Predicting Evolution: A Beginner's Model

Silance writes "According to ScienceDaily , Scientists have developed a method of accelerating evolution in the lab that accurately mimics natural evolution. Drug-resistant E.coli strains from the 1940's that were subjected to the evolutionary speed-up process indeed followed the same evolutionary path as their natural bretheren. It is believed that the process could be used to predict the future monkey-wrenches that evolution might lob our way. Neat-o!"

Comments

Yet another sorry day for creationists.

[cp99]

With every paper like this one, the case for evolution gets stronger (not that it needed it), whereas the pesudoscientists falls apart (not that it hasn't already).

Re:Yet another sorry day for creationists.

[Kopretinka]

You see, not all creationists take the view that the universe was created as we know it, in seven days = 168 hours.

There has been a view that the Bible talks about God's days (periods of creation), each of which could take millions of years. AFAIK this view is that of God-assisted evolution. He gives the right impulses and the monkeys move off the trees.

This is not ridiculous, there are still some missing links in the known evolution and it does indeed seem that in a few moments in the history evolution sped up like hell.

In fact, this may be a pure chance as well as an act of God, and this cannot be resolved until God manifests Himself, like a face in the sky speaking everyone's language at once telling us to finally shut up and be good to each other.

(Personally, I believe this is possible, as much as the pure-chance scenario. No difference to me, really.)

microevolution and genetic modifications

[Anonymous Coward]

Notes:
1. I have to rant about Darwinism only pertaining to microevolution. There's not been much evidence where ecological diversity (large scale speciation) is caused by Darwinism. In fact, Stephen J. Gould's punctuated equilibrium theory breaks neo-Darwinism as the principle mechanism for macroevolution.

2. This sort of discovery however, is interesting in that this sort of technique can be termed 2nd order GM. Where GM as we normally see it is usually mimicking rapid breeding by horizontal gene transfer instead of waiting for the organism to acquire them through generational breeding, this discovery allows us to use the patterns developed from accelerated breeding (or GM) to create new things.

3. "In the quest to create the cure-all of the 21st century, a nemesis was created" MI:2 anyone? :)

4. "Unknown to the public and even its employees, the Umbrella corporation primarily conducts research for the military in areas such as genetic engineering and viral warfare...." ResEvil anyone? :)

sounds inherently...

[Zarf]

sadistic.

"You can introduce a lot of mutations in the lab," explains Hall. "In effect, you can take millions of copies of this gene and give each one a different mutation." Those mutated genes are introduced back into the cells, "and then you ask, can you grow on lactose now?"

So basically you screw 'em up somehow and then torture them. I know that they're just microbes but it still... if you prick them do they not bleed? The process is still, "Ooh, you still alive, *zap* how 'bout now? Still kickin'? *zap* how 'bout now? Nope? *zap* how 'bout now?" Perhaps I have too much imagination but just picture this with fuzzy animals... not funny "ha ha" funny strange.

Artificial societies

[babbage]

I seriously doubt that any complex system such as evolution could ever be simulated with perfect accuracy. More likely, we can get to the point where likely outcomes can be guessed but the paths that lead to them will probably always be a surprise to us.

Check out the article on artificial societies from the current (April 2002) issue of Atlantic Monthly. I was thinking of submitting it to Slashdot anyway, but it particularly relates to this discussion too. The header blurb is:

The new science of artificial societies suggests that real ones are both more predictable and more surprising than we thought. Growing long-vanished civilizations and modern-day genocides on computers will probably never enable us to foresee the future in detail--but we might learn to anticipate the kinds of events that lie ahead, and where to look for interventions that might work

The article goes on to discuss many applications of this technique. None of them are specifically about genetic evolution, though one does analyze the settlement patterns of a pre-Columbian society in the American southwest, and the computed simulation, given information about climate patterns and so on, does roughly mimic what the archaeological record suggests really happened to the Anasazi.

The interesting thing is that the simulations, including this one, are really not much more sophisticated than Conway's famous "life" AI experiments -- they take a couple of crude populations and set up trivial rules, and then run with them until a pattern emerges. In spite of how crude these simulations are, the parallels to the observed world can be striking, suggesting that such simulations can be used to understand evolution, historical trends, racism, genocide, economics, etc.

Re:Isn't that a lot of work?

[nucal]

Not really, they just made a bunch of random mutations and then sequenced the DNA of the bacteria that survived. So you do not need to worry about irrelevant mutations to the DNA - which reduces the sample size. The bacteria that do survive will do so to varying degrees - some will barely make it, while others do very well. Take 25-50 of the really good survivors, sequence the gene required for survival (which is automated and cheap to do) - then compare to naturally occurring mutations that confer the same level of resistance.

The key point here is the selection pressure will tend to result in the same types of mutations regardless of how the genes are mutated - you don't get a whole host of weird mutations to enable the bacteria to survive, only a few key protein changes are beneficial.