Things about science and nature you find interesting
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But why should they die out if new soldier-animals are created en masse from another animal from the same species? There's plenty supply for as long as a queen is alive. And keeping the queen alive is the soldiers' purpose.cuddly_tomato said:
I just don't understand why you think the species as a whole would have to die out just because the soldiers don't procreate themselves.
The queen can create new young queens and drones as well as workers and soldiers, depending on whether the eggs are fertilized or not.
Maybe you could explain to me exactly what you mean and bring forth some kind of argument as to why the species would die out without some higher intervention. I don't know how to argue here because I simply fail to see the problem of, say, ants and bees surviving following the rules of evolution.
If you don't want to, alright, but believe me, I don't argue for the sake of argueing here.
Ok, I am going to choose to believe you are arguing from the point of view of an interested party and not from the view of a scientific fundamentalist. I think the problem probably is you probably know a hell of a lot about evolutionary theory, and how that equates to vertibrates, but don't really know all that much about the tiny world that the subject of this discussion live in...Skeleon said:
The problem is that natural selection (according to current theories) doesn't work on the level you are ascribing too it (entire species level). It works on the individual. One animal might be a bit stronger or faster than the others in the same species, even the same family, and be more successful than them. As a result it is favoured in the mating game and manages to pass its genes on. While it is true that in some social mammal groups close families help with rearing young, this is a far cry from what goes on in social insect groups. It is pretty easy to see the genesis of social group among small family groups of mammals, the genetic material there and the potential for there to be a huge amount diversity in their gene pool is low. Not only that, but mammals have relatively small groups when they do gather.
Insect societies of bees and wasps can number into the hundreds of individual animals. Ants ant can run into thousands. And termites colonies can consist of literally millions of individual insects all running around with specific tasks and functions to perform, all of them to sustain the genetic material of a single queen (and in the case of termites, king). You see this termite mound?
Created and constructed by animals smaller than the top bit of the 'T' on your keyboard, all to sustain and pass on the genetic material of one single insect. In the here and now we realize this is a successful way of life. It is just very hard, according to current theories, to fit in how such a state of affairs could have arisen for these little critters to arrive where they are today.
There are many problems to overcome. How does communication evolve for instance? We can see how human communication has evolved, and that has had nothing to do with survival of the fittest. It has been cultural and creative - qualities that we don't think insects have. How have bees learned to communicate by dancing then? How do they know what the dance means? How do termites, who make such complex structures, 'design' them? How do ants solve the problems of division of labor? Each of these present a problem when trying to explain them in terms of natural selection because the vast majority of the animals involved in all of this never get to reproduce.
Firstly, thanks for setting that guy straight about 'time travel' and such like, that was annoying me!I_LIKE_CAKE said:
Thought I would help you out with your thing though, as you are not quite correct and as a scientist I thought you would like the correct interpretation.
Light and be reflected and absorbed at the same time. The best example I can think of is if you look through a blue liquid, that is transparent. You can see what is on the other side of the liquid, but it appears blue. Thats because the liquid transmits the blue light, which goes straight to your eye, but absorbs the rest. The rest is then emitted again, but in random directions so there is no significant amount of it to reach your eye. The same thing applies to reflection. Hope that helps, its a bit of a head bender.
p.s Chem major so I know my stuff.
Now I'm seeing what you mean.cuddly_tomato said:
You're not talking about the feasibility of these insects' system of procreation and society but how it came to be in the first place.
Hmm, guess you're right there, they aren't as well studied as vertebrates and single celled organisms as yet, at least as far as I know. That doesn't mean the evolutionary theory is wrong, though, just not complete yet.
I could imagine they started off as normal insects, laying eggs that matured to new procreating animals. After all, they never lost their ability to create eggs leading to animals that are able to procreate themselves, they just added the infertile eggs to their capabilities (otherwise, yes, they would have died out). This mutation would at first have been useless but not hampering the species' success or it wouldn't have been conserved. How exactly they began living in larger societies is more difficult, but maybe they started living in groups before said mutation because it protected them from enemies, like a flock of birds or swarm of fish is better protected. This tendency to live in groups would have had to be another mutation prevailing over those animals without the drive to congregate.
Newly born, infertile animals stayed with the group as would be genetically predestined, unable to procreate but still part of the society. And as time went on, these infertile animals began taking on tasks for the fertile ones. This is just an idea, mind you, but it could be possible that they began developing in two different directions, one infertile and becoming more specialised for labour, the other fertile but losing its ability to live on its own (since it wasn't necessary anymore). One should always keep in mind that evolution =/= survival of the best but survival of the fittest. Losing certain abilities is not contradicting evolution as long as the result doesn't hinder the species' survival (think of the humans' tail bone). As for the more complex (and interesting) facets of these animals' society (like dance and communication), I'd have to assume that said specialisation in two castes would've probably progressed further and further, with more castes added over the millions of years. And yes, the exact mechanisms would still have to be researched.
The above text was just a little mind-experiment on how I think something like hive-creating insects might have started out.
By the way, I don't consider myself a fundamentalist, but yes, I am a firm believer in evolution.
You are talking about optics, and are correct about the observed behavior of light. What I was talking about is how the process we observe actually works on quantum scale. I wasn't saying that light can't be both reflected and absorbed. I was saying that the process by which light is reflected and absorbed is the same, namely the interaction between photons and electrons. Now I will admit that I am out of my depth when it comes to talking about Quantum Mechanics, but I am pretty sure that this is correct, and a search for "photon-electron interaction" will confirm.megalomania said:
Thats interesting. I was thinking purely in a 'classical' point of view because my understanding of quantum mechanics doesn't extend far beyond the Schrodinger Equation. How does the electron 'know' to emit the reflecting light at the same angle to the normal as the incident light? I am probably still thinking way too classically because that seems thoroughly odd to me!I_LIKE_CAKE said:
I couldn't say anything for about 10 seconds because of the pure, molten awesome of that fact.SidVicious said:
I agree that is is extremely odd, and it gets weirder. When a photon hits an electron, it transfers energy in the form of momentum (and don't ask why a particle with no mass has momentum, because I have no idea). This added energy causes the electron to become exited, and change energy levels. In order to return to its lowest energy state, the electron vibrates, that is to say, a particle with an electric charge and magnetic field vibrates, giving off an electromagnetic wave. We are now rapidly approaching the limits of what I understand, but I will try and add a bit more. The way I understand it, the electron doesn't "know" to emit a photon on any particular path, and what is really cool is that there is no certainty that it will behave as one would expect. Because we are talking about Quantum, you have to throw out any ideas of certainty, because this is all probability.megalomania said:
In optics, you are told that angle of incidence = angle of reflection. This is explained by Fermat's principle of least time, which states that light will take the path of least time between two points.
Modern theories state that this is not the case. Because of the probability involved, when you observe light behaving in agreement with classical models, it is because you are seeing the most probable course of events. [em]Everything[/em] is a result of probability, and it makes my head hurt.
I know what your doing and i love doing it, your just arguing to argue even though you agree with me lol. its fun, but its also fun being on the other side for once.Ajna said:
Who is the all powerful one then?
The simplest way to explain it is by assuming that the lattice of atoms can be seen as a sort of 3d diffraction grating. We can then use Bragg's law to predict the photon distribution (i.e. treating the photons as waves). It then comes out that the most probable path is that for which the angle of incidence equals that of reflection for so-called 'reflective' surfaces. Of course, this is actually a gross over-simplification and only actually works because of luck (or some hidden symmetry).I_LIKE_CAKE said:
I think the Quantum Theory stuff is awesome, apparently if you bounce a ball off a wall, it will eventually go through the wall and come out whole on the other side, no holes or anything.
Evolution. How all the fantastical wonderments of nature, animal behaviour and human consciousness can emerge from the simple rule "anything that reproduces more effectively will reproduce more effectively."
If it's counter-intuitive you're looking for, then quantum mechanics' "anything is possible."
And if it's a funky little science experiment you want, then how about this: it is possible to have a wind-propelled vehicle travel directly downwind faster than the wind using only mechanical parts (no electricals).
If it's counter-intuitive you're looking for, then quantum mechanics' "anything is possible."
And if it's a funky little science experiment you want, then how about this: it is possible to have a wind-propelled vehicle travel directly downwind faster than the wind using only mechanical parts (no electricals).
And quantum immortality. A man has a gun which, when the trigger is pulled, measures the spin of an electron and only fires if its spin is clockwise. The man puts the gun to his head and pulls the trigger. The universe splits in two -- in one world the spin was clockwise and the man is dead; in the other world, the spin in counter-clockwise and the gun didn't go off. From the man's perspective, he can continue pulling the trigger as many times as he likes and it will never go off; he will be unaware of the worlds where he has died.
Not really, we had this discussion before I think. It's simply a different survival strategy: some species propagate a LOT (frogs, fish, etc), some species put a lot of energy in raising one child (humans, panda's, elephants, etc) and some species breed via queens wich a whole colony protect (ants, wasps, bees). I really don't see the problem, there still is breeding, not every individual breeds but plenty still do (the males bang 1 queen). The indidivuals that not breed simply have a different role in the hive structure: workers, defenders, individuals who care for the larvae. You suggest that there is no breeding at all, at least you make it look like that, but there are only certain individuals who don't breed. It seems to work, at least in the insect world specialisation is pretty effective, as you can see (wasps, ants and bees are pretty successfull, especially ants I call more succesfull then humans).cuddly_tomato said:
But I wonder one thing: have you ever asked an (evolutionary) biologist, or an entomologist about your question? They're the people you should go to for the answer, afterall they're the experts on the subject.
PS: I also just realised that in your original post you said: "If evolution is fueled by the ability of one creature to pass on its genetic material to the next generation"
But one thing is important to remember: indidivuals do not evolve. Species evolve. In the case of ants and wasps, some individuals sacrifice their own genes for the benefit of the whole species. It's like pure communism.
PPS: I just asked a friend about this, who is more schooled in biology. It seems that the worker bees are haploid, wich is efficient for mass-production but it also means infertility. They can't even breed.
*ahem*
To answer the topic question: almost everything. Biology, astronomy, nuclear physics, you name it. But biology and astronomy stand out, including plenty of sub-divisions in those 2 things wich are pretty broad.