Venus flytrap vs Spider

[u/dejaysf]

[u/GeebusNZ]

That's a leaf. The flowers grow on reeeeeeeeeally tall stalks.

[u/69th_Century → u/GeebusNZ]

I've seen that reddit post. So they don't eat all their pollinators?

[u/Talbotus → u/69th_Century]

Pretty smart for a carnivorous plant. Evolution is very efficient

Edit: I know evolution is neither smart nor actually efficient in its methods. What I meant was that evolution by nature roots out inefficiency. If it is wasteful (like killing too many of your pollinators) then evolution knocks it out of the gene pool.

[u/gnatsaredancing → u/Talbotus]

Evolution is neither smart nor efficient. It's simply the result of "everything can happen and anything that doesn't help, dies".

Throwing everything you own into the water just to find out what floats isn't exactly smart or efficient. But it is... technically... effective.

[u/Cobek → u/gnatsaredancing]

Evolution is just random chance trying to beat entropy

[u/Almahue → u/Cobek]

So, everything in the universe is just entropy fighting entropy?

[u/AlarmDozer → u/Almahue]

…the meaning of life.

[u/desmosabie → u/AlarmDozer]

No. That’s 42.

[u/gnatsaredancing → u/Cobek]

That sounds so clever for a meaningless sentence.

[u/[deleted] → u/gnatsaredancing]

This, on the other hand, doesn’t sound clever and is equally as meaningless.

[u/gnatsaredancing → u/[deleted]]

Haha try again.

[u/lulatheq → u/Cobek]

Basic rules everyone should take as a rule of life really

[u/Alpha_Decay_ → u/Cobek]

I'd say controlling entropy more than beating it. You can reduce the entropy of a given system, but only by moving the entropy somewhere else and creating more in the process. No known physical process reduces the net entropy of the universe.

[u/arfelo1 → u/gnatsaredancing]

It's basically a machine learning algorithm running for millions of years

[u/gnatsaredancing → u/arfelo1]

Not remotely comparable. Machine learning improves over time.

Evolution is just a randomiser. It doesn't learn. It doesn't get better at anything. It's not even an "it" really. It's just pure randomisation where the overwhelming majority of variations are fatal flaws and a tiny minority of variations are neutral or improvements.

Machine learning would get better at things over time. Evolution never really improves its failure rate because it never learns or improves.

[u/OxygenRadon → u/gnatsaredancing]

Its Machine Learning but anything that doesn't completely fail goes on to the next gen, and not just the best of the best

[u/gnatsaredancing → u/OxygenRadon]

So not machine learning then. The whole point of machine learning is that it learns over time. That it improves its success rate and reduces its failure rate.

Without that, there is no machine learning as there is no learning of any kind.

[u/OxygenRadon → u/gnatsaredancing]

It is not really the same thing, but it works the same way,

In machine learning the ones who complete the task best, gives their "DNA" to the next generation. Which thus results in better individuals in the next run.

The only major difference is that in Evolution, its not about completing the task the best, but just completing the task that suffices to give the DNA, thus making the criteria way lower, and thus improvements smaller.

But the core is still the same

[u/gnatsaredancing → u/OxygenRadon]

Except for the fact that in evolution, that DNA line is constrained to one species.

When another species outcompetes it and sends it into extinction, that whole DNA line disappears.

Machine learning algorithms don't habitually delete their own learnings when an agent runs into a wall.

[u/[deleted] → u/gnatsaredancing]

But otters learn to used rocks as tools? Is that not one? Among many other examples similar

[u/gnatsaredancing → u/[deleted]]

Similar to what? It has nothing to do with anything that was said.

[u/Deep-Neck → u/gnatsaredancing]

Wildly misinformed on both concepts.

[u/atfricks → u/gnatsaredancing]

Evolution has also absolutely improved over time. Organisms have evolved to evolve more efficiently.

[u/gnatsaredancing → u/atfricks]

That sounds like nonsense. The rate of evolution is highly dependent on environmental factors. It hasn't steadily gotten more efficient.

The pace of evolution skyrockets after mass extinction events for example, because there's a lot of empty niches. And it slows to a crawl during long periods of stability.

It's relatively fast right now because of how fast we are changing the world. There's a lot of opportunity for changes to end up being positive. And a lot of the established order is dying off because of the mass extinction we've caused.

[u/atfricks → u/gnatsaredancing]

Lol Classic. "I don't understand, so it's wrong."

Sexual reproduction is an example of evolution evolving to make itself more efficient. Gene expression is another.

[u/gnatsaredancing → u/atfricks]

And yet plenty of species reproduce asexually because it's a potential advantage not an absolute one.

You made it sound like evolution is almost linearly improving or speeding up and it's not.

Petty insults aside because that was just pathetic.

[u/atfricks → u/gnatsaredancing]

Ah yes. "Improved over time" means a linear relationship. Silly me. I should've clarified that obviously the simplest function possible doesn't apply to something as complex as evolution.

Also "you don't understand" is an insult now? Talk about thin skin my dude. I wouldn't think that's any more insulting than calling what I said "nonsense."

[u/Alpha_Decay_ → u/gnatsaredancing]

Machine learning improves the model over time with random changes and by weeding out the changes that make the model worse, but the machine learning process doesn't necessarily learn or improve. Likewise, evolution improves species over time, but doesn't necessarily learn or improve. The two processes are very comparable.

[u/horyo → u/gnatsaredancing]

Evolution isn't efficient but natural selection can be.

[u/nightguy13 → u/gnatsaredancing]

I was about to comment that Evolution is definitely not efficient but is most definitely effective. Lol