Monday, January 24, 2005, 2:40:03 PM, you wrote:
>> > Can anyone put me straight on 'accelerations' or 'stagnations' in
>>evolution?
>>
>>I believe that indeed evolution can change its "speed", but I am not
>>aware of the models to describe this process...
> Here's an excerpt from an unpublished manuscript of mine:
Yes, what I mentioned about "master" genes is the molecular mechanism
of punctuated equilibria. But what I wanted to say is that it seems
that evolution can "speed itself" up, depending on environmental cues.
I now remembered where I heard about this: Not long ago (less than 5
years) people began studying evolution in vivo in bacterial
populations (e.g. evolution of cooperation). I suppose that by now
there are lots of results in this area, but some of the first ones
were that bacteria can regulate the speed of their own evolution depending on
the
harshness of their environment... In a similar way as the immune
system can regulate the speed of the antigene production, as Jan
mentioned.
Best regards,
Carlos Gershenson...
Centrum Leo Apostel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Krijgskundestraat 33. B-1160 Brussels, Belgium
http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~cgershen/
"We can control much better how we accept things
than things themselves"
