Aug 15, 2020
To understand the machinery of life, this scientist breaks it on purpose
Posted by Xavier Rosseel in categories: biological, genetics
“We expected that the hammer of natural selection also comes down randomly, but that is not what we found,” he said. “Rather, it does not act randomly but has a strong bias, favoring those mutations that provide the largest fitness advantage while it smashes down other less beneficial mutations, even though they also provide a benefit to the organism.”
In other words, evolution is not a multitasker when it comes to fixing problems.
“It seems that evolution is myopic,” Venkataram said. “It focuses on the most immediate problem, puts a Band-Aid on and then it moves on to the next problem, without thoroughly finishing the problem it was working on before.”
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