[HN Gopher] One of Darwin's evolution theories finally proved by...
___________________________________________________________________
One of Darwin's evolution theories finally proved by Cambridge
researcher
Author : dnetesn
Score : 104 points
Date : 2020-03-18 10:42 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| normalnorm wrote:
| Scientific theories are not "proven", that is not how science
| works. All theories are always and forever open to falsification.
| The scientific attitude is one of eternal doubt. "Proof" is
| something that only exists in the realm of pure math.
| abtinf wrote:
| Can Popper be falsified?
| pdonis wrote:
| _> Scientific theories are not "proven"_
|
| True, but one should not expect careful use of language from
| phys.org. They are trying for more clicks, not accuracy.
| keiferski wrote:
| Yes, thank you. I really wish scientists (and the general
| public) learned more about the fundamentals of their field.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science
| yarrel wrote:
| While the history of science emerges from and has an ongoing
| productive dialogue with that of philosophy, the humanities
| dept. status panic confection of "philosophy of science" has
| very little to do with this.
| keiferski wrote:
| I'm not sure what "status panic confection" is supposed to
| mean. Nor does philosophy generally fall under humanities
| departments.
|
| The philosophy of science is an established field that is
| hundreds of years old and includes pretty serious thinkers
| like Kant, Popper, Kuhn, and quite a few others. Ignore it
| at your own peril.
|
| https://plato.stanford.edu/search/searcher.py?query=philoso
| p...
| sn41 wrote:
| Actually I wonder whether Karl Popper is considered very
| important by philosophers of science. I have had arguments
| with people who claim that Feyerabend has a better "approach"
| to science.
|
| On the other hand, practicing scientists consider Popper's
| falsification one of the great unifying themes guiding
| scientific research.
|
| Though perhaps not as well-known, Popper's approach towards
| falsification of probabilistic claims is also a great read.
| jfengel wrote:
| Feyerabend isn't so much a "better approach" as a lack of
| an approach. He does a good job trying to get past the
| numerous problems of Popper's work, but in doing so largely
| just reverses it without adding anything useful.
|
| The way I read it, it really dates back to Hume and the
| problem of induction. Until we have a Final Theory to hand,
| we never _really_ know anything. That is a statement of
| epistemology. But science can 't proceed on that basis:
| people make decisions on where to focus their efforts, and
| not all hypotheses are equally worth considering. That is a
| statement of scientific pragmatism, and those two fields
| don't overlap as much as we'd like them to.
|
| Feyerabend is easily read as continuing to conflate the
| two: "Hey, all knowledge is provisional, so you might as
| well study astrology." Maybe that's useful from an
| epistemological standpoint, but it's not helpful for grants
| committees to think that way. Nor is it helpful for
| epistemological anarchists to insist that grants committees
| never really know and therefore really should fund
| astrology. The question of how scientists actually work is
| an important one, but it's a separate question from what
| TRVTH actually is -- even though scientists would like to
| believe otherwise. They're not as close as they think.
| msla wrote:
| > Feyerabend is easily read as continuing to conflate the
| two: "Hey, all knowledge is provisional, so you might as
| well study astrology." Maybe that's useful from an
| epistemological standpoint, but it's not helpful for
| grants committees to think that way.
|
| It isn't helpful for _anyone_ and we have very concrete
| examples of that to hand: Anti-vaxxers love to point out
| stuff like Vioxx, but never say a damn thing about all
| the drugs and therapies which are helpful, do _much more_
| good than harm, and which are "proven" to work for all
| practical intents and purposes. Being unwilling to attack
| stuff like anti-vaccine nonsense head-on because of some
| abstract epistemological nonsense kills people. There's
| no upside to that.
|
| Saying "Nothing is absolutely certain, therefore it is
| absolutely certain that we know nothing" is bad enough.
| Actually believing it is dangerous in direct proportion
| to how much of a hand you have in shaping policy. The bus
| driver might believe in utter epistemological nihilism,
| but they'd better not veer into oncoming traffic just the
| same.
| jfengel wrote:
| It's generally harmless for philosophers to believe
| stuff, since they don't drive buses, and they generally
| get their vaccinations regardless of the epistemological
| status of their effectiveness. For that matter, they
| continue to eat food, despite the uncertainty whether
| they're really holding a peanut butter sandwich and not,
| say, the average temperature of the asteroid Ceres.
|
| They get to be anarchic, as long as you can't prove
| otherwise -- and "prove" in the mathematical sense, not
| the scientific one. All it costs you is paper, pencils,
| and the price of a trash can. (Which they never use.) If
| you shut down the line of reasoning just because other
| people are incredibly, dangerously stupid, you're going
| to have to shut down pretty much everything.
| vikramkr wrote:
| We discussed popper in some classes I took, the main theme
| for that for like an explanation yes it needs to be
| falsifiable, but also sometimes science is just "look I
| made a thing!" Or "look I found a thing!" And it's less
| relevant there. The unanimous belief accross different
| classes in the sciences I took was that yes, when we think
| about science we look at it from the perspective of
| falsification, but when we actually do science, we usually
| think of it as exploration until we have something we think
| falsifies the status quo or needs rigorous data collection
| to reject the mill. Nobody is really running an RNA
| sequencing experiment to evaluate the impacts of a drug on
| the rna transcriptome with falsification in mind (even if
| in a sense the null of "nothing changes" is what you're
| trying to falsify"). Psychologically it's just seen as some
| exploration to see what happens.
| vharuck wrote:
| >Nobody is really running an RNA sequencing experiment to
| evaluate the impacts of a drug on the rna transcriptome
| with falsification in mind (even if in a sense the null
| of "nothing changes" is what you're trying to falsify").
| Psychologically it's just seen as some exploration to see
| what happens.
|
| Isn't this, along with and maybe encouraging p-hacking, a
| major cause of the non-reproducability crisis? Scientists
| hunting out supporting evidence instead of showing their
| theories don't easily break?
| vikramkr wrote:
| It likely is, but this is also an outgrowth of the
| "explorer" sort of mindset where people juts see
| themselves as diving into the unknown to see what they
| find. It's not malicious, but it could contribute to p
| hacking for sure
| omar_a1 wrote:
| The explorer mindset is how scientists discovered
| penicillin, x-rays, and vulcanized rubber. Science isn't
| as cut and dry as the scientific method suggests.
|
| I'd say to the extent that this behavior contributes to
| the reproducibility crisis, it has more to do with not
| backing that exploration with rigorous experimentation.
|
| But more to the point, I'd argue that the lack of funding
| and publish-or-perish atmosphere has more to do with it.
| Academics don't necessarily publish because the results
| are noteworthy, but because they have to, regardless of
| the robustness of their methodology.
| vikramkr wrote:
| That's absolutely true as well, and in my reply above I
| wasn't contesting that, just contemplating what the
| poster above that mentioned about p hacking, how maybe
| this mindset makes it easier as a justification? But yeah
| we should never just discard the importance of
| exploration for the sake of it, it's how we also got
| crucial technologies like current PCR tools - some guy
| just really wanted to see what was up with those
| Yellowstone bacteria and found all sorts of heat stable
| compounds. That rigorous follow-up is super important
| though as you stated
| grabbalacious wrote:
| The main thing is, "so-and-so proved that" or "he showed that"
| or "they demonstrated scientifically that" refer to processes
| that can't convey _certainty_. Even in mathematics there 's no
| certainty because mathematicians are fallible and someone may
| eventually find a flaw in a proof.
| rmrfstar wrote:
| Half of me: Feynman!
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPapE-3FRw
|
| Other half: it's a little tiring to be hyper rational and
| pedantic all the time.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Yes, and on this case this is completely correct.
|
| But evolutionary theories are so close to pure math (ie., they
| assume so little empirical knowledge) that it does happen once
| in a while to have some aspect of them proven on the literal
| sense.
|
| Every scientific theory has this thing where a complex
| conclusion is proven to follow from a simpler set of
| hypothesis. It just tends to happen more often with Evolution.
|
| Edit: On the old text it wasn't clear I agree on this case.
| vikramkr wrote:
| In those cases, is something about evolutionary science
| proven, or is a mathematical concept proven derived from a
| model of evolutionary systems? We can create proofs and do
| real math in extending and understanding the implications of
| the mathematical models we use for the world, but I don't
| think proving anything about the behavior of the model
| implies any proof of the behavior of the underlying science -
| it suggests it's likely but proof?
| gus_massa wrote:
| This is about the comparison of terrestrial mammal species
| and marine mammal species, and how many subspecies each one
| has.
|
| They have to model how the natural and artificial barriers in
| each environment produce subpopulations that are isolated
| enough to produce subspecies. And compare the simulations of
| the models with the data of real mammal species to see if
| they have similar results. This is not so close to pure math.
| 0thgen wrote:
| to follow up on gus_massa's point, it's not the "math" of
| an evolutionary thoery/agorithm that's being "proved" here;
| it's the assertion that it "proves" something about the
| environment it's trying to model
|
| and saying you've "proved" something about natural events
| is probably bad practice
| throwaway4787 wrote:
| The Popperian vision of science is good enough for students so
| that their naive mind can enter the field with idealistic
| perspectives but it's not how actual professionals practice it
| in real life. Oftentimes there are multiple theories competing,
| all with reasonable evidence, suggestions, and subscribers. The
| reason one theory prevails above another is not that the
| previous' subscribers were definitely convinced by the others'
| evidence, but simply that they died of old age. [0] The most
| egregious example is taxonomy: modern-day biologists have long
| switched to phylogenetics/cladistics to classify groups of
| individuals, while old school researchers still cling to
| traditional classification methods (sometimes using retired
| terms like "race").
|
| In addition, different fields have different standards and
| methods for what qualified as evidence: for instance,
| mathematicians want nothing short of absolute proof - that's a
| given. But biologists are more from Missouri: they don't care
| that a theory is 'proven', they want to 'see' it [1]. For this
| reason they put very little trust in simulations no matter how
| advanced they are. On the other hand, they don't care that much
| about the mathematical rigor of the tools they use as long as
| it works out in the end and can be readily confirmed with
| something you can 'see'.
|
| [0] https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/how-math-works
|
| [1] Think of it as a 'constructive' view of evidence:
| everything must be explicit. For instance, if you want to show
| that trait X is 'genetic' you need to point out an explicit
| genetic mechanism and show it in action in model organisms. If
| you want to show that mechanism Y happens in one's cells you
| ideally need some microscopy to show Y happening live before
| your eyes, etc.
| LessDmesg wrote:
| B-b-but my scientific consensus!!! My 97%!!! Scientific truth
| is clearly determined by UN/Greenpeace propaganda and mentally
| disturbed Swedish teenagers! Are you saying you're a climate
| denier?
| dang wrote:
| Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to
| Hacker News? You've done it a lot, and we're trying for a
| different sort of site here.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
| BaronSamedi wrote:
| I think the reality is more subtle than this. Is, for example,
| the discovery of DNA going to be falsified? I don't think so.
| Is the notion that living organisms evolve going to be
| falsified? Again, I doubt it. The case of Newton and Einstein
| is relevant here. Einstein didn't "falsify" Newton but rather
| enriched our understanding of physics. A better model seems to
| be that scientific theories fit into a spectrum of certainty: a
| very few that are certain up to the highly speculative. That
| scientists need to be open-minded and maintain a level of
| skepticism is necessary, however, the extreme skepticism you
| appear to be suggesting is not warranted.
| piokoch wrote:
| There is a difference between discovery and theory. Discovery
| of Americas or Mars cannot be "falsified", they are
| scientific, objective, observable facts. Theory makes always
| some assumptions that can be invalid under some conditions -
| for instance Newtonian mechanics is not valid on quantum size
| scale or in case of huge masses or near speed of light
| velocities.
| munk-a wrote:
| I don't know - I think that at some level our discovery of
| Mars could be dis-proven if you think that Mars is a solid
| terrestrial planet then in all likelihood you are correct,
| but you may be wrong - Mars _could_ be gaseous with a
| floating mantel and some very strange properties... That
| all said I 'm happy to tell bible thumpers that evolution
| has been proven since they aren't approaching the question
| from a legitimate point of skepticism and trying their best
| to misinform others.
|
| For everyone who is earnest though - discoveries (even the
| earth being round) are only accepted until they're
| disproven, and there have been widely accepted theories
| that have been disproven in the past - like how relativity
| blew holes in Newtonian understandings.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| The difference is that a "discovery" is the result of an
| experiment used to support a theory. The results of an
| experiment can't be falsified, just more experiments can
| provide better data.
| bregma wrote:
| The existence of DNA is an observation: it's data. That DNA
| is the means by which traits are passed between generations,
| now that's a theory. It's open to falsification. No matter
| how many examples you can provide showing the theory to be
| true, all I need to do is provide a single counterexample to
| prove it false.
| asjw wrote:
| The nucleus of the atom turned out to be made by other
| particles, it was believed to be atomic, but it wasn't
|
| In the same way in the future we might discover that what we
| know about DNA is wrong
|
| Or maybe not
|
| We'll never know for sure
|
| We only know that we approximated our knowledge of it at the
| best of our current understanding of it
| baddox wrote:
| But you're using precisely the mindset that you should be
| using. You _doubt_ that DNA or evolution will be falsified.
|
| And, of course, Einstein's theory absolutely did falsify
| Newton's. I'm not aware of any epistemology or terminology
| within which you can claim that he didn't.
| dlivingston wrote:
| I like to think of scientific theories as having a certain
| "resolution", a la photos. Over time, our collective
| resolution over some domain increases.
|
| For example, Newton's _Principia_ isn 't _wrong_. Newton 's
| gravity is just a lower-resolution photo than Einstein's; a
| first-order approximation to Einstein's second-order.
|
| And the day will come (or so Brian Greene et al. hope) when
| Einstein's general theory of relativity will be
| "falsified", and so on, because any human interpretation of
| reality is necessarily that: an interpretation.
|
| Theories just get more "granular" in the depth of their
| answers.
| 0thgen wrote:
| if scientific theories lie on a spectrum of certainty, then
| "prove" is at the maximum end of that spectrum
|
| the "extreme skepticism" you claim the OP has seems more like
| a cautionary statement about avoiding the extreme assumption
| that a scientific theory can be "proven"
|
| i think the OP is correct here; assuming evolutionary theory
| can be "proven" is a risky thing to say in a research article
| vikramkr wrote:
| Dna could be falsified. It's incredibly low chance but it
| could. Just like the discovery of the bacteria that causes
| influenza was falsified once it became clear it's a virus.
| Just like the so called central dogma of DNA->RNA->protein
| turned out to be not so central or not so dogmatic.
|
| And Einstein definitely falsified Newton with the famous
| experiment with the eclipse and with more correctly showing
| Mercury's orbit, both of which contradicted fundamentally
| with Newton. Newton is an extraordinary breakthrough, and
| still useful as a model, but our understanding is no longer
| Newtonian. And, finding a way to enrich our understanding of
| physics even further means finding ways to falsify parts of
| einstein and quantum mechanics to provide the foundation for
| an even deeper understanding.
| prostheticvamp wrote:
| > Dna could be falsified
|
| Cool! That's an interesting idea. I could see particular
| attributes of DNA being corrected, but How would a
| molecular basis for inheritance be disproven? After all, we
| see the molecule on microscopy, we modify it, etc. A dis-
| proof would have to remain consistent with all of that.
| What would that look like?
| vikramkr wrote:
| I think "could" is different from "will" - dna's
| existence is so heavily demonstrated that the chance of
| somehow disproving is is basically nil. But, the fact
| that we could disprove it (we look at it and don't see it
| there) helps us confirm its existence - in general in
| science something has to be falsifiable to be able to be
| demonstrated to be likely to be true if that makes sense,
| otherwise there's no way to obtain more evidence.
|
| So it could be disproven, but will it? No. It definitely
| exists. But could it? Yep, that's how we know it exists
| in a scientific context. It's a bit counterintuitive, but
| it's the language of science. You see it in how
| physicists talk about discoveries - how many sigma they
| are. That's basically saying how likely it is the null
| hypothesis (sort of the falsification of the discovery)
| is true - and there's a point where it's so low (5 sigma
| traditionally) that it is considered "discovered." But
| that discovery is qualified with the chance that it's
| falsifiable.
|
| I don't know if that was a clear explanation - if not let
| me know so I can try clarifying. It was something that
| took me a while to wrap my head around - that it's only
| demonstrable if falsifiable, but it's a core part of a
| lot of scientific theory today
| tossAsimov wrote:
| I think he's trying to make a point similar to the one made
| by Asimov: https://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/Relativi
| tyofWrong.ht...
| raverbashing wrote:
| Completely agree. I think people are too hung up on the
| "falsifiability" term and don't look at the bigger
| picture
|
| As your link puts nicely: "John, when people thought the
| earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the
| earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think
| that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as
| thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger
| than both of them put together."
| vikramkr wrote:
| We're not saying they're equally falsifiable though. We
| have p values and sigmas and statistics to deal with
| different levels of wrongness and likeliness of being
| wrong. Nobody's saying that DNA and a bacteria causing
| influenza are equally likely to be wrong or equally wrong
| or something. The problem is saying that dna's existence
| is not falsifiable. That is an incorrect statement.
| That's all that's being pointed out.
| msla wrote:
| The existence of DNA will never be falsified. The
| experiments which discovered DNA happened. New experiments
| don't make old experiments un-happen. Similarly, the fact
| DNA->RNA->protein is how it works at least some of the time
| isn't going to become false.
| vikramkr wrote:
| Those experiments could be wrong. They likely aren't and
| are like however many sigma accurate to the point that
| for all intents and purposes it's guaranteed to exist,
| but there's a reason that physisicts waited for 5
| sigmabaccuracy before announcing the higgs for example.
| Other things people were really confident about existing
| because they thought they saw it, like a bacteria that
| causes influenza, with their own eyes, turned out to be
| false. you intellectually honest thing to say is that yes
| it is incredibly incredibly incredibly likely that DNA
| will not be falsified. But you can't say that with
| absolute certainty. it's not like in mathematics where
| you create the rules of the game and then can prove that
| within those rules you can accomplish XYZ which is a
| proof. We didn't write the rules of the universe.
| msla wrote:
| OK, let's explore this concept a bit more: Could a future
| experiment disprove the existence of Mount Everest?
| anchpop wrote:
| Sure, the existence of Mount Everest could be an
| international conspiracy for example. Or, you could be
| dreaming right now, and when you wake up you'll google
| "Mount Everest" and find no such thing exists
| vikramkr wrote:
| Yes. It could all be a conspiracy or some sort of insane
| natural illusion. Or a dream.
|
| Will a future experiment disprove it though? Of course
| not. But could one? Sure. There's an important
| distinction.
|
| Also, we could end up redefining what we mean by a
| mountain, or come to some scientific consensus that
| somehow redefines mount Everest as not a mountain or
| something. I know that's not in the spirit of the
| question you posted (Pluto may be declared to not be a
| planet, but nothing actually changed and it doesn't know
| we put it in a different bucket). The height could be
| redefined, etc. All that is super nitpicky and of course,
| I'm being a bit unreasonable in this response, there will
| not be any experiment that disproves its existence. But
| there still could. In the binary of is there any
| possibility however minuscule or not, the coin lands on
| the side of there is a possibility.
|
| The important point is falsifiability works as a tool
| here that actually helps continuously support the
| mountain's existence. If it was impossible to falsify and
| you could not conduct experiments where you would be able
| to evaluate whether or not the mountain is actually
| there, you'd have no way of being actually sure. One
| experiment is just looking at it. You could not see
| anything and falsify it, but because it's a testable
| hypothesis, you have run an experiment providing more
| evidence for its existence. It's why non-falsifiable
| statements are looked down on science. If it wasn't
| possible for a future experiment to disprove the
| existence of the mountain, many or all scientists would
| say it's either a meaningless question or a question of
| faith instead.
| gnulinux wrote:
| From a purely theoretical point of view, there are things
| Newtonian physics and modern physics predict differently,
| particularly for very big or very small or very fast objects.
| So in that sense Einstein DID falsify Newton. What you're
| missing is Newtonian physics' subject was not very big or
| very small or very fast object so for the things scientists
| researched on, they predicted things quite well. But that
| only means they overfit to the universe around earth, and
| weren't able to model the universe in its entirety. Although
| you do have a good point, it's not true to say Einstein did
| not falsify Newton.
| throwaway4787 wrote:
| This may be the appropriate thread to remind people that Darwin
| was far from the be-all and end-all of evolutionary biology and
| much of what he said turned out to be actually mistaken. This
| isn't so much of an attack on him as a celebration that we've
| come a long way since the 19th century. Also, you should be
| suspicious of any argument involving non-geneticists invoking
| Darwin to justify such and such social outcome - actual modern-
| day geneticists don't invoke Darwin for much of the same reason
| actual modern-day physicists don't invoke Democritus.
| msla wrote:
| I think Darwin was closer to Newton than Democritus in terms of
| knowing what the Hell he was talking about.
|
| But, yes, your point stands: Evolutionary biology has moved on,
| and people who try to poke holes in a 19th Century version in
| order to discredit the whole field are misinformed and, likely,
| doing it with a partisan, rather than an academic, intent.
| shmageggy wrote:
| Care to provide any references?
| jovial_cavalier wrote:
| Shut up. This is on the intellectual level of a middle schooler.
| This is not an interesting conversation. You are only hurting
| your own side. Shut up.
|
| If I were Laura Van Holstein, I would be embarrassed of this
| article, especially with that headline.
|
| Anyone who claims to have "proven" something of this nature, or
| to have "settled" the discussion, needs to not be taken
| seriously.
| smoyer wrote:
| My key take-away - humans have no sub-species but it can be
| beneficial to the species as a whole. Let's get to work people!
|
| (or perhaps we just haven't formed divisions in the human
| population yet?)
| kuprel wrote:
| I found an interesting genetic distance matrix on Wikipedia
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File%3AGenetic_similarities_...
| tabtab wrote:
| It generally divides along continental lines, which is mostly
| as expected. It's harder for genes to cross continents.
| shard972 wrote:
| There are divisions but it's considered politically incorrect
| to posit that their might be.
| botwriter wrote:
| A bit uncomfortably quick to point out that humans don't have
| subspecies... Oh boy thats one ladder you don't want to go down.
| Career ending in fact with this climate.
| DariusMarkus wrote:
| Unbelievable that science still has to be proved - Aren't we
| living in a modern world?
| bayesian_horse wrote:
| One problem when discussing species and subspecies is that there
| is no clear-cut definition between species, subspecies and "just
| some genetic diversity".
|
| The best hint is the genetic distance between any two
| individuals. In general, that distance is bigger between species
| than between subspecies. But no clear thresholds can be applied
| to the whole tree of life.
|
| Taxonomy is still mostly defined through differences a researcher
| can see with his own eyes (or a microscope). Much of taxonomy is
| in the process of being redefined through molecular methods,
| though.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _there is no clear-cut definition between species_
|
| It's not clear-cut in all cases. But it's clear cut
| bilaterally. Two organisms are in the same species if they can
| successfully reproduce, _i.e._ produce an offspring that can
| itself produce offspring. If they can 't, they're in different
| species. (Multilateral fuzziness arises if A can reproduce with
| B, and B with C, but A not with C.)
| phkahler wrote:
| So why are different ethnicities of humans not considered
| sub-species?
|
| They developed in different geographic regions with barriers,
| the can interbreed successfully, and they have different
| appearances, not just in skin color, but in things like
| facial features. And yet the article specifically states that
| humans don't have subspecies.
| K0SM0S wrote:
| The fundamental reason is that genetic diversity simply
| doesn't warrant it.
|
| You may think we're different based on appearance; but the
| genetic material says otherwise. I might be genetically
| much closer to someone of different skin color and gender
| than to my closest geographical/ethnic/cultural neighbor
| who looks just like me, in terms of DNA variation.
|
| Human beings altogether are not diverse at all genetically
| compared to most animal species. And if we were to use said
| differences to classify "races" among the human species,
| you can be absolutely sure skin color wouldn't correlate,
| nor would eye or hair color.
|
| For better candidates, look at the HLA system for an idea
| of more relevant classification method (this one defines
| immuno-regulation profiles among us, and has been shown to
| drive sexual attraction towards opposites, hypothetically
| because it favors enhanced, combined immunity in the
| offspring).
|
| But even taking such systems into account, human beings are
| really far from meeting any common threshold of
| differenciation worth being called "race" in the animal
| realm.
| bayesian_horse wrote:
| First of all, calling ethnicities subspecies creates a
| political mess and such arguments have often been used for
| all kind of injustices.
|
| Secondly I'd say that the differences are very fluid and
| it's hard to pinpoint any hard barriers. The "European"
| ethnicity only developed in the past 4000 years. Migrations
| during all that time make the picture even more difficult.
| HelloNurse wrote:
| Because subspecies are a particularly arbitrary taxonomical
| division. Some of the pragmatic reasons are that human
| "ethnicities" are very fuzzy because people travel around,
| that they are only an average of arbitrary large groups of
| related people, and that people tend to look meaningfully
| similar only to their closest relatives, and only
| partially.
| msla wrote:
| > Two organisms are in the same species if they can
| successfully reproduce, i.e. produce an offspring that can
| itself produce offspring.
|
| OK, explain European Early Modern Humans and _Neanderthals_
| being different species.
| tabtab wrote:
| Perhaps they are not. As I mention nearby, successful
| breeding can be measured on a continuous scale. We don't
| really know the success rate, other than it being above
| zero because humans have some of their genes. Maybe 9999
| cross-group cave-people boinked for every one cave-baby
| produced. (Bamm-Bamm?)
| bayesian_horse wrote:
| In some animals it's impossible to observe breeding at all.
|
| In other cases, two different species can breed.
| tabtab wrote:
| Even mating is often a matter of probability. As two genetic
| groups diverge, the probability of successful mating
| gradually shrinks over time. We could define the boundary at
| 0% success, but that's really hard to verify in practice.
| sago wrote:
| So all animals are in different species to members of their
| same sex?
|
| I'm joking a little of course. But only to make the point
| that the definition of species taught in high school is very
| difficult to pin down. You identified one way. Even more
| common: not all organisms reproduce sexually. But also: some
| organisms (protists) perform sexual recombination separately
| to reproduction. And even for well known higher mammals
| (which is where the 'offspring must also be fertile' clause
| comes from), 'fertile' is by no means binary! A sexual
| definition of species is simple, but rather difficult down in
| the nitty-gritty.
|
| It is always worth bearing in mind that species is a human
| classification concept, not a biological reality. It's not
| surprising that it has very grey edges.
| Scarblac wrote:
| It's also just an extremely impractical definition. Say you
| have two animals and you want to know if they are the same
| species. How are you going to find out whether they can or
| cannot mate (and produce fertile offspring, even)?
|
| What if they are the same species but just aren't that
| interested in each other?
| virtuous_signal wrote:
| At least for sexually reproductive species, your first
| objection could be addressed by defining the species
| relation as the transitive closure of the relation A ~ B if
| A can reproduce with B. (so for instance male1 ~ female0
| and male2 ~ female0 by the original definition, and then
| male1 ~ male2 via the closure)
| detaro wrote:
| That definition fails for various birds. I.e. all kinds of
| ducks are considered separate species, but can successfully
| produce hybrids, of which some can breed.
| ggggtez wrote:
| It seems like everyone commenting on this article lost their
| gosh-darn minds.
|
| Can I helpfully remind folks to try to have productive
| discussions instead of quibbling about the definition of
| "proven", and outright vitriol?
| mplanchard wrote:
| Vitriol is never justifiable for this sort of thing, I agree. I
| do think calling out the unscientific use of the word "proven"
| or "proved" is reasonable on a forum where so many people have
| at least some scientific training.
|
| I studied and taught biology and chemistry in grad school in
| the south. Lots of people don't "believe" in evolution and will
| base some of that on the fact that the theory isn't "proven",
| without understanding the rigor that proof implies in a
| scientific context.
|
| Usage like we see in the article is problematic. What if this
| finding were disproven later? What does that teach people who
| don't know any better about the nature of proof?
| ausbah wrote:
| I wonder what adopting the idea of subspecies to evolutionary
| algorithms would look like, and if any benefits would be
| encountered.
| predators372 wrote:
| Proved -> Proven?
|
| Have we reached the point where basic vocabulary is too difficult
| for HN users now?
| switch007 wrote:
| Or phys.org editors? The HN guidelines suggest using the
| original title.
| smichel17 wrote:
| It's HN policy not to editorialize the title. In this case, the
| linked article uses "proved".
| thiagocesar wrote:
| Both forms are correct, but proved is more prevalent in recent
| style guides.
|
| As one who is intimate with spelling should know, English has
| no unified body of spelling, grammar, or rules at all,
| therefore it's very hard to say that one's spelling is
| particularly incorrect.
| steanne wrote:
| https://grammarist.com/usage/proved-proven/
| [deleted]
| AndriyKunitsyn wrote:
| Some day, irregular verbs in English will be completely getted
| ridded of!
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