Is evolution controllable?

Answer 1

the belief that existing animals and plants developed by a process of gradual, continuous change from previously existing forms. You can't control what you can't change

Answer 2

Yes. Nearly every commercial plant and animal is an evolutionary variant of the original wild type. In some cases, the genetic shift has gone so far that the variant is no longer sexually compatible with the original wild type -- it's a new species. Here we have human selection, as opposed to natural selection, for desirable traits. With genetic engineering, we have a new method of controlling evolution: we can design a useful trait into a species, rather than having to identify and cultivate one induced by chance.

Answer 3

Evolution is not controllable, because it does not exist. Living organisms can adapt to their inviroment, maybe there is some SMALL scale evolution taking place, but no large scale evolution like you half-baked athiests thinking we evolved from butt-scratching apes. True, some humans do scratch their rear ends, but do you believe that we evolved from monkeys? LEFT OUT THE TAIL!! Did that like, come out when we crapped and al of a sudden we barfed up our hair? I'm sorry but seriously. And another thing about the big bang stupidity, how could an explosion create life? Chaos create order? Order has to destroy or stop chaos.

Answer 4

Yes, I you can. It doesn't matter if it is natural selection (malthusian catastrophe, environmental adaptation, sexual selection) or artificial selection (selective breeding, genetic engineering). Evolution is just persistent change in a particular lineage over time. The concept of evolution is beautiful in its simple elegance but the subtleties are very deceptive and elusive to most people. Natural selection is just how evolution occurs in nature.

You can think of evolution as a mathematical function. The numbers going in are the current existant life, the gene pool so to speak. The numbers coming out are the next generation. The function itself- that is, the equation or algorithm - is the selective pressure exerted on the system. Evolution no matter what you are talking about does not have intended or implicit directionality. It only matters how you tweak the equation. Whatever you select for, will chance the future outcome or generation.

Two excellent examples of evolution I can think of, though not in a lineage of organisms (there are plenty of examples of this if you look online), are particularly powerful: Jordan Pollacks GOLEM evolutionary robotics project at Brandeis University and David Bartel's in vitro ribozyme evolution at MIT. Ok, very briefly (and simply):

At the GOLEM project, they set up a system where a random bunch of programs were produced automatically. These were simple robotic bodies and simple control of these bodies. They selected out of each generation a certain percentage (let's say 5%) of programs that could move the furthest. These programs were "mated", mutated and selected again. The early robot programs could barely stand up in the physics engine, but after many tens of thousands of virtual generations, robots emerged that could very efficiently move and had discovered on their own sophisticated design principles. Many of them even looked like animals. Now these programs didn't "discover" these principles, they simply were the only programs/robots that survived and outcompeted their rivals (and ancestors).

In a series of papers by David Bartel and colleges, they started with a random sequence of RNA molecules. RNA has the unique properties of encoding genetic information but also can possess catalytic activity. In starting with a random pool of RNA sequences, they could screen for a particular activity, mutate the "survivors" and iterate again. In doing this, they produced many ribozymes of impressive efficiency that could phosphorylate substrates, polymerize RNA, ligate RNA and so on.

Again, these are completely random systems that can have their selection controlled in a way to eventually produce entities with very sophisticated behavior which is seemingly "intelligently designed". It's all math, man.

Answer 5

If you control it, it is not evolution anymore. Evolution is based on natural selection. If you control it, it becomes artificial selection.

Answer 6

you cannot control nature

Answer 7

We call it selective breeding, like we do to dogs.

Answer 8

not unless you start doing Eugenics

Answer 9

no