Evolution selects for 'loners' in slime molds | Hacker News Reader

Evolution selects for 'loners' in slime molds

phys.org

20 pointsTurukawa10 comments

I bet this is different for Dictyostelium purpureum (a slime mold with kin recognition), because loners that join the stalk would improve the survival of their genes. Whereas this species, Dictyostelium discoideum, will form stalks with unrelated strangers, and thus always faces genetic pressure creating loners and cheaters who don't sacrifice themselves to join the stalk. It just turns out that mutating to not join the stalk mutates something else (they don't know what) that hurts your reproduction more. Source: https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/us-and-them-am... (Carl Zimmer, 2006)

Please please please don't try to transpose behavioural models from slime molds (or any other species, really) to humans.

Why not? The thesis is that non-conformance is a viable evolutionary strategy (if not usually the dominant one). It doesn't matter what particular species you are talking about. Obviously there are degrees of non-conformamce that would also be evolutionary dead ends or otherwise destructive.

I think it would be worthwhile to be more precise in your summary: Some level of non-conformance among a group engaged in highly conformant behavior is a viable evolutionary strategy for the population as a whole, but may require coordination with the population to modulate the level of non-conformance.

Analogies can be useful even with zero common physiology. Please do try to compare human behavior to anything and everything in order to gain perspective on it. It's useful to compare mathematical models to human behavior, let alone another life form that we share genes with.

Actually they can be actively harmful in that they lead people to do spurious reasoning with the unwarranted confidence that came from the false reassurance of it being "biology", "science" or "evolution". People have already done it with enough times (such as e.g. wolves, or lobsters (!)) with detrimental effects that I felt a big fat disclaimer was warranted here.

They can be useful. They can be actively harmful. These are compatible statements. They are true of any tool. The more powerful the tool, the truer they both are.

The problem is when the statement becomes "<tool> should not be used because it can be actively harmful." Better is "<tool> should be used with extra care not to cause harm", which is much different.

I do think that it's useful to compare the biology of crustacean and mammalian dominance hierarchies, even given that many people will confuse the descriptive with the normative.

In a scientific epistemology, taboo subjects are taboo.

The article itself explicitly generalizes the theory.

Had to create a throwaway for that!?

This headline is definitely one for @justsaysinmice.

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