Improbable Destinies, Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution
Improbable Destinies, Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution
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不可能的命运、命运、机遇和进化的未来
DOI：
10.1093/sysbio/syx091
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发表时间：
2018
影响因子：
6.5
通讯作者：
J. Albert
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
J. Albert
命运和机会如何影响历史的对比愿景激发了伟大的文学和哲学作品（如索福克勒斯，卢克莱修，莎士比亚等）。和解谜科学家们阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦（Albert Einstein）的著名论断“上帝不与世界玩骰子（Hermanns and Einstein 1983，第58页）”，阐明了典型的科学态度，即历史是可预测的，每一瞬间都受到宇宙在先前存在时刻的状态的支配。这种机械论的世界观认为，宇宙是根据严格的因果律展开的，从大约138亿年前创世的那一刻开始。世纪的物理学正式终结了这种硬性决定论，量子力学描述了一个概率宇宙，尼尔斯·玻尔（Niels Bohr）的著名回答是：“爱因斯坦，别再告诉上帝该怎么做了（Isaacson 2008，p. 326）。”现在人们认为，因果关系的概率或统计解释在亚原子水平（Heisenberg，1958）和生物组织尺度（Monod，1974）以及整个宇宙（Prigogine and Stengers，1997）都是正确的。尽管这些知识来之不易，但确定性观念已经悄悄回到物理学中（例如，卡罗尔2017），许多生物学家越来越多地接受贝叶斯概率观作为知识的认识论预期，而不是自然的本体论预期（Jaynes 1986）。这场争论在进化生物学中沿着一个范围展开，从关注进化变化的可重复性的种群生物学家，到强调生物特征和进化枝的独特性的系统论者（包括新生物学和古生物学）。种群生物学家和进化生态学家对自然选择产生适应的力量非常着迷。他们指出了许多跨越生态系统和生命之树分支的趋同进化的例子，作为进化变化可预测性的证据。给定一个特定的问题（例如，高速游泳，干旱的景观），自然选择工艺具有相似功能的相似结构（例如，具有分叉尾鳍的梭形身体形状;具有针状叶子的厚角质层）。当然，对于系统分类学家来说，趋同进化在系统发育学中只是噪音。系统分类学家的工作是发现进化枝和可以用来诊断进化枝的同源特征，
Contrasting visions of how fate and chance may affect history have inspired great works of literature and philosophy (eg, Sophocles, Lucretius, Shakespeare, etc.) and puzzle scientists up to this very day. Albert Einstein famously claimed “God doesn’t play dice with the world (Hermanns and Einstein 1983, p. 58)” articulating the quintessential scientific attitude that history is predictable, with each instant in time governed by the state of the universe at the pre-existing moment. This mechanical worldview has the universe unfolding according to strict laws of cause-and-effect, from conditions at the moment of creation some 13.8 billion years ago.Such hard determinism was formally put to rest by 20th century physics, with quantum mechanics describing a probabilistic universe, and with Niels Bohr’s famous reply:“Einstein, stop telling God what to do (Isaacson 2008, p. 326).” A probabilistic or statistical interpretation of causality is now thought to be as true at the subatomic level (Heisenberg 1958) as at biological scales of organization (Monod 1974) and right up through to the cosmos as a whole (Prigogine and Stengers 1997). Despite that hard-won knowledge, deterministic perceptions have crept back into physics (eg, Carroll 2017), and many biologists increasingly embrace a Bayesian perception of probability as an epistemological expectation of knowledge, rather than an ontological expectation of nature (Jaynes 1986). This debate has played out in evolutionary biology along a spectrum from population biologists focusing on the repeatability of evolutionary changes, to systematists (both neontological and paleontological) emphasizing the distinctive character of biological traits and clades. Population biologists and evolutionary ecologists are rightly fascinated with the power of natural selection to generate adaptations. They point to the numerous examples of convergent evolution across ecosystems and branches of the Tree of Life, as evidence for the predictable nature of evolutionary change. Given a certain problem (eg, high-speed swimming, xeric landscapes) natural selection crafts similar structures with similar functions (eg, a fusiform body-shape with a forked caudal fin; a thick cuticle with needleshaped leaves). For systematists, of course, convergent evolution is literally noise in the phylogenetic system. A systematist’s job is to discover clades and the homologous traits by which clades can be diagnosed,