Links to papers are in the video description, along with info on why honey bees don't use a 50/50 sex ratio. The math behind all this is awesome! Also, I don't know why RU-vid says my posters are "Unisex" but I suppose it is true: ru-vid.comstore
thank you! I found your channel from your recent interview where you talked about how to debunk science by making a better picture with the puzzle pieces that don't fit right. Could you make a video about that please? I thought it was a very interesting idea! I think I didn't word that well, but I hope you understand.
You outdo your ability to state clearly with each video, and without "dumbing down". Really restores my faith in science communication and outreach. Sometimes it feels like it's just too hard to draw people in, not just those outside academia, but also those within it all lost to different niches. And here you are, demonstrating that everything can be stated clearly, and that it can be beautiful too. Thank you
This reminds me of a joke my dad use to tell; diarrhea and DNA runs in Levi’s 501 jeans. I never got it, but I am glad to see a new video by Stated Clearly! Please keep producing these videos! I love learning these things.
Interesting to think about how this mechanism applies on the level of society as well. There are selfish elements: thieves, narcisists, corruption, etc. and clutures that evolve defenses against them, outcompete cultures that dont
Excellent as usual! ❤️ The _wonderful_ thing about the internet is being able to access the very best teachers on any subject (such as you) from anywhere in the world. The _tragedy_ is that as a society we generally use it to spread misinformation, hatred, and create echo chambers. 😥 You shine like a star in a very dark sky.
I don't think fitness is confusing at all, it's how well you fit in your environment. If you fit better, you've got a higher chance of surviving and procreating and thus passing on genes. It's just that people try to bring in the concept of fitness from sports, which is a really weird word that has nothing to do with fitting at all.
Great to see you back! please keep it up. And PLEEEASE upload weekly.. just some 10 second video will do. It helps ppl discover the channel. The strategy of doing a handful uploads a year is flawed.
When I discovered your channel , i wish that there is a thousand video to watch ,, your videos are so fun and u made a hard things much easier to understand ,, thank u
Wow. Your videos are great. I read The Selfish Gene years before and till date I was unable to grasp the real meaning of the book. Your videos are helping me a lot.
The complete explanation was excellent. I just do not like the image of the "parliament" as it is too close to introducing "consciousness" into the idea of evolution again, which is one of the biggest stumbling stones for the creationists ability to understand what actually happens. When you let go of that image and explained it with stochastics (the "by now mostly only males witht he mutation will be around" part) the explanation was much more poignant to remove such problematic ideas from the whole concept.
I had a similar concern about the parliament concept. I could just hear people misunderstanding and misrepresenting it in the back of my head. If it helps some people understand, then I won't begrudge them that, but when you see what creationists have done with the basic "selfish gene" concept, you know that misunderstanding and misrepresentation runs the whole parliament of humanity. 🙄🙂
I certainly understand how natural selection “selects” traits that make a creature fit its environment, but I don’t understand the mechanisms by which those traits form in the first place. It’s so hard for me to believe that genetic mutations are the only mechanism. Call it reducible complexity, call it whatever-it seems like these systems have to develop through a more mediated/intentional process.
It's such a strange topic to expound upon because in the grand scheme, both selfish and suppressor genes work under the same principle - both genes are actively promote propagation of their own kind. It's hard to ever see selfish genes as a "flaw" in evolution in the first place!
just one thought, this idea still makes it sound a little too much like the genome reacts to the variation, instead of selecting the now extremely important police gene.
You could think of cancer that way, but expect in a couple of cases where cancer is transmittable (e.g. in Tasmanian devils), it isn't passed on, so fitness =0, so can be easier just to think of most types cancer as an error that spreads in short term. That lets you use 'cheats' for things that really successfully cheat and can be maintained.
Anyway I was expecting you to give the example of Cancer when it comes to cheating genes. Wouldn't this model expect us to have super anti cancer policing genes? Also, regarding sex ratios - given such a strong pressure for suppressors policing variation in sex ratios, how to we see species with extreme sex ratios - lets say hive organisms like ants and bees - come about? (be be clear - I'm not poopooing the idea, just wondering if they address these cases)
Cancer is a great example of cheating at the cellular. Turns out we actually get mild cancers all the time, but our immune system acts like police, stopping them from going crazy. Cancer only becomes a problem when the cancer cells evolve enough to escape our many defenses.
There are many environmental and genetic situations that can favor unusual sex ratios. In the case of bees, they have Haplodiploid genomes which automatically triggers selection for a 1:3 ratio of males to females, vs a 1:1 ratio. I just added several papers on that in video description for you under the heading "FURTHER READING".
@@StatedClearly Thank you so much! I admit that I'm not trained in the academic language of biology, so it was tough for me, but it was very interesting!
also, there are a lot of genes that stop cancer, and some even detect their own cell is turning and trigger cell death. cancer is having bad enough luck that all those things get mutated or overcomed just enough to make cancer possible.
There are anti cancer genes like the tumor suppressor genes and certain species like Elephants almost never get cancer because they have multiple copies of such genes. There cancer cells being formed all the time but there are many steps it needs to take to become dangers.
The anthropomorphism of evolution is continuously frustrating. “Natural selection selects for what works…” No, there is no subject named “natural selection” that “selects” anything. Individuals succeed or fail at surviving within a given context. There is zero intentionality or purpose in the mechanisms behind the theory of natural selection.
The thief who stole my car told the judge that he believed evolution created my car because it was easier to make a car than to create life. Verdic judge = Even if this is true, reality surpasses fiction. Life in the hell of his mind and 2 years in state prison.
I wish you did not use the metaphor "parliament of genes", it confuses everything. It's rather dynamic equilibrium because the conflict is rather war than negotiation, let alone voting. Anyway, it raises the question: doesn't the suppressor gene introduce another imbalance? Who polices the police? And if there is such war of imbalances, could not this actually lead to unnecessarily complex "internal warfare" within the genetic pool, which is ultimately the species or population affected as a whole, and cause problems that could lead to extinction or otherwise inefficiency in the population? My guess is that it does and that more research is needed.
What the heck do rare altruism among different mammal specie have to do with Parliamentary genetics? AND wouldn't the role of pheromones picking up the mutant male genetics help keep away female fruit flies, as a major additional evolutionary protection from an overly populated one-sided gender?
The point is, it doesn't. Policing genes are random mutations (like all mutations), except that by their nature they "parasite on the parasite". A bit like a knight getting all the loot as well as a plot of land from the king after defeating the violent invaders that were terrorising the kingdom. Of course this second order of parasitic mutation could be even more detrimental to the whole population rather than do any policing, but that would simply lead to itself becoming extinct in the population, if not even extinguishing the species altogether.
tl/dw: it happens randomly without any "reason" or "decision". but once it exists, it actively benefits from the distortion caused by the cheating gene, making it much more likely to spread than its non-policing counterpart, until an equilibrium is reached again.
As the video says, genes appear to benefit the whole by evolving 'policing' functions but they are just benefitting themselves, as any carrier of a policing gene will have more offspring and spread more copies of that gene. If most genes would benefit from mutating a policing function then the chance of a policing functioning evolving is higher as any of the genes could evolve that as a secondary function. I prefer to think of it more as a lottery with many tickets, the more genes who would benefit from a policing function the more tickets.
