The Equation of Evolution is the Definition of Life

[Schneibster]

I suspect rectal number extraction with this one but that is what the peer review process is for.

The dude is the Director of one of the premier centers for mathematical biology in the nation, has published three hundred biology papers, and is involved in research. The second paper I linked above is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and I assure you it is thoroughly peer-reviewed.

I suspect you're making shit up again because you don't like the conclusions science comes to.

[Schneibster]

So basically what he's saying is that selection predates life. There is selection of the chemical precursors of life, by chemical selection criteria associated with the reaction rate(s) that produce "strings" (proteins, more or less) within a chemical soup. The rates of production and "death" (breaking up the "strings") affect the concentration of a given "string" in the soup. Which is basically what Kauffman said.

This guy has mathematically quantified prebiotic evolution, and made it obvious where the chemicals cross the line into life: where they start regulating their own evolution by replicating rather than counting on their formation by random processes.

[John_fi_Skye]

Yous lads soond aafy clivver.

[Azathoth]

I suspect rectal number extraction with this one but that is what the peer review process is for.

The dude is the Director of one of the premier centers for mathematical biology in the nation, has published three hundred biology papers, and is involved in research. The second paper I linked above is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and I assure you it is thoroughly peer-reviewed.

I suspect you're making shit up again because you don't like the conclusions science comes to.

Calm it with the defensive bullshit. It would be great if the guy is right but I am sceptical of what amounts to a biological ToE and expect further papers pointing out the flaws in his model.

[Schneibster]

I suspect rectal number extraction with this one but that is what the peer review process is for.

The dude is the Director of one of the premier centers for mathematical biology in the nation, has published three hundred biology papers, and is involved in research. The second paper I linked above is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and I assure you it is thoroughly peer-reviewed.

I suspect you're making shit up again because you don't like the conclusions science comes to.

Calm it with the defensive bullshit.

Pro tip: don't be chickenshit. It makes you look like an idiot when it turns out the paper in question is not merely peer-reviewed but published in the PNAS.

It would be great if the guy is right but I am sceptical of what amounts to a biological ToE and expect further papers pointing out the flaws in his model.

Maybe I might not think you were full of shit if you could tell us all what the terms of the equation in the OP mean.

Pro tip: the complete derivation of and justification for the equation is in the PNAS paper.

[Schneibster]

OK, here we go:

The left side is the time-derivative of the abundance, xi, of the string i. The first term of the right side is the rate of production of i, ai, multiplied by the abundance of i. The second term is the sum of the decay rate of i into i0 and i1, its products, plus the rate of production of each product, multiplied by the abundance of i. Finally, the third term is the selection term; this term only occurs once the string is "alive," that is, actively being replicated. The scaling parameter, r, is the ratio of the rate of replication to the rate at which the string occurs randomly from the soup. The inner term, fi - ϕ, expresses the fitness of the string i with respect to the average fitness of all the possible strings that could be in the soup, ϕ. Fitness is defined completely in terms of how readily i (or other strings, in the case of the components of ϕ) replicates.

It wouldn't be "great if he was right." He's obviously right. And you obviously never even looked before you started your bullshit.

[John_fi_Skye]

OK, here we go:

The left side is the time-derivative of the abundance, xi, of the string i. The first term of the right side is the rate of production of i, ai, multiplied by the abundance of i. The second term is the sum of the decay rate of i into i0 and i1, its products, plus the rate of production of each product, multiplied by the abundance of i. Finally, the third term is the selection term; this term only occurs once the string is "alive," that is, actively being replicated. The scaling parameter, r, is the ratio of the rate of replication to the rate at which the string occurs randomly from the soup. The inner term, fi - ϕ, expresses the fitness of the string i with respect to the average fitness of all the possible strings that could be in the soup, ϕ. Fitness is defined completely in terms of how readily i (or other strings, in the case of the components of ϕ) replicates.

It wouldn't be "great if he was right." He's obviously right. And you obviously never even looked before you started your bullshit.

In fact, a = monkeys, d = typewriters, r = lots of, and f = enough time, and the x = the complete works of Shakespeare.

[Schneibster]

More or less, yeah.

[JimC]

In a similar vein, if you want a very up-to-date textbook on the mathematics of evolutionary biology, try "Evolutionary Dynamics" by Martin Nowak.

Its subtitle is "Exploring the equations of life"

It made my head hurt, and I teach maths, and have a degree in zoology...

Good stuff...

[Schneibster]

He's the one who wrote the paper Az is deriding.

[John_fi_Skye]

I don't pretend for a second that I understand the maths, but I think the point is actually spot-on. Let's get it out there into the media, and all the schools and churches. This is how it happened. Yep.