r/evolution • u/MacrotonicWave • 1d ago
question How abstract is evolution as a model?
i have a hard time judging this for myself. I think it’s neat to when experts apply game theory to evolution to describe things but they will warn, “is is very abstract”. But then isn’t nearly all of it abstract? Fitness, selective pressure, natural selection, all that feels just as abstract as game theory to me.
I know there is some stuff thats concrete such as DNA (which has its own abstractions in its field I assume) and its mutations.. is it all abstraction after that?
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u/octobod PhD | Molecular Biology | Bioinformatics 1d ago
The Harvard Megaplate experement let's you watch evolution happen in a 2 minute video
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u/Argentarius1 1d ago
Beautiful. Genuinely the best example of a simple and elegant experiment illustrating a complicated principle I think I've ever seen.
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u/Argentarius1 1d ago
What do you mean by abstract?
In the broadest sense yes fitness, selective pressure, and natural selection are abstractions but so are ionic bonding and gravity. If they make testable predictions and real world data follows their patterns (which it usually does) then that illustrates the point.
DNA evidence is enough but vestigial structures, artificial selection, forced evolution experiments involving radiation and microorganisms, and the fossil record all back it up. There's no rabbit bones in Cretacious period as they say.
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u/MacrotonicWave 1d ago
yeah I guess it’s going to be abstract either way because nothing is accounting for every quantum wave or particle or whatever in an organism.
I guess I’d maybe reframe it as when does it become so abstract that it’s to the point where you could model it numerous ways and get the same results. Because it seems like a lot of things will have multiple ways of framing their explanation, such as game theory.. whereas on a less abstract level, you couldn’t really use game theory to describe dna mutations on a cellular level. it will have a more concrete description
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u/Argentarius1 1d ago
I doubt you could model any of these patterns with anything that wouldn't be logically identical but with different words and make the same predictions. Survival, reproduction, and the existence/prevalence of traits are pretty concrete and any framework you could come up with to explain how and when those things come up would most likely be identical in meaning to the concepts you mentioned.
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u/AliveCryptographer85 1d ago
The Abstract is just a short summary of the science. Read the results section if you want something more concrete 😉
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u/ikarus_daflo 1d ago
As others have asked, what exactly do you mean by abstract?
For me personally it isn't abstract in the sense of being only a feeling. I love yeast for that matter as a model organism. There are awesome strains to work with that can't synthesise some aminoacids, and you can let them grow on media with all aminoacids, and select for them in media without the aminoacid. They can be crossed with other strains that lack another amino acid pathway. The resulting cells can again be selected for because they can grow "magically" on both. And there are so many systems and additions to these simple experiments that make them so awesome.
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u/Helmdacil 1d ago
In some ways evolution is abstract as compound interest; it is not abstract at all. The measurement of a change in allele frequencies from one generation to the next is also, not abstract at all. Sometimes it is challenging for us to determine the trait(s) upon which selecting is acting, or the degree to which drift or draft influence allele frequencies.
I guess coalescent theory is fairly abstract and based upon (reasonable) statistical guesswork. Specifically, we cannot conjure up a last common ancestor at a branch point and see what it looked like. we can only infer.
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u/kitsnet 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'd say the main problem of applying game theory models to biology is that if they break, you cannot really say why. They are just inherently too fragile (their equilibria are not guaranteed to be reachable in the first place).
While, for example, for coalescent-based models you know what factors can break them and can try to estimate these factors.
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u/Ch3cks-Out 1d ago
Theory of evolution is not based on game theory models at all, so there is that...
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u/forever_erratic 1d ago
Game theory is heavily applied in evolutionary study of the cooperator-cheater and mutualist-parasite spectra. And I would push back on u/kitsnet and say that in some cases the mathematical costs and benefits can be defined, quantified, and directly tied to specific biological phenotypes+genotypes.
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u/SadRule9128 1d ago
Evolution is just like any other field of scientific inquiry. It is partly made up of direct observations and experiments, and partly made up of more abstract hypotheses and models. Evolution itself is a theory, not a model.
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u/NeedingNew 1d ago
Well, we know that you can't exist without a star having formed the matter that is required to make a cell at all. so. I mean abstract in the sense we might not have a master plan. But the general image is pretty stable. It is also strung across several fields, which makes it seem more fragmented than it actually is. Throw in the social barriers and you got yourself the current state of evolution.
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u/Ok_Writing2937 1d ago
DNA is concrete in three dimensions. Fitness, selective pressure, and natural selection are descriptions of processes that are concrete across four. They are observable phenomena of DNA changes over time.
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u/Amos__ 1d ago
I have always been familiar with 2 ideas. First, children look like their parents or possibly some people in the family and therefore physical traits can be inherited (other traits can be inherited but physical appearance is the easiest to literally observe). Second, humans have been able to change certain animal populations through selective breeding, altering substantially their behaviour and physical appearance. Once you are familiar with those the little exercise of extending those processing through time and space should lead to an informal understanding of evolution.Then you can add several layers of increasingly abstract explanation but the underlying process really feels quite intuitive and easily grounded in daily life, as much as gravity.
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u/LeonJPancetta 1d ago
Evolutionary game theory is relatively abstract (not a ton of easily measurable quantities). But molecular evolution and population genetics stuff makes specific predictions about measurable aspects of DNA sequences (and you can measure selection coefficients and mutational fitness effects and stuff, provided you define fitness appropriately).
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u/The-Real-Radar 1d ago
It’s not abstract, really. People tend to love to put things in boxes so we can say that’s one thing and this is the other. A dog has a clear barrier between the inside and outside, a dog is in no way abstract. When it comes to things without clear barrier, this is what we tend to call abstract. Evolution is an ongoing process, not something you can feel with your hands. On a human scale we find it hard to quantify things like this. Alas, the world doesn’t revolve around us. Just because evolution doesn’t have a clear shape to us doesn’t mean it’s any less real than the dog, it’s just something our brain is less hardwired to point out. The dog, too, is an ongoing process, even if we don’t see it that way.
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u/strumthebuilding 23h ago
It’s abstract like everything is abstract. Life is just stuff doing and being stuff. Evolution is a pattern that we perceive/impose on stuff doing stuff.
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u/Fun-Dragonfruit2999 21h ago
I find evolution very simple.
There are inheritable traits which cause a creature to wean more offspring than their peers.
I say wean instead of produce, because a creature may have many offspring that don't survive to reproduction. As in some fish. I think it was Cichlids. In slow water environments they lay thousands of eggs in a floating mass. In fast water environments they lay a small number of single heavy dispersed eggs which rest in the rocks to not be swept away.
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u/perta1234 16h ago
I am not able to imagine life forms that could resist evolution. It would be much more demanding than these life-forms taking part in evolution. Maybe digital life?
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u/Fun-Dragonfruit2999 10h ago
Yes, I see evolution as an emergent phenomena. It's the results of natural selection, heritability, vast amounts of time, ...
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u/rhettro19 21h ago
It depends on how far you want to take it. Language is an abstraction of observed reality, and objective conscious perception is an abstraction of reality. Hello Last Thursdayism. What is more useful is, how well do the predictive powers of a given model comport to what we observe.
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u/ShafordoDrForgone 20h ago
What exactly is abstract about dying before you reproduce?
And let's hope you understand that children are like their parents...
People make evolution out to be more complicated than it is. Evolution has three requirements: replication, mutation, selection
Mutation and selection are covered by an indifferent environment. Replication is the only thing that's not a given. And you only need it once
Here, you can watch evolution happen right in front of your eyes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3tRFayqVtk
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u/swbarnes2 19h ago
Right now I'm looking at a graph of mutation percentages as they change with exposure to a potential treatment. Is my read count data "abstract"? Is it abstract if this compound gets to the clinic and into patients?
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u/Fun-Dragonfruit2999 21h ago
Game Theory and Abstraction presuppose intelligent design, thus a creator.
An abstraction is a simple thing which stands in for a complex thing. The cipher '5' is an abstraction standing in for five things. It being much easier to write the cipher '5' and says five sheep than it is to 'bring five sheep.'
Game Theory is the study of how to work 'a system' for the best benefit.
Evolution is an emergent phenomenon where we observe what happened and study how things progressed following traits inherited.
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