Article ID: CBB001210577

The Role of Randomness in Darwinian Evolution (2012)

unapi

Historically, one of the most controversial aspects of Darwinian evolution has been the prominent role that randomness and random change play in it. Most biologists agree that mutations in DNA have random effects on fitness. However, fitness is a highly simplified scalar representation of an enormously complex phenotype. Challenges to Darwinian thinking have focused on such complex phenotypes. Whether mutations affect such complex phenotypes randomly is ill understood. Here I discuss three very different classes of well-studied molecular phenotypes in which mutations cause nonrandom changes, based on our current knowledge. What is more, this nonrandomness facilitates evolutionary adaptation. Thus, living beings may translate DNA change into nonrandom phenotypic change that facilitates Darwinian evolution.

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Authors & Contributors
Roffé, Ariel Jonathan
Louis, Ard A.
Frezza, Giulia
Helgeson, Casey
Ceccarelli, David
Camacho, M. Polo
Concepts
Biology
Philosophy of biology
Darwinism
Evolution
Stochastic or random processes
DNA; RNA
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
21st century
18th century
Places
Great Britain
Argentina
Brazil
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