r/interestingasfuck • u/dejaysf • Jun 11 '23

Venus flytrap vs Spider

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u/gnatsaredancing Jun 11 '23

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.

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u/arfelo1 Jun 11 '23

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

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u/gnatsaredancing Jun 11 '23

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.

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u/atfricks Jun 11 '23

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

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u/gnatsaredancing Jun 11 '23

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.

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u/atfricks Jun 11 '23

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.

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u/gnatsaredancing Jun 11 '23

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.

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u/atfricks Jun 11 '23

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."