Evolution – in 140 characters
I sent out a call via twitter yesterday:
Best (short) definition of evolution? Hard to find one that isn’t misinterpreted.
And now, there is a competition! Please go to Naturally Selected (@f1000) to see the prizes. You can submit your responses on twitter with #evo140 tag or leave your definition in comments. If you leave comments here, I will forward your entry.
So why did I ask for this definition?
I was filling out a survey and can across this question:
- What do you believe regarding the origin and development of humans?
- Human beings evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years
- God created human beings in their present form within the last 10,000 years
I’m not sure why – but the evolution definition irked me. I know, it is a government type of survey and it is hard to define evolution for everyone…plus it does answer their question. But it got me thinking…
There seems to be a lot of misconception about evolution. It is a tough concept and I’m not even sure if I fully grasp the whole idea. But a lot of people seem to think that each branch of an evolutionary tree has stopped. If it was seen as a map, the organism gets to their destination and settles. But one of the cool thing about the idea of evolution is that things are always changing. The initial twitter offerings addressed this point: Life’s innate capacity to persist in spite of environmental change (@conservbytes). @audyyy also gave us: variation + selection + reproduction = evolution
During one of my oral exams (qualifying?), I was asked: what is the most evolved mammal? I’d love to hear your opinion. In the pressure of the moment, I reached for mouse due to their short cycles so they’ve had more chance to adapt to environmental pressures. Over the years, I’ve considered other answers but it always makes my head spin. Share your thoughts below!
Please help me out!
- What is the most evolved mammal? (share below)
- Share your definition of evolution on twitter with #evo140
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Woo hoo!
Catherine Anderson
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Yeah… that whole ‘advanced’ and ‘most evolved’ thing irks me.
(Not as bad as a phrase I saw today saying something like ‘natural selection has explicitly designed such and such’. Twice. ARGH!)
Where did you see that?!? Is it worth letting the author know the cringes he/she is getting?
*digs around* here.
While the point of the article was fair enough, that bit made me squirm.
Assuming a single origin of life, all extant organisms are equally evolved. If anything, microbes are ‘more evolved’ than us multi-cellular organisms—they’ve gone through more generations.
Yes, equally evolved is the part that most don’t get
I run a summer camp and trying to explain to the students the equality of evolution was entertaining and sometimes frustrating.
Down! Down! Down with the Great Chain of Being!
For everyone’s reference, here is how Darwin summarises Natural Selection:
‘If during the long course of ages and under varying conditions of life, organic beings vary at all in the several parts of their organisation, and I think this cannot be disputed; if there be, owing to the high geometrical powers of increase of each species, at some age, season, or year, a severe struggle for life, and this certainly cannot be disputed; then, considering the infinite complexity of the relations of all organic beings to each other and to their conditions of existence, causing an infinite diversity in structure, constitution, and habits, to be advantageous to them, I think it would be a most extraordinary fact if no variation ever had occurred useful to each being’s own welfare, in the same way as so many variations have occurred useful to man. But if variations useful to any organic being do occur, assuredly individuals thus characterised will have the best chance of being preserved in the struggle for life; and from the strong principle of inheritance they will tend to produce offspring similarly characterised. This principle of preservation, I have called, for the sake of brevity, Natural Selection.’
If only Darwin new about the how important keeping things brief would be in the future!
How about:
time individulas(+/-) > sex+ > = variation > enovirnment > time >
I can spell (honest), but this seemed the briefest way of expressing ‘across time, within an changing environment, small and beneficial or hamless changes in successfully reproducing individuals cause variation. This continues.’
Evolution ‘just’ a theory? Not ‘just’. Not even. Natural selection is the theory, to explain the overwhelming fact-base of evolutionary change.
Heya,
You can now vote for your favourite: http://blog.the-scientist.com/2010/09/02/tweeting-evolution-the-shortlist/