Natural selection Definition and 43 Threads

Mammals go through two rounds of epigenetic "reprogramming" -- once after fertilization and again during the formation of gametes (sex cells) -- in which most of the chemical tags are https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/03/end_the_hype_over_epigenetics__lamarckian_evolution.html. The...

I'm considering making a Natural Selection Simulator (possibly in Java). I've always been fascinated with the idea that so many traits can evolve independently of each other in the same population (even little things like tufted ears and loss of tail, etc.) and I want to see it in action. Like...

https://phys.org/news/2020-01-fossil-upend-basic-tenet-evolutionary.html Sandra Catania et al. Evolutionary Persistence of DNA Methylation for Millions of Years after Ancient Loss of a De Novo Methyltransferase, Cell (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2019.12.012 Using pathogenic fungus species, the...

It's a truism that those that are better at surviving/adapting will be better at surviving. How is that in any way enlightening or new? Is there a deeper, more complex aspect to this theory that somehow escaped me? Were there people before this theory believing that those that are worse at...

In the past, natural selection selected those who are the fittest to live to pass their genes, and eliminated those who are not, but now most people pass their genes, even those who don't have the best genes to live, although now not having the best genes may affect the qualify of a person's...

Now first of all biology is not my strong subject but I am interested in it nevertheless, if my questions come off as arrogant or ignorant then pardon and please explain as I am curious.Last night before going to sleep I suddenly stumbled upon a question, the question goes somewhat like this...

While it's true that it prevents successful penetration by unwanted males, but any unsuccessful fertilization by any males, unwanted or otherwise, results in fewer offsprings. This means lower genetic fitness for convoluted vaginas. EDIT: Not in humans. But in other species in nature such as ducks.

Please someone help me understand the concept of the actual occurrence of speciation. Cataclysmic Evolution may account for some species but not many, it could only practically apply to asexual species and would undermine genetic diversity. Actually I can save a lot of explanation by clarifying...

I have been in a heated discussion with my acquaintance about natural selection. Anyone who thinks natural selection is a real thing any links would be helpful

Why do humans (and other mammals) get nauseated from dizziness or vertigo? I can see the evolutionary advantage of nausea from food poisoning, but I can't see the direct "link" between vertigo and vomit. I found something on verywell.com...

I just finishedOn the Origin of Species. It seems Darwin is saying that characteristics that make it less likely for an organism to survive will drop out over time. But other scientists tell me that cancer has a genetic link, that suicide has a genetic predisposition, etc. Many diseases have...

Explain how natural selection might have caused the changes in each of the following: -Size of horses -Foot structure of horses I'm quite sure as to why the size of horses needed, and I'm not quite sure why the structure of the foot needed to change.

I am an evolutionary theoretician, focusing on the dynamics of process that shape the generation of variation in organisms, including properties such as mutational robustness, the evolution of evolvability, and modularity in the genotype-phenotype map. My main mathematical area is development...

How natural selection leads to speciation?Speciation is a process of making a new species ,right? Natural selection just select one organism from a bunch of organisms of the same species to survive ,so how does it leads to creation of a new species?For example in an area covered with snow ,white...

I'l start by saying that I'm not a creationist or something like that, I fully support evolutionism and the scientific approach. However, while natural selection can powerfully explain the traits of all current species, it can be hard to understand why if this is the mechanism driving...

I know very little about natural selection, so: Why didn't all the creatures evolve? I mean , why is it that some fishes came to the land, or why did not all monkeys turn into humans? And is it possible that someday the monkeys on the trees turn into humans?

The March 2014 issue of Physics Today has an article by Lee Smolin in which he argues that natural laws must change over time. As examples of such theories, he gives Penrose's CCC and his own cosmological natural selection (CNS): http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0612185 My understanding was that...

Hi, I just want some explications about the nature of "Natural Selection" in term of physical laws acting on molecules. In other words, how exactly "Natural Selection" acts on molecules and atoms.

I've always thought that evolution was this mysterious property of the universe and that natural selection was almost a separate theory. Now that I look more into it, i can almost always rationalize an answer as to why a property of life is the way it is by natural selection. For example, i...

Was the evolutionary principle of natural selection at work on the Earth before animate matter(life) emerged? Inanimate chemicals replicated before R/DNA and the first living cell. Did natural selection apply to these chemical molecules? If the answer is yes, is it just a hypothesis or has...

Natural selection: What do they mean by "average" individual? You know how they say stabilizing selection favors the "average" individual - i.e, it is centered around the mean? I have a question. How do they calculate this "mean"? I'm confused. All I know is that if pure-white rats mate...

Homework Statement Describe Lack's experiments with Swiss starlings, and state what these experiments tell us about the effect of natural selection Homework Equations Lack's studies / experiment was that he marked the nestlings of the starlings and then he recaptured them months later...

I am just learning about the theory of Evolution and wonder how parallel evolution of unrelated species during the same period of time is explained.

As I understand evolution, with natural selection, nature kills the weakest, for an example predators killing the slowest in a herd of Antilopes. What I don't understand is how life could have evolved into something as complex as us in only 2.5 billion years. I've heard of epigenetics, but that...

Alright, admittedly I'm a noob at LQG, but I have a basic question. The cosmological natural selection, as I understand it, is that universes are born from singularities (or something close) inside of black holes and 'bounce', inflate, and become universes like our own. But what spawned this...

A letter in the current issue of Nature: ==quote== A two-solar-mass neutron star measured using Shapiro delay P. B. Demorest1, T. Pennucci2, S. M. Ransom1, M. S. E. Roberts3 & J. W. T. Hessels4,5 National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, Virginia 22093, USA...

Does natural selection apply more to information in general than just to genetics?

I'm going to do a little popular-level talk for undergraduates (not necessarily science majors) on baby universes, cosmological natural selection, and Penrose's cyclical universe. The most recent substantive paper I have on CNS is this: Smolin, "Cosmological natural selection as the explanation...

Natural selection needs the feeling?? Human(at least) has their feelings, such as anger, happiness, and depression, etc. But, is there an advantage for the survival of human being?? why natural selection choose the human being who has feelings?? I thought about this theme at last night...

This is a new book from Cambridge University Press, scheduled to go on sale 30 June 2007, available now for pre-order https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521848415/?tag=pfamazon01-20 The Cambridge.org webpage for the book is here http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521848411...

The status of cosmological natural selection Lee Smolin 25 pages "The problem of making predictions from theories that have landscapes of possible low energy parameters is reviewed. Conditions for such a theory to yield falsifiable predictions for doable experiments are given. It is shown...

Can anyone offer a suggested article or website to understand Lee Smolin's idea of Cosmic Natural Selection (CNS)? Which of his books (if any) fully describes this concept? (Perhaps "The Life of the Cosmos") Since Smolin first came up with this idea, has he refined it in regards to the...

First of all I want to make clear that this topic isn't about ID. On wikipedia I read this definition of NS: Not too long ago I saw this story about intelligent bacteria: Further down the article u can read how bacteria behave and 'help' each other out in different situations, some...

Elsevier is a major science publisher and they do, among other things, handbooks. An Elsevier handbook is scheduled to come out this year (2006) on Philosophy of Physics. Probably some good stuff about foundations of physics and what the success of quantum mechanics and general relativity tell...

Does "natural selection" apply extra-galactically? Would the rules of natural selection (in this Universe, but possibly in a different galaxy) still apply? In that regard, how might they differ? Basically what I'm driving at is, if we were to encounter life outside Earth who popped in...

I know zip about biology, but I know a little physics. Before Einstein's general theory of relativity challenged it, the prevailing scientific theory of gravitation was Newton's theory. In the minds of most physicists, the issue was resolved in favor of Einstein's theory as a result of an...

Someone posted in another forum that "Evolution is the result of hundreds of thousands of years of natural selection." Is that true?

Cosmological Natural Selection is a testable idea for explaining why the constants in physics and cosmology----the parameters of the standard models used in the two fields----have the numerical values they do. I expect it's important enough so that it deserves a more transparent thread...

Quick! Read this before it goes into Nature's archive and no longer becomes free. http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041220/full/041220-12.html Zz.

I remember I used to be sad when I saw an animal die, especially if it were something like a domesticated cat catching a chipmunk and not even eating it. I was always aware of natrual selection, but it was never at the forefront of my mind when thinking about this, I always thought that it was...

Sherman Hawk, The Book of Millennium If it be the truth that human beings, as biological organisms, are subject to the natural laws which govern other creatures, then surely it is also true that human beings, as a species, hate themselves. The one thing which has made us great, we undermine...

This is just a curiosity that I am confused about; is natural selection within human society still considered natural selection? I am confused in that people are no longer focusing on natural features so much as artificially "enhanced" features. Is an artificial enhancement resulting in...

The following began on the thread How would you engineer the perfect human?, which I decided to continue on here. I thought it was unusual that everyone was talking about genetically altering human beings, and wondering what if anything it had to do with natural selection? For this would almost...