[HN Gopher] Evolution is not a tree of life but a fuzzy network ___________________________________________________________________ Evolution is not a tree of life but a fuzzy network Author : ALee Score : 41 points Date : 2022-04-24 17:30 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (aeon.co) (TXT) w3m dump (aeon.co) | MathMonkeyMan wrote: | It's certainly a tree of individuals, though with single-celled | division even that is not clear. | | Things get tricky when you talk about species, because species | are (arbitrary?) equivalency classes of individuals. | Tagbert wrote: | Species are approximations that can be useful to discuss | populations but they are very fuzzy at the edges. There is not | single definition of species that applies in all cases. In that | sense they are somewhat arbitrary but terms can be arbitrary | and useful at the same time. | Flankk wrote: | Darwin believed that each successive generation of a species had | increasing mutations leading to a gradual divergence. Another | school of thought believes that a species remains at equilibrium | until some environmental stressor activates a rapid divergence. | If this "punctuated equilibrium" is true, climate change will | give rise to many new species, as would all mass extinctions. | seandhuine wrote: | What Darwin knew about biology is incommensurate with a modern | understanding of the word "mutation". A generation later than | him, biologists still believed cells were formless blobs of | jelly, so to speak. Punctuated equilibrium is even less | defensible given our present understanding of the molecular | basis of genetics. | oldgradstudent wrote: | I've always said it's not the _Tree of Life_ , but rather the | _DAG of Life_. | User23 wrote: | It may not even be acyclic. For example it appears fetal DNA is | permanently detectable in mothers and may even have health | benefits that conceivably increase the mother's evolutionary | fitness. | westurner wrote: | How can it be acyclic? A phylogenetic tree is a DAG. | Organisms sharing DNA? That's definitely a cyclic graph. | | If there were Schema.org/Animal and/or schema:AnimalInstance | classes, what do you list under a :breed property to indicate | that e.g. one parent is breed X and another is breed Y?! | That's definitely not a DAG; that looks like a feature | clustering dendrogram. | | DNA barcoding > Mismatches between conventional | (morphological) and barcode based identification https://en.w | ikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_barcoding#Mismatches_betwe... | | Taxonomy (biology) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy_(biology) | | FWIU, there's at least one DNA-based organism naming system; | IDK how much that helps resolve :Animal and :AnimalInstance | if at all? | jfarmer wrote: | The hypergraph of life? | agumonkey wrote: | I'd go full mad and say the space continuum of life. Context is | what drives life. Similar context breed similar forces and | genes. | Swizec wrote: | > Similar context breed similar forces and genes | | Flight is so useful, it evolved 4 times independently. With | very similar solutions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_and_gliding_animals | | And crustaceans keep evolving into crabs. | https://www.popsci.com/story/animals/why-everything- | becomes-... | | And who even knows how many different times high level | intelligence has evolved. I think octopi, birds, and mammals | are all good examples of separate intelligence tracks with | similar results. | peter303 wrote: | 5% - 8% of human genome appears to be from [retro]virus inserts. | Thats outside the tree of descent. | LB232323 wrote: | Evolutionary biology is sincerely beautiful, the biological | history of our species is a meta-history to human history. | | On a grander scale, the biological history of life itself weaves | the career of the human race into a context of profound | interconnectivity. | | It's natural to contemplate your origins, the place and culture | you come from, your ancestors and the history of your family. | It's even more profound to contemplate your biological origins, | your ancestry into species unrecognizable from your own. | | It really is a humbling experience to trace a path thousands and | even millions of years into the past. The end result is an | increased appreciation for the beauty of nature and for the | inseparable unity of the human race. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-04-24 23:00 UTC)