What is EVOLUTION, anyway?

Do you really know?

from Sins Forums

 

Evolution can be defined as a change in alleic frequencies within a population over time. Thus, considering a small population of 100 sins players, we have two alleles, A and a. The allele A codes for a phenotype, something you can observe, and so does allele a. Since humans, like sins players, are diploid, meaning they have 2 of each chromosome, humans can have two alleles for a particular trait. It follows that within our small population of sins players, some players will have the genotype, or allelic configuration, AA, some will have Aa, some will have aA, and some will have aa.

It is important to note that allele A is dominant, meaning that one copy is sufficient to produce its phenotype.

In a perfect system, unaffected by evolution, we can predict the frequencies of the two alleles given the two Hardy Weinberg equations:

1) A + a = 100%

2) A^2 + 2Aa  + a^2= 100%

The first formula is easy to derive. It simply states that all the alleles in the population together equal 100% of the alleles. The second is a little trickier. You can see how it is derived below, or you can just take my word for it.

* Derivation of second formula:

Remember that there were 4 possible genotypes? You can calculate the probability of the first genotype (AA) by multiplying the probabilty of getting one A allele by the probability of getting a second (A * A = A^2). The same goes for the genotype (aa). For the other two genotypes (Aa and aA), you do the same thing. Find the probability of having one A allele and multiply it by the probability of having one a allele (A * a = Aa). Now multiply that by 2 since (A * a == a * A) and aA is the final genotype.

*

Now back to our model system of sins gamers. Let's say the initial frequency of the A allele (gamers who spam Advent illuminators) is 40%. From equation 1 we can tell that the frequency of the a allele (gamers who build heavy cruisers and crush Advent illuminators as God intended) is 60%.

Now using the second equation, we can calculate the frequency of gamers at equillibrium who have each genotype.

A^2 = 16%

2Aa = 48%

a^2 = 36%

Since we know that A is dominate, both AA and Aa will exhibit the illuminator spam phenotype (64%, or 64 of the 100 gamers)

 

Now, in the case of evolution, even given those allelic frequencies, you would find either A) more heterozygotes, or individuals who have one of each allele or more B) homozygotes, individuals who have only one allele

The first case occurs when 1) selection, or the tendency for the environment to favor one allele over another 2) gene flow, or the introduction of alien alleles from another population 3) non-random mating, or the tendency for individuals to select a certain trait (think a peacock's tail) 4) genetic drift, random variations in frequencies (sometimes evolution misfires, but it is usually corrected)  favors the A allele. Hence, the A allele occurs less frequently in the AA genotype (relatively) and more frequently in the Aa genotype. This happens for the sole reason that some aa individuals die or fail to reproduce as much. Aa individuals, on the other hand, succeed just as well.

The second case (more  homozygotes) occurs when one of the criteria (1 - 4) favors the a allele. This is because all heterozygotes are afflicted with the A allele are also selected against. Only aa is favored.

 

Evolution is a change is allelic frequencies beyond what would be predicted by the Hardy Weinberg equations in a population.

Thus, if the devs nerf illuminators, we would certainly expect to see more homozygotes (aa). This is evolution.

Importantly, 5) mutation, the random creation of new alleles is a fifth means of evolution. If a newly created allele is favored, that works a lot like a new allele flowing into the population, say a new dominate allele that causes players to spam fighters.

                                                             --     Docta' Cscoles

 

 

 

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99,581 views 27 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Evolution is simply the process of adaptation (or attempted) to changing environment. If the species cannot adapt, it becomes extinct.

The mutation must succeed. The individual(s) with it must survive long enough to pass it on to the next generation, and it must take in each succeeding generation.

Nature will try ANY solution.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
There's no such thing as Evolution. Just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live.
SoundPackager - Customize the Windows sound scheme
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
There's no such thing as Evolution. Just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live.


This is true.

On a side note, I hope this doesn't turn into another ID vs. Evolution debate. That was a whole lot of misinformed and ignorant nonsense, from both sides.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Actually that is just a model. I am biologist and i can tell you, the reality is quite more complex than described by Hardy-Weinberg. Mendel just got lucky when he first discovered a fully dominant-recessive heredity in peas. To be exact one has to say that this is only a kind of exception, many heredities are more complex than one attribute dominating phenotypically completely over another. But this is the simplest model to describe evolution in a mathematical way and to prove, that it is existent. I have seen the discussion about creationism here and i can tell you, if you are a scientist deep enough into the matter you just have to accept evolution theory as the most appropriate model for the evolution of life on earth. Sadly deep belief seems to be able to corrupt all logic, so you will even find a few experts in my area defending creationism as well. Actually this argumentation is never based on the existence of proof, only on its abscence. The fact i cannot reconstruct every minute in the life of a murderer does not make him innocent if i have his fingerprints on the knife and hairs of him on the victim.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Sadly deep belief seems to be able to corrupt all logic, so you will even find a few experts in my area defending creationism as well.


Honestly, I don't want to get into an argument about this, but this is funnily enough the sort of ignorance I was talking about. While the ID people don't seem to understand either what science is or what evolution is, some of you don't know what Creationism is. For the last time, Creationism is the statement that the world was created in 6 days, and ID (as I understand it) is the idea that there is/was a designer being. There's a difference, and while evolution and the former are mutually exclusive, evolution and the latter certainly aren't.
I agree with you that Creationism is totally illogical, but in my view it's due to literalism, rather than belief.

But let's not get into an argument about which is better, since the two concern entirely different fields, and need not be confused. On another note, I myself find it fascinating about all this stuff with Mendel and his peas, and whatnot. I'm training to be an aerospace engineer so I know and need know nothing of biology, but I remember reading Asimov's short guide to science, and was deeply intrigued by all this stuff. Keep it up!

EDIT: It seems I'm being a bit of a hypocrite - first I implore you not to get into a debate about ID and evolution, and then I jump right into it. Please feel free to ignore me.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
EDIT: It seems I'm being a bit of a hypocrite - first I implore you not to get into a debate about ID and evolution, and then I jump right into it. Please feel free to ignore me.


I can`t. ;-D

I can fully respect if one wants to believe in ID. If you want to believe in god you can do - no problem with that. Me as a scientist will never be able to disprove the existence of a creator - as well as creationists cannot prove the opposite. Belief is a thing beyond logical argumentation. Problems are only existent when people are not able to fully separate belief and logic and confuse them. The same applies to the islamic jihad - if you believe, it is gods law for the muslims(here: law = logical argumentation based on belief) to exterminate other religions, the result is big big problems with enormous political consequences. Logic and belief has to be separated completely, because belief is a matter of a feeling and of experiences rather than of the logical decision "I want to believe in god". Of course you can believe in god. But you do harm to the people that work with logic if you use belief to influence your logical argumentation. Actually i have no ignorance to people that believe in god - i see in my studies how complex life is and i can comprehend you can interpret the complexity of life as a sign that life is the work of an excellent creator. If you say "I believe the complexity of life is invented by god" that is okay. But if you take paradigms based on logic and try to disprove them based on your belief in god you do harm to the scientific progress. Evolution theory does not make no statement against the existence of a god - it just describes, what we can see in the best possible manner. It is the creationist that feel offended by the thought that life has evolved from simpler lifeforms and that mankind may not be as special as they believe. We had the same problem a few years ago, when church disclaimed the sun being the center of our star system. This problem is arising out of human vanity rather than out of logical thinking. The only thing i accuse the creationists of is the fact, they neglect evolution theory. Evolution theory is a very good paradigm and as stated above does not make any suggestion about the existence of a god. It is just neutrally describing observations and creationism is subjectively trying to disprove evolution theory without the use of objective based arguments.
You as an aerospace engineer - what would you say if creationists begin to state mankind is not supposed to fly by gods hands, because otherwise he would have given us wings - so they blame it to be blasphemic and want to outlaw the use of aircrafts. Would you yourself say they are absolutely right let us not go beyond what god has foreseen as our fate?

Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
A lot of times, when evolutionists and creationists are debating, I've noticed, neither side is really, truly informed about what the other side believes. They usually end up talking about two different things and think they're debating the same subject.

Evolution is observably true in a certain respect, in the respect that the gene-pool of any species changes over time. This is observable in dogs, by seeing how many different breeds there are, and it is observable in the African Elephant whose average tusk-length has decreased in the last thirty years due to poachers killing long-tusked elephants over short-tusked ones.

But what I've been unable to wrap my head around concerning evolution is the origin of species. I heard a biologist once talk about something called irreducible complexity- the idea that a body part, such as the eye in humans and animals, is so complex that were even a single, small part of it to be taken away it would be rendered entirely useless. It makes me wonder how something like that could evolve. No mutation ever witnessed has yielded such complex and successful results, nor could it have evolved slowly, considering that the parts the species would slowly be gaining throughout each successive generation would be useless until centuries later when the entire eye would have been formed.

And then, to pass that eye on to its children, the animal would have to find a mate with a similar mutation, which makes it even more difficult.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I heard a biologist once talk about something called irreducible complexity- the idea that a body part, such as the eye in humans and animals, is so complex that were even a single, small part of it to be taken away it would be rendered entirely useless. It makes me wonder how something like that could evolve. No mutation ever witnessed has yielded such complex and successful results, nor could it have evolved slowly, considering that the parts the species would slowly be gaining throughout each successive generation would be useless until centuries later when the entire eye would have been formed.And then, to pass that eye on to its children, the animal would have to find a mate with a similar mutation, which makes it even more difficult.



Irreducible complexity - that is a term shaped by Michael Behe in his book "Darwins black box". Behe is a very good biochemist and his statements we cannot fully explain the observed phenomena are correct. But Behe does something that is not correct by scientific means and that is repeated over and over in creationist argumentation - he uses the abscence of an explanation as a proof of the opposite. That is not an acceptable way in a serious discussion. I just do an experiment. I state gravity exists and causes things to fall to the ground. I look at my mouse right now lying on the desk, not falling on the ground. Actually i do not observe anything falling to the ground anywhere around me. Does the fact i do not observe anything falling right now disprove that gravitation is at work? Of course not. I have to give disproof as well, not only the abscence of proof to argument correctly. I try to disprove that gravity exists and lift the rubber lying on my desk. I have only disproved the existence of gravity, if i can observe it will float in the air. It does not, it falls down as you might imagine. As you see correct logical argumentation cannot be based on the missing existence of proof to a statement i make.
Just because there are phenomenons we cannot easily explain in their evolutionary context and reconstruct their evolution in every detail this is not an correct argumentation against evolution. The evolutionary roots of this featuresd may just bes too complex to be reconstructed in an easily explainable way.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
not another one of these! X-( 
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
If you say "I believe the complexity of life is invented by god" that is okay. But if you take paradigms based on logic and try to disprove them based on your belief in god you do harm to the scientific progress. Evolution theory does not make no statement against the existence of a god - it just describes, what we can see in the best possible manner.


Sir, I understand completely. This happens to be just my view - I appear to have been incorrect in my statement about ignorance; I apologize.

You as an aerospace engineer - what would you say if creationists begin to state mankind is not supposed to fly by gods hands, because otherwise he would have given us wings - so they blame it to be blasphemic and want to outlaw the use of aircrafts. Would you yourself say they are absolutely right let us not go beyond what god has foreseen as our fate?


I know what you mean - I've come up against it myself as well, even though I'm Christian. People seem to make the wrong connections and I think they get causality (I love that word) mixed up.
It's good to talk to someone logical, at last!
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
There is already a 1,000,000,000 post thread on this guys.
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
of course i think that evolution is a load of shit and it needs to be worded differently

evolution isn't actual organisms changing, it is organisms having mutations, and the others dying out

so if all the players that spam illuminators suddenly died right now, it would techinically be "evolution"

otherwise i just learned this in school and i absolutly hate it because my teacher has a stick up her a$$ and doesn't explain it to well.

u can also do a punnit square for #2
i would give an example but the table won't copy into the forums
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I saw the "religious topics" sticky. Please do not continue this creationism vs darwinism discussion here, as it seems there is not (yet) a problem. If you have one i point towards the joeuser forum like the mods did. I have the opinion this discussion is mainly useless because many of the participants are incapable of argumenting correctly.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
evolution isn't actual organisms changing, it is organisms having mutations, and the others dying out


Do you know the translation of the latin word "mutatio"? Obviously you do not.

Evolution is not organisms dying out, it is differences in reproductive potential competing defined by Darwin as "biological fitness".

regarding my statement above: I do not consider the definition of evolution as a religious topic.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What is EVOLUTION, anyway?



Well, you sure as hell aren't going to find out on a gaming forum.
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
But what I've been unable to wrap my head around concerning evolution is the origin of species. I heard a biologist once talk about something called irreducible complexity- the idea that a body part, such as the eye in humans and animals, is so complex that were even a single, small part of it to be taken away it would be rendered entirely useless. It makes me wonder how something like that could evolve. No mutation ever witnessed has yielded such complex and successful results, nor could it have evolved slowly, considering that the parts the species would slowly be gaining throughout each successive generation would be useless until centuries later when the entire eye would have been formed.And then, to pass that eye on to its children, the animal would have to find a mate with a similar mutation, which makes it even more difficult.


I won't go into an explanation here, as it would be too long a post and I would probably make a bad job of it (suffice to say that the assumption that the slowly evolving parts would be useless is incorrect), but if you really want an answer to that question (how the eye could evolve), check out some of Richard Dawkins' works (In the specific case of the eye, I believe it's explained in The Blind Watchmaker).
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Incidentally, not a lot of people know about it, but there is an on topic video game about this. It wasn't terribly popular, most people never knew it existed, but it was pretty cool.

It has the same name as many other video games, so its easy to get it confused w/these other games. It was called, simply, Evolution. It was made by the discovery channel. It was an RTS. It was hard. hehe. I still have the disk somewhere. Had some cool stuff that came w/the game too.

-->Gamespot Review
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
Incidentally, not a lot of people know about it, but there is an on topic video game about this. It wasn't terribly popular, most people never knew it existed, but it was pretty cool.It has the same name as many other video games, so its easy to get it confused w/these other games. It was called, simply, Evolution. It was made by the discovery channel. It was an RTS. It was hard. hehe. I still have the disk somewhere. Had some cool stuff that came w/the game too. -->Gamespot Review


Dont forget spore
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Just as interesting as a species' physical evolution is an individual's intellectual evolution. Check out the link to the article below and let me know what you think.WWW Link
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I heard a biologist once talk about something called irreducible complexity- the idea that a body part, such as the eye in humans and animals, is so complex that were even a single, small part of it to be taken away it would be rendered entirely useless. It makes me wonder how something like that could evolve.


If you want to understand how "irreducible complexity" isn't a problem, watch all of this.
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Just as interesting as a species' physical evolution is an individual's intellectual evolution. Check out the link to the article below and let me know what you think.WWW Link


It is a good article - but it has not really to do with individual evolution (i would rather call it "development", it has nothing to do with evolutionary processes; in fact the term individual evolution ist senseless, because the definition of evolution implies the existence of progeny) of intelligence. By the way the definition of intelligence given there ("intelligence is an individual’s capacity to receive and process information in useful ways.") is wrong. By such definition you can include microorganisms that sense light and swim towards it as being intelligent. In fact, that is only a definition of perception, not of intelligence, intelligence is an ability to interpret perception and to simulate it. If you want a good definition check Wikipedia

Intelligence, as defined in the correct way, can be improved. Train your brain and you will get more points in intelligence tests. But in reality, intelligence is real hard to grasp. The classical psychological definition of intelligence only gives answers to the question how good you are in solving special problems - those faced in an IQ test. It does give no hint about the ability to live a good life. Can we call a depressive high-IQ genius that commits suicide really intelligent in terms of survival value? Is there an emotional component to intelligence as well, the ability to interact socially and deal with negative and positive emotions in a way that improves life quality? (Check Books of Daniel Goleman about emotional intelligence)

Actually that behavior we call "intelligent" derives mostly from a specific part of the brain, the neocortex. Higher forms of learning and the sensory association arise from here. But the neocortex is present in all mammalians. In fact, animals are intelligent as well. The difference is not as big as you might wish or think. Just watch this video:
Chimp Intelligence

Animal brains resemble brain evolution, each species "pausing" at a different point of evolution. (Here you can see that evolution has no definite need to progress in terms of forward development - forward development only does occur when selectional pressure in the form of special living conditions creates competition and the probability of survival comes into account. Where there is no need to improve, life stays as it is, eg the microorganisms that function extremely well in terms of reproductive and adaptive tasks since billions of years. The different species on our planets are witnesses of the evolution, giving us a clue, how earlier forms could have looked. You can clearly get an order to the structure of lifeforms and see that step by step life formed the way it is today. That begins with unicellular organisms and forms that are kind of colonies of unicellular life, that die when being separated (although being individual organisms in a colony that take over different tasks when getting together) and ends with a chimp that shows the intelligence of a child. Today not only the things we can actually see when we look at life can be taken into account, also modern genetics give very obvious hints, how life developed in the past. Our genome is an evolutionary expanse of ruins if you look closely. You can clearly derive grades of ancestry through genetic analysis and this has revolutionized the phylogenic science (determination of lifeform ancestry).

Dealing with biology like i do does make you think of life in another way. You just have to question the exclusivity of mankind or close your eyes before the fact, that the human being is only a very far evolved form of life. You begin to see life as a whole, plants, animals, humans (which systematically and biologically belong to the last ones) , fungi are only distinct forms of life on earth that all found its own ways to deal with the challenges imposed on them by their environment. That is exactly the point that is difficult for creationists to accept - life as a whole is the wonder, not only mankind by itself. Mankind is only a small part of life on earth, although admittedly a very high developed one. Belivers - just begin to accept the creation as a whole and get down out of your throne of human vanity. You are just not that special as you may want to be...
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
so if all the players that spam illuminators suddenly died right now, it would techinically be "evolution"

Well, the PLAYERS wouldn't be evolving, but the strategies would. And people spam illuminators? I thought it was only the OTHER LRMs that got spammed, and Illuminators sucked as spam. Was this changed?
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
Evolution is a load of bull**** created by lazy people who don't want to their job.
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think there is a lot of confusion over the distinctions between Young Earth Creationism and general Creationism. Creationism holds that the universe, the Earth, and everything was created in some way or another by God or another supreme being/spirit of a similar nature. This definition makes it difficult to distinguish a creationist (who does not follow the young earth hypothesis) from someone who believes in intelligent design, and resultingly, has lead people to label Intelligent Design as a theory within Creationism. Intelligent Design holds that, yes, evolution might exist; however, it also holds that God or a similar entity "helped" evolution along, or has only had minimal impact on the universe. You could think of it as "Creationism Lite" or "Diet Creationism". It differs from creationism, however, in that nothing is supposed to have been created; God is portrayed as a mere "tinkerer" of the universe, tweaking some things here, and tweaking other things there. Evolution, on it's own, holds that species arise from one another naturally with no interference from a supreme being or entity. However, this wouldn't eliminate the possibility that another species (which did evolve naturally elsewhere) isn't tinkering with our evolutionary process; this could be considered a form of intelligent design, as an intelligent force is helping to design the outcome of evolution on Earth. That is an entirely different debate, however.

Now, the real debate is, which one of these ideas is true? As it is completely possible for any species of sufficient technological capability to "tinker" with evolution on another planet (or even their own), intelligent design of this definition is completely possible. However, for this to happen, evolution that is independent of intelligent design must also be possible. Therefore, we exist in a universe in which both Intelligent Design (devoid of a supreme being) and "Independent Evolution" can co-exist. However, this isn't the heart of the debate. The question is, is Earth life a product of intelligent design, or of independent evolution? This is almost impossible to determine, however if we are to base our opinions on the evidence available to us, then Independent Evolution is by far the most likely scenario for life on Earth. That isn't to say that intelligent design (devoid of a supreme being) hasn't occurred on the planet before; domesticated animals, by this definition, can arguably be called a product of intelligent design. Their evolution into their present forms has been directly (and sometimes indirectly) molded by human behaviour. The same can be said about domesticated crops.

Now, onto creationism. Creationism (devoid of the Young Earth hypothesis) would be exceedingly difficult to both prove and disprove. While it may appear everything in the universe has formed naturally, including life, who is to say that an omnipotent being would not be able to make it appear this way? If he's omnipotent, he can do anything, can't he? However this means there is insufficient evidence, apart from the philosophical, to both deny or accept this theory as fact. We can only point to logical inconsistencies in the definition of God to disprove (not prove) this theory, which is, again, an entirely different debate altogether. Young Earth Creationism, however, has been thoroughly disproved over the course of the past few hundred years. If you have a dog, you already have living proof that young earth creationism cannot exist; the dog was domesticated around 12,000 to 15,000 years ago, which is within the 60,000 year scope of the radiocarbon dating technique. This conflicts directly with the estimated 6,000 to 10,000 year age of the universe cited by young earth creationists. There are numerous other evidences to contradict the young earth hypothesis, but it would be commonplace amongst the general population of the 21st century; young earth creationism is an obsolete theory of the universe that has no place in the modern world anymore. Call me a bigot or prejudiced, that's just how it is.

So there you have it. Creationism, and all of it's variants, are ruled out through simple logic arguments that any person can come up with. An oft-cited logic paradox of God is "If God is omnipotent, he can create a rock that cannot be moved. However, if he cannot move it, then he is not omnipotent. Yet, if he can move it, then he cannot create an unmovable rock, and therefore he is still not omnipotent." This would point to the idea that if there is a God, he is just as mortal as you and I, and is therefore probably a race with sufficient technological advances as to appear a deity in the eyes of Humanity. Of course, there is no evidence for this either. However there is a plethora of evidence to support Evolution, which we know in the 21st century to be factual; Intelligent Design (devoid of a supreme being) is certainly possible, and arguably has been practiced by humanity. The natural conclusion, then, is that Creationism is little more credible then a vivid dream or an intense fantasy; it may appear real to the sufferer, however that doesn't make it any more of a hallucination. Evolution and Intelligent Design, however, have a little bit more credence, assuming that God is not an ingredient in either.