See also: [[Dual inheritance theory]]; [[Selection pressures affect the ability of an organism or other entity to survive and reproduce]]; [[Sexual Selection for Morality]] Evolution is a process by which complex systems emerge out of random variation. What ingredients do you need to get an evolutionary process going? - **Reproduction:** entities that make copies of themselves. - **Variation in fitness:** changes in those entities which affect their ability to reproduce (e.g. mutations caused by errors during the copying process). - **Heritability**: when entities reproduce, their descendants share their properties. - (Time) Eric Weinstein's slogan: diversity, heritability, differential success (in reproduction). "Fitness-promoting" or "adaptive" variations confer a reproductive advantage, and become widespread. [[=Charles Darwin]]'s theory of natural selection explained the emergence of animal and plant species on earth using an evolutionary theory. Since Darwin, evolutionary theory has been used to explain many other phenomena. Here's a partial list: - [[Evolutionary psychology]] - [[Richard Dawkins]]: adoption of beliefs, culture. - Daniel Dennett has described learning as evolution in the brain. - Eric Weinstein describes markets as evolution by other means. - Evolutionary algorithms, which are increasingly important in [[Reading inbox]] - C.f. [[=Matt Ridley]]: evolution of everything. #toread Evolutionary processes sometimes take place at multiple levels in parallel. E.g. in human evolution, selection takes place at the individual and group level, and memes affect fitness. ## Notes and references > We are accidents waiting to happen > —Radiohead, There There Eric Weinstein explains his interest in economics as partly driven by the fact it combines two of humanities greatest ideas: mathematics, and evolutionary theory. ### Bostrom: The Future of Human Evolution https://www.nickbostrom.com/fut/evolution.pdf ### An alien God https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pLRogvJLPPg6Mrvg4/an-alien-god In a way, Darwin _discovered_ God—a God that failed to match the preconceptions of theology, and so passed unheralded. If Darwin had discovered that life was created by an intelligent agent—a bodiless mind that loves us, and will smite us with lightning if we dare say otherwise—people would have said "My gosh! That's God!" But instead Darwin discovered a strange alien God—not comfortably "ineffable", but _really genuinely different from us_. Evolution is not a God, but if it were, it wouldn't be Jehovah. It would be H. P. Lovecraft's [Azathoth](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azathoth), the blind idiot God burbling chaotically at the center of everything, surrounded by the thin monotonous piping of flutes. ### History of the idea The theory of evolution is credited to [[=Charles Darwin]], and became famous due to his 1859 book _The Origin of Species_. Alfred Wallace developed a similar theory around the same time, and the theory was anticipated by some earlier thinkers, such as Adam Smith, David Hume, Schopenhauer, etc. Conway's Game of Life is fun. [[Nick Bostrom]] and Daniel Dennet are [big fans](https://www.nickbostrom.com/views/generators.pdf). Bostrom: "Looking for generators": > We confront many problems. We can try to solve them one by one. But alternatively, we can try to create a generator that produces solutions to multiple problems. > > Consider, for example, the challenge of advancing scientific understanding. We might make progress by directly tackling some random scientific problem. But perhaps we can make more progress by looking for generators and focusing our efforts on certain subsets of scientific problems—namely, those whose solutions would do most to facilitate the discovery of many other solutions. In this approach, we would pay most attention to innovations in methodology that can be widely applied; and to the development of scientific instruments that can enable many new experiments; and to improvements in institutional processes, such as peer review, that can help us make decisions about whom to hire, fund, or promote—decisions more closely reflecting true merit. In the same vein, we would be extremely interested in developing effective biomedical cognitive enhancers and other ways of improving the human thinker—the brain being, after all, the generator par excellence. ### Collections of genes cause lots of things, so e.g. homosexuality has a genetic component https://dynomight.net/evolution/ For a gene to be fit just means that when averaged over many people, the gene is helpful. I’m sure that there are genes that make it more likely for people to become celibate monks or sacrifice their life for others at the age of 18. That doesn’t mean those behaviors help those people pass on their genes. So, just because genes associated with homosexuality persist does not mean that homosexuals must have equal reproductive fitness! Instead, it could just be that these genes increase fitness in heterosexuals. Here are two simple models of how this might work. **Model 1.** Say there is a single “gay gene”. People without the gene are never gay, and people with the gene are gay 1/3 of the time. People have these numbers of kids: - Regular gene: 2 kids - Gay gene and gay: 0 kids - Gay gene but not gay: 3 kids Even though gay people have no kids, the “gay gene” will reproduce itself just as well.