Improbable Destinies

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Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution

I love books like this. Pure wonder about the living world. The beauty. The mystery. Shattering the myths of Darwinism while still clinging desperately to them.

We learn that Darwinism has retarded evolutionary thought for at least a century because the picture that Darwin gave us (which his disciples followed for over a hundred years) was false. Evolution can be tested. It can be observed within human lifetimes. It doesn’t require the infinitesimal insensible aggregations over millenia previously thought. Evolution can be really really fast. Which ought to be good news for young earth creationists.

We also learn that the oft-heard claim that degree of similarity implies degree of relatedness is false. That some species A looks very much like some species B doesn’t at all mean that they are more closely related than some other species which is visibly different.

Another nail in the coffin.

The Amazon blurb:

A major new book overturning our assumptions about how evolution works

Earth’s natural history is full of fascinating instances of convergence: phenomena like eyes and wings and tree-climbing lizards that have evolved independently, multiple times. But evolutionary biologists also point out many examples of contingency, cases where the tiniest change—a random mutation or an ancient butterfly sneeze—caused evolution to take a completely different course. What role does each force really play in the constantly changing natural world? Are the plants and animals that exist today, and we humans ourselves, inevitabilities or evolutionary flukes? And what does that say about life on other planets?

Jonathan Losos reveals what the latest breakthroughs in evolutionary biology can tell us about one of the greatest ongoing debates in science. He takes us around the globe to meet the researchers who are solving the deepest mysteries of life on Earth through their work in experimental evolutionary science. Losos himself is one of the leaders in this exciting new field, and he illustrates how experiments with guppies, fruit flies, bacteria, foxes, and field mice, along with his own work with anole lizards on Caribbean islands, are rewinding the tape of life to reveal just how rapid and predictable evolution can be.

Improbable Destinies will change the way we think and talk about evolution. Losos’s insights into natural selection and evolutionary change have far-reaching applications for protecting ecosystems, securing our food supply, and fighting off harmful viruses and bacteria. This compelling narrative offers a new understanding of ourselves and our role in the natural world and the cosmos.

152 thoughts on “Improbable Destinies”

  1. Allan Miller:
    Alan Fox,

    Drift occurs to some degree for any allele, neutral or otherwise. And the assumption that it is mostly about small populations is based on an implicit view that populations of any size are mixed with equal vigour. Drift can create pockets of variation in a population of any size. This is an important source of variation.

    Perhaps that’s the leap of faith that I need to make. How a reduction in diversity is a source of variation? Creating space for further variation, perhaps. I take the point that in reality small populations can be considered subsets of large populations and mixing of alleles is not smooth across a population that has not evolved bikes.

  2. PS @ Allan,

    I don’t question that the effect is always there. I think Joe Felsenstein’s analogy with Brownian motion apt.

  3. Alan Fox,

    Perhaps that’s the leap of faith that I need to make. How a reduction in diversity is a source of variation?

    Different local fixations are in train in different parts of the population and at different loci. It creates a patchwork effect, because gene flow is somewhat ‘viscous’ – a fact obscured or ignored by many population genetic models.

    I visualise something like OMagain’s ‘M&M’ visualisation with an additional constraint on mixing. Colour patches would ebb and flow under both selection and drift. Selection reduces variation more quickly than drift. The neutral case, being the slowest of all, would show the greatest amount of ‘patchiness’.

  4. Allan Miller,
    I see all that and agree OM’s visualization of the “balls from a bag” was instructive. I’m sure this is a reasonable model. My question remains as how this links in to adaptation.

  5. Alan Fox,

    I see all that and agree OM’s visualization of the “balls from a bag” was instructive. I’m sure this is a reasonable model. My question remains as how this links in to adaptation.

    That’s a slightly different question – to some extent, drift opposes adaptation. But the point was about variation. In increasing the variation available, drift provides the raw material for adaptation should the environment change, or a recombinational event generates a beneficial chimera that might not arise without it.

  6. Allan Miller:
    Alan Fox,

    That’s a slightly different question

    I’m sorry if I haven’t made myself clear. That has always been my query with genetic drift.

    – to some extent, drift opposes adaptation. But the point was about variation. In increasing the variation available, drift provides the raw material for adaptation should the environment change, or a recombinational event generates a beneficial chimera that might not arise without it.

    The phrase “in increasing the variation available” sounds like assuming that is what is happening. How this happens is what I am hoping to grasp.

  7. Mung: “…a correlation between trait evolution and environment wouldn’t be expected without the involvement of natural selection.”

    Why on earth not?

    If this is not immediately obvious to you then it appears you have learned next to nothing about evolution from reading all those books. Which I find astonishing.

    Try to read for comprehension, try to think about why (the logical reasons of why, not the psychoemotional reasons of why) the author might say what he does.

    Why would someone say that trait evolution should not be expected to correlate with environment without natural selection? What would have to be true, for that statement to follow? Think Mung, think!

  8. Alan,

    The phrase “in increasing the variation available” sounds like assuming that is what is happening. How this happens is what I am hoping to grasp.

    That’s what Allan is getting at here:

    Different local fixations are in train in different parts of the population and at different loci. It creates a patchwork effect, because gene flow is somewhat ‘viscous’ – a fact obscured or ignored by many population genetic models.

  10. keiths: If we do a thread on the topic, we can review some of your earlier comments and the confusions they evince.

    You see Alan, it’s not really about drift at all. I often make the mistake of thinking that keiths actually wants to discuss a topic, and I’m equally often shown to be wrong.

    keiths would make a great fundamentalist preacher. Telling people they are going to hell, and exactly what all their faults are that are going to send them there.

    Jesus needs you keiths. Come join us.

  11. Rumraket: Why would someone say that trait evolution should not be expected to correlate with environment without natural selection? What would have to be true, for that statement to follow? Think Mung, think!

    You got me. That’s why I’m asking. LoL.

    Why do elderly people retire to southern states? Is there a correlation between age and some southern states. Is it due to natural selection?

    From what bit of evolutionary theory does it necessarily follow [think entailment] that traits will not correlate to environment without natural selection having been the cause of those traits?

    Sure you can tell me.

  13. Rumraket: I can, but I want you to figure it out for yourself. I believe in you Mung.

    And I believe in spandrels. And traits that have nothing to do with natural selection having created them. And these traits can be correlated to the environment.

    Is there some part of evolutionary theory that declares that this simply cannot be so?

  14. Rumraket: If this is not immediately obvious to you then it appears you have learned next to nothing about evolution from reading all those books. Which I find astonishing.

    Feel free to refer me to one or more of those books where I can read about this. Title and page number please.

    If I can’t find the argument for universal common ancestry in evolution books it won’t come across as any surprise that I won’t find this either. So surprise me.

  15. So after reading Chapter Two, in which the author lays out many cases of convergence and repeatedly attributes them to natural selection, I concluded that the author must be a pan-selectionist.

    So imagine my surprise to find the author writing the following in Chapter Three:

    – …convergence need not reflect adapatation to the same circumstances or even be a result of adaptation at all.

    – …convergent evolution could occur coincidentally if two populations happen to evolve the same trait for non-adaptive reasons. Such non-adaptive convergence may be most prevalent among related populations or species because of their shared evolutionary predispositions.

    – We have no evidence that this [particular] convergent evolutionary reduction has been driven by natural selection: …

    – Ideally, we would directly test the hypothesis that natural selection has guided convergence.

    – Unfortunately, sometimes we don’t have any relevant information.

    – Convergent evolution doesn’t necessarily prove that a shared trait is the result of natural selection.

    – But absent any data, we can’t just assume that natural selection is the cause.

    How refreshingly honest.

    But then, in the very next section, the author reverts right back to natural selection as his default explanation!

    “Why has natural selection produced different solutions to the same grubby problem?”

    LoL! It’s like a form of schizophrenia I guess.

  16. Now Rumraket, please read my previous post and tell me how the author didn’t just contradict himself.

    In one breath he tells us that we wouldn’t expect correlation absent natural selection, and in the next breath he gives us all sorts of reasons to believe he was wrong.

    Evolutionists are their own worst enemy.

  17. Mung:
    Now Rumraket, please read my previous post and tell me how the author didn’t just contradict himself.

    In one breath he tells us that we wouldn’t expect correlation absent natural selection,and in the next breath he gives us all sorts of reasons to believe he was wrong.

    It sounds weird and contradictory me

  19. I may have to eat some words. It’s not that Darwin was wrong, it’s that Losos misrepresents Darwin. Like Gould misrepresented Darwin.

    wtf is wrong with these evolutionists? Can a Creationist get some evolutionist love please?

  21. The phenomenon in which genetically identical organisms produce different phenotypes depending on their environmental circumstances is called “phenotypic plasticity.” This is the nurture part of the nature-versus-nurture debate.

    And yet another reason to doubt that correlation between traits and environments is necessarily caused by natural selection. Right Rumraket?

  23. Mung: And yet another reason to doubt that correlation between traits and environments is necessarily caused by natural selection. Right Rumraket?

    Give me some more…though I will order the book…

  24. Alan Fox: This is factually incorrect, Robert. Newton’s theory of gravity is a mathematical model that predicts the motion of bodies such as planets and projectiles to a sufficient accuracy that it is still used today, for instance in calculating trajectories for space shots. It is not totally wrong just more wrong than Einstein’s model.

    Isaac Asimov on the Relativity of Wrong

    i’m aware of these things. I know newtons stuff gets people to the moon.
    Yet it still was wrong about its claim to explain physics.
    it was totally wrong.
    Einstein said it was just a special case in a greater equation.
    No forces but instead space itself was interfered in and the forces were secondary reactions.
    YET before nEWTON it was confirmed like crazy and settled about how the universe worked.
    Then the mechanical case was replaced completely.

  25. Mung:

    Natural selection doesn’t necessarily lead to evolutionary change.

    – p. 119

    How could it not?

    It’s pretty obvious once we undo your quote mine:

    Natural selection doesn’t necessarily lead to evolutionary change. If birds with big beaks survive and reproduce better, then average beak size should increase through time. But this expectation only holds true if big-beaked birds give rise to big-beaked offspring. That is, variation in a trait must have a genetic basis so that trait values are inherited from parent to offspring. Often this is the case, but not always. In humans, for example, the children of bodybuilders don’t necessarily have big muscles.

    Quote mining is a sign of desperation, Mung.

  26. keiths: Now see if you can understand the concepts behind what you just quoted or paraphrased.

    just re-reading this thread and noticed this remark. As a point of information, the remark:
    My understanding of genetic drift is a process that will tend to randomly reduce diversity due to fixation of neutral alleles in the absence of selective pressure. This process is more obvious in small populations and may be an important factor in the founder effect. Please correct this confusion. And where did you learn about genetic drift? was all my own work, not copied or paraphrased.

    I wonder if you are going to make good on your offer to correct my confusion. And I’m still wondering where you learned about genetic drift.

    keiths: Your attitude toward drift is oddly skeptical.

    I seem to recall you complaining of my lack of scepticism at some point.

  27. Allan Miller,
    Hoping you (or anyone else able to help me through this fog of confusion) pick up on this. It occurs to me there was an earlier thread of mine, where I discussed Will Provine’s self-published book which went flat possibly due to Provine dying from a brain tumour. Maybe we could continue there.

  28. Alan,

    As a point of information, the remark…was all my own work, not copied or paraphrased.

    I’m skeptical.

    I wonder if you are going to make good on your offer to correct my confusion.

    I can try to help, and in fact that’s what I was doing here:

    Alan:

    The phrase “in increasing the variation available” sounds like assuming that is what is happening. How this happens is what I am hoping to grasp.

    keiths:

    That’s what Allan is getting at here:

    Different local fixations are in train in different parts of the population and at different loci. It creates a patchwork effect, because gene flow is somewhat ‘viscous’ – a fact obscured or ignored by many population genetic models.

    Allan’s statement answered your question before you even asked it. Do you see why?

    And I’m still wondering where you learned about genetic drift.

    From textbooks. Why?

    keiths:

    Your attitude toward drift is oddly skeptical.

    Alan:

    I seem to recall you complaining of my lack of scepticism at some point.

    Nothing contradictory about that. The same person can be too skeptical about one thing and insufficiently skeptical about another, all at the same time. Isn’t that obvious?

  33. Alan,

    So all you know of genetic drift, you have read somewhere? Same here!

    Your point being?

    ETA: Besides, I haven’t just read about drift. I’ve thought about it, too.

  34. keiths:
    Alan,

    Your point being?

    ETA:Besides, I haven’t just read about drift.I’ve thought about it, too.

    keiths:
    Alan,

    Your point being?

    ETA:Besides, I haven’t just read about drift. I’ve thought about it, too.

    Well, I look forward to you sharing those thoughts if you feel motivated enough.

  36. Well, I look forward to you sharing those thoughts if you feel motivated enough.

    I am, in the other thread.

    I’m still curious, though. What was your point in writing this?

    So all you know of genetic drift, you have read somewhere? Same here!

  38. keiths: Quote mining is a sign of desperation, Mung.

    Charging someone with quote-mining when none has take place is a sign of something much worse. 🙂

  39. OMagain gives a pretty good description of your quote mining:

    That is exactly the same as when Creationists quote Darwin setting up the problem [he] then proposes a solution to.

    Fucking despicable. In this case Mung asks his question knowing it’s answered in the part of the quote he stripped off.

    Fucking despicable. But I guess he’s proud and Jesus is proud so it’s all good.

  40. keiths once again misinterprets what was posted. It’s a common and recurring theme. His misinterpretation of what was posted doesn’t make it a quote-mine.

  41. Mung: The phenomenon in which genetically identical organisms produce different phenotypes depending on their environmental circumstances is called “phenotypic plasticity.” This is the nurture part of the nature-versus-nurture debate.

    And yet another reason to doubt that correlation between traits and environments is necessarily caused by natural selection. Right Rumraket?

    Not sure why you’re addressing this to me, did I forget some conversation we had during the last few weeks? I honestly haven’t had much time this week.

    Could you quote me somone saying that correlation between traits and environment are necessarily caused by natural selection? As your post stands it looks like you are insinuating someone has made such an argument and that I argued in favor of it.

    Look, the correlation between trait and environment finds a good and likely explanation in natural selection. But nobody has claimed that natural selection is the explanation for such a correlation by logical necessity. So it is not that it is logically impossible for there to be a different explanation for such correlations when they are found. An important distinction between likely and necessary is at work here it seems to me.

  42. Rumraket: But nobody has claimed that natural selection is the explanation for such a correlation by logical necessity.

    dazz: It’s called logic. Don’t sweat it, it’s an evolutionist thing

  43. Mung:

    Yeah, still noone has said correlation between natural selection and environment is a logical necessity. That doesn’t mean you can’t work out logically why you would not expect them to correlate without natural selection.

    Think Mung, just think.

  44. Natural selection rewards those individuals that produce the most offspring that survive to the next generation. There are a number of ways to maximize this reproductive success: by surviving to an old age, by maximizing the number of mating episodes (referred to as “sexual selection”), and by maximizing the number of offspring per reproductive event. In this case, we were examining how well adapted the lizards were to their environment, so we chose to examine survival as our metric of evolutionary fitness.

    – Improbable Desinies, p. 173

    Shh… Don’t tell phoodoo.

  45. Losos describes a number of evolution experiments that show that evolution can be both rapid and predictable. Many of these experiments involve within-generation studies. Studies in which organisms “evolve” by “the power of natural selection” even though no heredity is involved. Is this really natural selection then, and is it really evolution?

    Thoughts?

  46. I don’t recall ever saying this before, but thanks, Mung, for bringing this book to my attention. It was a great read and a nice look at two interesting subjects: the conditions under which convergence does and does not happen; and the potential for rapid change under strong natural selection.

    It is however a mystery why he recommended the book and why he thinks it says anything inimical to the standard understanding of evolution.

  47. John Harshman: It is however a mystery why he recommended the book and why he thinks it says anything inimical to the standard understanding of evolution.

    I’m conducting my very own long-term evolution experiment here at TSZ. 🙂

    And you’re welcome John. I enjoy a good book. A good book about nature is doubly-enjoyable. But didn’t you find the book just chock full of question-begging assumptions?

  48. Mung, to John:

    But didn’t you find the book just chock full of question-begging assumptions?

    For example?

  49. John,

    It is however a mystery why he [Mung] recommended the book and why he thinks it says anything inimical to the standard understanding of evolution.

    Mung is pretty incompetent that way.

    I still fondly remember when Denyse O’Leary got excited about Andreas Wagner’s Arrival of the Fittest, thinking it was anti-Darwinian, and Mung jumped on her bandwagon. And got clobbered.

  50. keiths:
    Mung, to John:

    For example?

    Is it me or keiths is trying really hard to “converse”, which in his mind probably means “I’m always right because I don’t need to learn anything anymore”… lol

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