Slashdot Mirror
Reversing Undesirable Fish Evolution
TaeKwonDood writes "Your granddad's approach to fishing — throw the little 'uns back — may have hurt their evolution, but we can reverse that, says a group of researchers, with a change of policy.
Fish have been 'reprogramming' themselves to be smaller and live longer. Welcome to evolutionary dynamics, Lamarck. But, no, they are serious. And it can be fixed within 12 generations. What do the smart people out there think about this? Are they using the term 'evolution' the wrong way?"
No, but you're being rather careless with your language.
It hasn't "hurt" their evolution. Their evolution has been helpful, based on the selection pressures they face.
Nor are the fish "reprogramming themselves". The species' genetic make up may be shifting (in a loose sense "reprogrammed") but they aren't doing it to themselves.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
That's a simplistic view of it. Killing the larger fish remove them from future breeding, and smaller fish have more opportunity to do so.
It doesn't have to be absolute.
This is an absolutely spot on comment. If there is a selection pressure for smaller fish, then the process of selection is working. "Natural selection" is somewhat of a misnomer, as sometimes something out of the ordinary (occurs with predictable regularity, or slowly over the course of millennia) happens and pressures the group in a certain direction. In this case, humans are applying a selective pressure to the fish population. Therefore fish that are predisposed, due to their genetics, to a smaller adult size are reaching sexual maturity and producing offspring. That's perfectly natural if you consider the population of fish that are in an environment where human selection is a pressure. Would an identical species living in a similar niche without catch and release pressure decrease in size? That's a far more interesting question than "is this evolution?" or "is this Darwinism or Lamrakian?". Not that I read the original article or the parent I'm quoting. I could care less, as a /. reader.
how about this bit from the summery?
*cringe* evolution is not a step ladder! If the fish are adapting genetically with the result being more offspring than they would otherwise then it is evolution regardless of humanity's shallow view of what it means to "evolve in a positive direction" or that just because those fish didn't evolve the way we would have liked that it somehow means that it "hurt their evolution."
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
I do wonder if the poster actually read the article. It uses the word "reprogrammed" once, as a metaphor, and it's not the fish "reprogramming themselves," it's the selective harvesting.
I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth it to come here if the blurbs misrepresent the articles so badly.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
of course there are actual biologists who read slashdot that don't think highly of evolution being thought of in terms of a ladder but rather fitness and genetic change over time in order to maximize the chances that organisms can and do reproduce. the summery did a poor job of phrasing what the researchers actually said on the matter calling it "bad for their evolution" in contrast to being "undesirable [from humanity's perspective] evolution" for which the latter is far more accurate and the former.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
just because those fish didn't evolve the way we would have liked that it somehow means that it "hurt their evolution."
I'd in fact go further and say it has helped their evolution. If they become small enough that us humans cannot be bothered with them then they have managed to eliminate the most dangerous predator on the planet as a concern. Seems like a smart move to me.
Eeeeexactly. Reverse evolution is like "reverse discrimination" *cough*BULLSHIT*cough*
Evolution is evolution... Just because we might be the primary environmental factor OR we might BECOME the primary factor doesn't make it "reverse."
"It seems correct to this biology teacher."
I think this biology teacher will have to revise his concepts.
"This is a clear case of directional selection."
Yes.
"If, over time the frequencies of the alleles for large and small change in the population, then we have, by definition, evolution."
No, we haven't. We just have frequency variation. But we haven't change the gene pool a dime. Without new characteristics we have no evolution, by definition.
In fact, the very article states that we could reverse those population changes within some generations. Evolution is not reversible.
"What makes you think this wouldn't be an example of evolution?"
Environmental pressure changes population frequencies and *can* drive evolution towards some direction (mutations that embetters fitness within such pressure will be favoured) but it's no evolution by itself. Environmental pressure by itself cannot make a bird out of a dinossaur.
of course there are actual biologists who read slashdot that don't think highly of evolution being thought of in terms of a ladder but rather fitness and genetic change over time in order to maximize the chances that organisms can and do reproduce. the summery did a poor job of phrasing what the researchers actually said on the matter calling it "bad for their evolution"
The summary was bad but the actual article does have this quote from Dr Conover "the bigger and older a fish is, the more offspring it produces,". Having more offspring could be a evolutionary advantage.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?