death was a real benefit to survival. If that seems contrary you just haven't thought it through yet. Nature (let's personify the non-teleological process) is not interested in the individual, but in the population. Natural selection acts on populations and the variability withint them. If organisms show a reluctance to die off there is a limit to the what nature can achieve. But if she can get a nice life-death cycle going the number of possibilities expands considerably.

 

Therefore, it not so much that our genes were programmed to get less efficient as we get older, its just that there is little point, or benefit in maintaining their efficiency. (I trust you realise that efficiency is really just a metaphor in this context for a complex suite of processes and their progressive demise, most of which are well above my pay grade.)

 

The scone part is this: species are made "just good enough" is to reduce the amount of energy needed for predation to be successful? Again, it's sort of true, but really ass backwards. Any mutation that confers an advantage has to be only marginally better - just slightly better than what was good enough yesterday - in order to be positively selected for. So, many predators are large because size confers an advantage - too a point, at which time you have to bring many other factors and it gets deliciously complex.

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Well at least you have now openly stated that you have a teleological agenda. Perhaps you declared that in some thread somewhere. I think it would have been more honest to have stated your position clearly in threads where you were exploring it. As it is you have come across as devious and untrusworthy. Perhaps that's what you were aiming for.

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I don't feel that you have stated that viewpoint clearly. That may simply be poor reading/interpretation on my part. I accept that you felt you were making this viewpoint clear, but you may wish to review how you present ideas in future. Others may make the same mistake as I.

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It is often stated that nature made species "just good enough" and our genes are programmed to be more efficient in youth and are less efficient as you age. Has anyone considered that species are made "just good enough" is to reduce the amount of energy needed for predation to be successful?

 

Evolution is just random mutations happening to be successful for a species to keep living. As far as I can tell, the "degrading as you age" genes were random, but it makes room for a species to continue to change and grow.

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It is often stated that nature made species "just good enough" and our genes are programmed to be more efficient in youth and are less efficient as you age. Has anyone considered that species are made "just good enough" is to reduce the amount of energy needed for predation to be successful?

 

"It is often stated" is an incredibly poor way to start an argument, particularly in science - try citing somewhere where the statement is actually made :) that way we can all see what the original statement was made in context to and probably have a better chance of understanding your topic.

 

Topic 1:

Evolutionary selection ONLY applies to traits you can pass on to your children, or ones that assist them in surviving. For this reason, exceptional longevity is not necessarily selected for. I.e. an 80 year old woman and a 100 year old woman have had equal opportunity to breed and raise children, thus living for the extra 20 years that the older woman has no evolutionary advantage... make sense?

 

 

Topic 2:

It may have been described poorly by whoever described it to you - they may have been referring to the presence of an evolutionary equilibrium.

(examples)

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/game-evolutionary/

 

To take a hypothetical approach - we have a flock of sheep predated by a wolf.

a) Obviously the sheep are at an evolutionary advantage (i.e. they have a higher potential to create more offspring than other sheep) if they can outrun the wolf.

b)However running fast comes with an evolutionary cost (e.g. higher energy requirements - you need more food and thus are more likely to starve t death if food becomes scare and not get to pass on your genes)

c) So, evolutionarily speaking, the optimal phenotype to have is one that allows you to outrun the wolf, but has minimal energy requirements - i.e. the sheep that can "just outrun" the wolf.

d) The overriding caveat is that wolves also evolve, so that optimal point is always changing.

 

vice versa works for the wolf - you want to be fast enough to regularly catch a sheep, but not so fast you have excess energy requirements.

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"It is often stated" is an incredibly poor way to start an argument, particularly in science - try citing somewhere where the statement is actually made :) that way we can all see what the original statement was made in context to and probably have a better chance of understanding your topic.

 

Topic 1:

Evolutionary selection ONLY applies to traits you can pass on to your children, or ones that assist them in surviving. For this reason, exceptional longevity is not necessarily selected for. I.e. an 80 year old woman and a 100 year old woman have had equal opportunity to breed and raise children, thus living for the extra 20 years that the older woman has no evolutionary advantage... make sense?

 

 

Topic 2:

It may have been described poorly by whoever described it to you - they may have been referring to the presence of an evolutionary equilibrium.

(examples)

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/game-evolutionary/

 

To take a hypothetical approach - we have a flock of sheep predated by a wolf.

a) Obviously the sheep are at an evolutionary advantage (i.e. they have a higher potential to create more offspring than other sheep) if they can outrun the wolf.

b)However running fast comes with an evolutionary cost (e.g. higher energy requirements - you need more food and thus are more likely to starve t death if food becomes scare and not get to pass on your genes)

c) So, evolutionarily speaking, the optimal phenotype to have is one that allows you to outrun the wolf, but has minimal energy requirements - i.e. the sheep that can "just outrun" the wolf.

d) The overriding caveat is that wolves also evolve, so that optimal point is always changing.

 

vice versa works for the wolf - you want to be fast enough to regularly catch a sheep, but not so fast you have excess energy requirements.

 

 

I get it but what came to mind is the variation spectrum in individuals of a particular species. There may be an individual that can out run a wolf but the wolf will give up and find a less fit individual within that group. Also how you explained it, evolution appears to have thought of that problem and allowed the variation spectrum within the group. Oh, I forgot, evolution has no mind so it can't think, my bad.

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I get it but what came to mind is the variation spectrum in individuals of a particular species. There may be an individual that can out run a wolf but the wolf will give up and find a less fit individual within that group. Also how you explained it, evolution appears to have thought of that problem and allowed the variation spectrum within the group. Oh, I forgot, evolution has no mind so it can't think, my bad.

 

The very fact the basis of the variation is random would logically imply the opposite. Two forces acting to create an equilibrium doesn't imply or need intelligence to manifest either, given the countless examples of chemicals and physical objects in equilibrium between two forces.

Estimated and observed rates of extinction suggest that equilibrium states such as the hypothetical I proposed are relatively rare and unstable - it's far removed from a "just so" story.

Edited by Arete
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