Life in the UniverseAnswer
How do astronomers find planets around other stars?
Distant worlds can reveal themselves through changes in starlight and the motion of their stars.
THE QUESTION LIBRARY LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE
What decides which genes win in evolution: fitness, luck or timing?
THE SHORT ANSWER
Selection favors inherited reproductive advantages; chance, timing, competition and the environment can change which variants spread.
WHERE THE EVIDENCE STANDS
How sure are we?
- Fitness concerns relative reproductive contribution.
- The first beneficial mutation always wins.
- A mutation’s benefit can depend on the environment.
Fitness, luck and timing can all matter. Which matters most depends on the population, its surroundings and which competing variants are available.
THE LONG ANSWER
THE LONG ANSWER · ABOUT 2 MINUTES
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God Plays Dice answers big questions in plain words, with sources and one of six honest labels.
Sources & further reading
(5)
- Science and the Endangered Species Act ↗National Research Council (1995)Box 7-1, page 127.
- Genetic Drift ↗NHGRIDefinition; narration.
- Beneficial Mutation–Selection Balance and the Effect of Linkage on Positive Selection ↗Desai and Fisher, Genetics 176:1759–1798 (2007)Figure 1; pages 1762, 1780.
- The Speed of Evolution and Maintenance of Variation in Asexual Populations ↗Desai, Fisher and Murray, Current Biology 17:385–394 (2007)Summary; Results.
- High-Throughput Identification of Adaptive Mutations in Experimentally Evolved Yeast Populations ↗Payen and colleagues, PLOS Genetics 12:e1006339 (2016)Results; Figure 2.
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CONTINUE THE THREAD
Where this question leads.
Life in the UniverseAnswer
Could a planet without a star support life?
A world with no sunrise could still have internal heat. The question is whether it can keep water liquid and supply usable energy.
Life in the UniverseAnswer
How can identical twins with the same DNA turn out so different?
Identical twins develop from one fertilized egg and begin with almost the same DNA. Yet their conditions before birth, later environments and gene activity can differ. Shared DNA…