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From Bacteria to Bach and Back Again: Difference between revisions
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From Bacteria to Bach and Back Again (view source)
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Where something replicates itself with occasional, random, minor variations, those variations best suited to the prevailing environment will fare best. Being themselves replication machines, these replications themselves will tend to produce optimally fit offspring. Thanks to nature’s unsentimental elimination game, suboptimal iterations won’t last. Each species will tend to optimality or extinction. | Where something replicates itself with occasional, random, minor variations, those variations best suited to the prevailing environment will fare best. Being themselves replication machines, these replications themselves will tend to produce optimally fit offspring. Thanks to nature’s unsentimental elimination game, suboptimal iterations won’t last. Each species will tend to optimality or extinction. | ||
What counts as “suitability”, though, you must measure after the fact, by reference to the particular variation and the then-prevailing environment. [[ | What counts as “suitability”, though, you must measure after the fact, by reference to the particular variation and the then-prevailing environment. [[Evolution]] is good at explaining what just happened, but hopeless at predicting what will happen next. It is a means of ''post-facto'' rationalisation, in other words: the fact that an organism has survived in an environment is evidence of its fitness, and not the other way around. This is survivor bias on a cosmic scale. | ||
The environment in which an organism’s fitness must be judged includes, of course, the organism itself. So, to some extent, it is judge in its own cause. The more like-minded organisms there are in your environment, the better you will fare. You can stack the deck. Majority rules, by a [[strange loop]]. | The environment in which an organism’s fitness must be judged includes, of course, the organism itself. So, to some extent, it is judge in its own cause. The more like-minded organisms there are in your environment, the better you will fare. You can stack the deck. Majority rules, by a [[strange loop]]. | ||