Red, theory; black, fact
The habitat may have been a unit of selection in early hominins, leading to group selection, and much of our evolution may have proceeded by an accumulation of founder effects.
Opportunities for colonization of recently-emptied habitats are ephemeral. Under disaster-prone conditions, this plausibly leads to selection pressure for migrant production and evolvability (i.e., a high rate of evolution, especially founder-effect evolution).
Language diversification in humans may be an evolvability adaptation. Language diversity would work by preserving genetic founder effects from dilution by late-coming migrants, whose reproduction would be held back by the difficulties of learning a new language. Xenophobia and persistent ethnicity markers can be explained in the same way. The spread of linguistic and cultural novelties in a hominin population is predicted to be especially fast in newly colonized, previously empty habitats. Alternatively, the linguistic novelties may start as a thick patois developed by an oppressed group in the home habitat prior to becoming refugees, as a way to make plans "under the noses" of the oppressing group.
Refugee-producing adaptations sub-serving dispersal can be called "tough altruism." Populations producing more refugees are more likely to colonize further empty habitats, a selective advantage.
Disaster biology may be what is conceptually missing from theories of the origin of life (abiogenesis). i.e., the forerunners of the first cells may have been spores that formed by budding from the surface of bodies of water.
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