Why does the traditional field of “evolutionary biology” exist when Population, Quantitative...

Evolutionary Biology proves that blacks and arabs are dumber than whites, and that Jews are the smartest race. That's why you don't hear people talk about it.

Evolution = genetics
wtf do you think evolves? it's the DNA

DNA mutates and recombines and reduplicates. it doesnt evolve. it's already evolved. only organisms evolve.

>What can you learn about evolution that genetics can’t teach?
The ecological mechanisms that facilitate evolution.

>game theory
i'm sorry but i don't see how Sans being Ness has anything to do with evolutionary biology. please fuck off if you're gonna post about off-topic shit k thx

Nigger, ur serious? Never heard of the hawk-dove game?

i appreciate your sense of humor user

Just nitpicking: Only populations evolve (by definition).

Species evolve (by definition) from other species, Darwin.

While I agree with you (since species (plural) is nothing more then 2+x populations) I want to pint out, that historical definitions (like Darwin's) are not necessarily relevant to current definitions.

However, ym goal was just to point out, that the term "evolve" is not fitting for individuals but only on groups of them...

populations dont evolve. their individual members evolve.
I could accept if someone said DNA sequences evolve, but not that DNA evolves.

This is blatant nonsense, due to the very definition of the term "Evolution". One might say an individual is evolved but no individual is going evolve in any direction. It's just collecting mutation, spreading it's gene or whatever but it's simply not evolving.

Friend, they are not even all the same genus.

Evolution, in the modern sense, is classified as a change in allele ratios throughout a population. To say an individual evolves is pretty meaningless, as all it would mean is that an offspring has acquired a mutation- which, ultimately, with every generation, there's bound to be at least one silent mutation, thus evolution occurring by the individual standpoint.

That's pretty meaningless though, so we say populations evolve as genotypic ratios shift.

A mutation in an individuum got selected = evolved

Population geneticists captured the term evolution and use it / define it only for themselves.

What if all the others die and only one individuum survives

The evolution of the pop is still based on mutations or their selection in the individuals.

Based on /= is the same as

But where the confusion may be coming from is that the word "evolution" means more than one thing.

The evolution of species is not the same thing as the evolution of the English language, for example, yet it is correct to speak of either.

It is, but the evolution itself is acting on the population, whereas you might say an individual has acquired a mutation/host of mutations. For example, it would not really be apt to say that a fish-land hybrid animal individual evolved into a land dwelling creature- a population shifted over time until the alleles for being aquatic or terrestrial have fixed towards terrestrial, and thus evolution occurred.

It's the way of looking at it that makes sense considering what we know about evolution and populations. It's also a better framework for looking at it- you get less retards who are like "uhhhh but if humans evolved from apes then why do apes still exist???".

That's a really good question, and it's a great thought experiment for looking at how arbitrary we define species, evolution, and the general classification of life. If only one individuum survives, then yes- you could say the population had evolved. The layman often looks at evolution as a necessarily good thing, when evolution and natural selection are separate concepts- natural selection induces evolution, but isn't the only cause of it, and small population sizes are the best examples of this.

Take a population of 4 turtles that got stranded on an island by a storm, 2 male and 2 female, and the island is pretty good for them- enough food, not many predators, you could reasonably expect the population to be able to grow, and offspring to be viable from all 4 turtles.

However, 1 male and 1 female are blind due to a genetic disorder, and we assume that there is no breeding selection (another way evolution can occur without necessarily environmental natural selection). Then by random chance, you could very easily see examples of progeny down the line such that either
A) All of the kids end up blind, and because there's no more genetic stock of the non-blind allele, the turtle population is now an entirely blind variant
or
B) All of them end up able to see.

turtle example (cont)

Now, this is where you get into the arbitration of things. If the allele for blindness did fixate towards everyone being blind, and it would take an incredibly rare mutation to fix it, so rare that you wouldn't assume it would ever really happen- then you'd start to see divergence over time by natural selection that made life easier without the ability to see. For example, maybe a mutation that caused underdeveloped eyes saved resources, and so those who didn't develop eyes in the first place had a better shot at surviving to reproductive maturity- it's a silly example, but it's the kind of small thing here and there that over time will create divergence.

The question for anyone who gives a shit, in part, is where you draw the line between a variant, a subspecies, a species, or any other classification. When you have a population on a remote island of only blind turtles, wouldn't it be natural to say "oh, that must be a different species?" even if they are identical to another 'species' except for the mutation for vision?

We take a quantitative approach of looking at the variation within populations, and comparing them to variation between populations to determine classifications now- variation defined as the sort of absolute # of differences between bases in the genome- but of course that kind of thing can't be done for fossil species, or any species you can't sequence the genome for (many microbes, for example, are so intertwined within populations of others, that we know of their existence due to finding RNA and DNA belonging to them when we kinda melt down soups of microbes, but haven't been able to find them on their own).

In the end, however- it really is arbitration. Life just kind of blends together with all of the rest of life, with lines drawn in the sand for our own convenience really.

Something is evolved != Something does evolve

That's like asking why Biology exists as a field when chemistry does too. It's a microcosm of a more in depth way of understanding the same stuff