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Comment by kaens | Hacker News Reader

No. People need to stop asking this.

As far as I understand it, evolution is not a thing that stops.

I am significantly annoyed at the propagation of stuff like this. It's like this horrible catch-22 where such a small amount of the population actually understands current theory, and the rest just have these really off-the-wall interpretations, with a similarly small percentage admitting that they have no clue what they're talking about - like how the (stereotypical) average american citizen thinks of abiogenesis, evolution, and the big bang as one big lump of a theory.

Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but saying somethings "evolution has stopped" is nonsense, right?

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You're not completely wrong, but you're also not completely right. Remember, simply selecting for best fit individuals is not evolution, that's natural selection. Furthermore, reproduction introducing new variants is also not, on its own, evolution, that's descent with modification.

Evolution only occurs when you've got descent with modification and natural selection working together to push species toward one niche or another. Certainly evolution can stop. Take, for example, dinosaurs!

Of course, extinction is an extreme case. So can an existing species stop evolving? For better or worse, the answer depends on a concept which is still not fully resolved: neutral evolution. The general idea of neutral evolution is that, even when you're not selecting for one variant or another, introducing new variants will make you better fit for the next selection event (presuming you subscribe to the punctuated equilibria views). Essentially, you might not be evolving now (i.e. no selection pressure exists), but you might be stacking the deck to evolve better in the future.

...confusing, right? I love this stuff! :-)

I have a dumb question: how can a theory stop?

Evolution is a process. Processes can stop. No one is suggesting that the theory of evolution has stopped; as you point out, that would not be a meaningful statement.

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