Random Chance in Evolution - Robin May

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Natural selection acts to ensure the ‘survival of the fittest’. But random chance has also played a huge role in the history of life on Earth, from meteorite strikes to massive earthquakes. Randomness also lies at the core of evolutionary processes; the impact of a chance mutation, or the ‘lottery’ of sexual selection.
In this lecture, we’ll look at some remarkable examples of evolutionary chance and reveal why they are sometimes less random than you might expect.
This lecture was recorded by Robin May on 15 November 2023 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London
Robin is Gresham Professor of Physic.
He is also Chief Scientific Adviser at the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Professor of Infectious Disease at the University of Birmingham.
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The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
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[@julescaru8591]

I’m currently watching several of your uploads , wonderful way to spend the afternoon, thanks so much to the folk involved! All the best Jules

[@oldernu1250]

The subjective sensitivity of some posters betrays their biases. Getting over yourself can be a Sisyphusian task.

[@rfvtgbzhn]

As a physicist I noticed that the concept of "fitness landscape" seems very similar to the physical conceptof (scalar) potential. Which actually kinda makes sense, as every natural science is ultimately based on physics.

[@martincotterill823]

Great lecture, very interesting!

[@catherinegrindley-whitting7796]

Yay ! Brilliant !

[@user-uu8wh9du1d]

I finally subscribed to science group via facebook as Gresham recommended.

[@srinivasvaranasi1645]

As fascinating as the previous lecture.

[@jimmoore8920]

Thank you Gremshaw.

[@gulahad1312]

WONDERFUL!!! WHAT A RIVETING LECTURE!!

[@genier7829]

A really interesting and understandable presentation. It would be interesting to hear about the 1300 population idea and how it was determined.

[@petersq5532]

it is a theoretical number based on gene diversity in human population and its founder effect. but gene diversity is different in distinct races like the most diverse among African people . that is one of the argument for the African cradle theory.

[@x.s.bleeding7780]

I feel the same on the Issue of Extinction. Lost Cures. ❤

[@mickeysplane7980]

Very well done and educational. Worth viewing.

[@jeanneknight4791]

I a, glad this series came up in my algorithm. Thanks!

[@_a.z]

Wow!

[@CuriousCyclist]

I love the analogy that you can't gradually evolve from an internal combination engine to an electric engine in a car.

[@KarlDMarx]

As erudite as this guy is he picked a bad example. The invention of the electric motor preceded the one of the infernal combustion engine.

[@bipolarminddroppings]

​@KarlDMarx but the electric car wasn't invented before the ICE car was it? Nor was the technology viable for cars until the lithium ion battery was invented. And its an analogy, to get a point across. Which it does perfectly.

[@petersq5532]

there are two types of evolution: incremental and leap. incremental is a slow visible gradual change driven by constant evolutionary selection. leap is when something complex appears all of a sudden ( EV on the market). the background of it is gene duplication and latent mutations. functional gene got an extra copy which can start accumulate mutations while the other part functions as normal. when a, set of such genes manage to cooperate in a cascade of functions and either by evolutionary pressure or just that the last modul of a, system clicks into place the new trait appears and will be subjected to evolutionary selection.

[@XH13]

Technically, your ICE car already has an alternator and a battery. You can increase the alternator power, then add an electric motor to assist the propulsion (like in certain motor sports). Congratulation, you have an hybrid car. You can then reduce the direct contribution of the ICE to propulsion and directly transfer more power to the electric motor until the ICE is only there to power the electric parts (the second mode is more efficient) Since you don't need the complex transmission anymore, it can start disappearing, and a mutation of the battery to a big lithium one is beneficial. And you can add a plug to charge the battery instead of using only the ICE Since you use the ICE less and less, its size decrease until it's gone and voila, you have an electric car "evolved" from an ICE with only "small" beneficial changes

[@luizcsevero]

Very insightful thought

[@KarlDMarx]

Well, perhaps he hasn't really thought about his example. The electric motor was invented before the infernal combustion engine.

[@bipolarminddroppings]

The problem with analogies that that they never quite fit, that's why they are called analogies. And the obvious objection to that analogy was "yeah, but we have hybrid engines".

[@bipolarminddroppings]

​@KarlDMarx he was talking about cars, which were originally invented with an ICE. Not the engine technology itself. Also, its an analogy. Its not supposed to be a 1 to 1 representation of reality.

[@raysalmon6566]

The theory of evolution was tinged with political overtones that still persist. Then, they resulted in the writing of two books that had profound though unexpected effects on the future of natural history. On the sociological plane, a valiant attempt to stem the tide of the French ungodly was made by Thomas Robert Malthus with his Essay on Population, while on the theological side William Paley set out in his Natural Theology to prove that the study of natural history inevitably led to belief in a divine Creator. Malthus generalized the principle that "Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio I can see no way by which man can escape from the weight of this law which pervades all animate nature." Unwittingly, no doubt, Malthus here placed man on the same plane as the rest of the animal kingdom. Among plants and animals the growth of population was kept down by mortality due to "want of room and nourishment" and falling a prey to predators. In man, if in spite of famines and epidemics and the preventive checks imposed by reason, the population nevertheless increased too fast, those of its members who could least afford the necessities of life were doomed to misery and death. On the other hand, if the checks to the increase in numbers of a population through delayed marriage and abstinence were artificial and too effective, there would be no competition or compulsion to work exerted on those whose livelihood depended on it, and the results would equally be misery from the effects of immorality, idleness, and sloth. It followed, as H. N. Brailsford has pointed out that all attempts to preserve life were contrary to the correct application of principle, charity was an economic sin, altruism "unscientific," and presumably the medical profession pursued an anti-social aim. Since the possibilities of variation, shown by cultivated plants and domestic animals, were in Malthus' view strictly limited, progress was impossible; attempts to achieve it as in the French Revolution were doomed to failure; and mankind could neither improve nor be perfected. Malthus' book was reprinted several times and the main lines of evidence on which his argument rested were on his own admission more and more undermined, but he nevertheless stuck to the slogan like antithesis between geometrical and arithmetical rates of increase for growth of population and of subsistence. In this, Malthus performed a service to science, because most of those of his contemporaries who were aware of the struggle for existence in nature ran away from the horrors of tooth and claw and tried to veil it, minimize it, or moralize on the greater 439 class UH Manoa

[@alisabae3226]

It was said that species specialize and at its peak, that species could go extinct because it is very difficult to go backward. Would you say this is happening to humans? As we in some situations intentionally eliminate biodiversity in food for example or the overuse of antibiotics; are we creating multiple pitfalls that could lead to our own extinction? And how likely is it without (if possible) factoring in unnatural causes like nuclear war.

[@marvinmauldin4361]

I hadn't heard about the bottleneck 900,000 years ago, but I had heard about the one 72,000 years ago that left about the same number, and seems to appear on the chart. So why wasn't this later bottleneck mentioned?

[@bipolarminddroppings]

Probably because newer data has overturned that earlier data. That's how science works. He did say the data he was referring to was published only weeks before the lecture.

[@Ted_Eddy]

I love the Founder Effect....i've often thought some evolutionary reasoning istautological based on wide assumptions. The founder effect explains how random differences can develop between two populations that don't offer any advantages .. but without careful thought we migh infer the difference signal some advantage.

[@davidmurphy563]

"If you roll enough dice enough times sometimes you can get 25 sixes in a row" Ok, I'm going to take what was almost certainly meant figuratively literally like a pedant. If you were only rolling 25 dice then that's 6^25, there's one microstate that satisfies the macrostate condition, which if you were rolling one a second would take about 600bn years before you'd expect to roll all 25 as sixes. Obviously that changes massively with more dice. If you roll trillions of dice then the chances of it not happening become vanishingly remote with a single roll. So yes, even pedantically, it's a valid statement.

[@kaipirinha089]

What is the fundamental difference between the random chance asteroid incident and any other sudden chance of eco-system change (i.e. humans landing on an island) except for the global impact? Why is the former an example for a random chance while the latter is not?

[@Nick-Nasti]

Neither is truly “random”

[@notme444]

So, some 1000s of years hence, it'll be Planet Of The Pandas?

[@JaneJetsin]

Certainly not a planet of spell casting Christian’s.

[@nneisler]

1300 humans is very suspicious

[@bipolarminddroppings]

Why?

[@richdobbs6595]

I thought that the current analysis of the Dodo's going extinct was primarily caused by rats, a different introduced species.

[@danielnarbett]

Probably a distinction without a difference in terms of his point about the environment changing - but I also noticed that as a sloppy example

[@robinjacob8315]

Mutation is the backbone of evolution.....

[@Nick-Nasti]

“Random” and “chance” are words we use to describe a process too complicated to calculate. However, that is just about not knowing all the variables. In theory, everything random can be known and thus no longer random.

[@christopherhamilton3621]

Nonsense.

[@KarlDMarx]

30:49 "Now, hopefully pretty much all of us in this room have fairly had a COVID-19 vaccination." Would there be funding by the pharma industry involved?

[@AlxFitz]

Just being sensible I think.

[@alwaysright6358]

Actually, evolution is not random. Mutation is random. If a particular mutation proves to be more advantageous in survival and procreating, then that mutation (along with other such mutations) will go on to form new species.

[@autoclearanceuk7191]

If homosexuality is genetic, who does the charcteristic not die out ?

[@XH13]

Because we are a social species. What counts is the survival of each generation, meaning your survival is not only based on your genetic makeup, but the health and structure of your whole social group. And maybe having some not reproducing members of the society is an advantage for the group. It would be bad if 100% of the offspring of a generation refused to procreate, but if it's only 5-10% who do that, it can be stable from one generation to the next.

[@autoclearanceuk7191]

@@XH13 - so your theory is that homosexuality exists to enable the long term reproduction success of the wider group of people.

[@vrclckd-zz3pv]

Teddy Sachs disease is also genetic and kills the person long before they have time to reproduce and pass the gene on. It survives because there are both dominant and non-dominant genes. That's what half of this video was about.

[@Nick-Nasti]

It is not determined entirely by genetics. There is a minor genetic component. This was proven by the famous Twins Study. Regardless, everyone should be treated with respect and decency.

[@woodygilson3465]

Brilliant presentation, but the constant body movement rather wore me out. lol

[@johnnyjericho8472]

Its not chance driving evolution.

[@bipolarminddroppings]

Yes, I'm sure you, a random Internet commenter, knows more about evolution than a creditentialled professional who teaches the subject for a living...

[@JJONNYREPP]

Random Chance in Evolution 1835pm 20.11.23 random and arbitrary do not have the same meaning. though your thesaurus would suggest they are. optimizing meaning and clarification may be worth indulging in.

[@daviddawson1718]

Sentences should start with a capitalized letter. Don't end a sentence with a preposition. Clarification and meaning are things in which to indulge.

[@JJONNYREPP]

@@daviddawson1718 31.1.24. Random Chance in Evolution - Robin May you been listening to lenny bruce again... to come up with something witty re: your penchant for being proper. to do this.... how is one to do this, achieve this....? only the working class will help you with your grammar. struggle, brother!!!! we'll make a concomitant comic of you yet. those murders you done.... sorry, wrong lecture.

[@BigAlSpeaks]

BS is BS no matter how its presented.

[@mbbag1980]

Why does the lecturer find it necessary to make remarks about the race and gender of early evolutionary scientists, i wonder. Virtue signaling comes to mind.

[@SmittenandBitten]

Definitely. He contradicts himself as well :) devalueing alot of what he says

[@bipolarminddroppings]

Why did you notice it? And why does it bother you? I didn't notice him doing it because I'm not obsessed with seeing wokeness everywhere, clearly you are.

[@SmittenandBitten]

@@bipolarminddroppings it is extremely noticeable? Wdym?

[@eveningstarnm3107]

"Random chance" is redundant. Chance is random. It wouldn't be chance if it wasn't. Also, arbitrary choices are not random choices. Arbitrariness and randomness are different things.

[@williamchamberlain2263]

Depends how you feel about non-uniform probability distributions though; in common usage I think that most people would term an unfair dice as non-random.

[@damrontech]

Nope. Not all probabilities (chances) are random.

[@esburnside]

I want a semantics fight! 🤕

[@thomastritton2773]

Thats not true. If you have a 100% chance of making a shot the outcome is not random.

[@felixuttface1401]

Chance is the probability. It's random if it's random.. you can cheat and still have a chance of failure.= unrandom chance.