Introduction to the Red Queen Hypothesis, what does the Red Queen Hypothesis refer to The content of

In this country, you can only stay where you are if you keep running.

This is what the Red Queen said to Alice in "Alice in Wonderland".

One day in 1973, evolutionary biologist Van Wahlen pondered the question of the evolution of species while drinking blood Mary (a cocktail named after the ruthless Queen Mary I of England in the 16th century).

Coincidentally, Blood Mary reminded him of this classic line in "Alice in Wonderland", and a flash of inspiration flashed in an instant - isn't this the law of survival in nature and the truth of species evolution?

Thus, the "Red Queen Hypothesis" was born.

To put it simply, the meaning of the Red Queen hypothesis is,Sailing against the current, if you don't advance, you will retreat

In nature, if a species is not committed to continuous evolution to adapt to environmental changes and various other circumstances, then it will be eliminated by other species that continue to evolve; Its further meaning can be understood as the fact that species that are closely related to each other (predation, competition, parasitism, mutualistic symbiosis) evolve in order to adapt to each other's evolution, and thus form a co-evolution between species.

Here's a simple example. A long, long time ago, leopards and antelopes didn't run as fast as they do now. The fast leopard was able to catch the antelope to eat, while the slow leopard was starved to death.

As time passed, the slower leopards gradually became extinct, leaving only the fast leopards, and the offspring of the fast leopards will also run relatively fast.

In the same way for antelopes, those who run slowly are eaten by leopards, and those who run fast survive. As time passed, the slower antelope became extinct, leaving only the fast antelope, and the offspring of the antelope will also run relatively fast.

Thus the leopard reached its current running speed.

This can be understood as either natural selection or the Red Queen hypothesis, the difference between the two is that natural selection is passive for species, while in the Red Queen hypothesis, species themselves have the potential to evolve.

The four processes of overbreeding, the struggle for survival, heredity and variation, and survival of the fittest constitute natural selection, which is "nature" that "selects" fast leopards and antelopes to survive (in the form of survival struggles), and the species itself is "chosen".

The Red Queen hypothesis, on the other hand, holds that species can evolve because of speciesThe potential for evolution in itself, among interrelated species, it has the instinct to "surpass other species". In other words, in order to survive, antelopes have the instinct to "run faster" from birth, and it is this instinct that drives antelopes to continue to evolve.

The Red Queen hypothesis is also one-sided, that is, it overemphasizes the factors of the species itself and ignores the environmental factors, and evolution cannot be unrelated to the environment.

All in all, the Red Queen hypothesis is both reasonable and one-sided, and it may be possible to form a more complete theory of genetic evolution when combined with the theory of natural selection.

Natural selection only leads to the current adaptation of the organism, and the evolutionary function is the potential adaptation or future adaptation. There are currently two hypotheses that can explain the evolution of genetic structures with evolutionary functions to a greater or lesser extent, namely the Redqueen hypothesis and the species selection theory. The Red Queen Hypothesis is based on the story in Alice's Adventures Through the Looking Glass by L. Van Wallen, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago

van Valen) in 1973.

1. It was developed by L. Van Wallen, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicagovan Valen) hypothesis based on the story of Alice's Adventures Through the Looking Glass in 1973. There are two hypotheses that can explain the evolution of genetic structure to some extent—the species selection theory and the "Red Queen hypothesis".

2. The "Red Queen Hypothesis" describes the continuous evolutionary competition between species, which was proposed by Leigh van Wallen, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago, to explain his observation of the law of constant extinction risk of species, that is, the extinction probability of a taxon, independent of the length of its existence.

The Red Queen hypothesis theory is based on the British writer Louis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in the Looking Glass", in a conversation between the Red Queen and Alice, the Red Queen said to Alice: In this country, you have to keep running to keep you in place. "In Chinese terms, it is to sail against the current, and if you don't advance, you will retreat", that is, we individuals and society must be in the process of continuous progress in order to maintain development, once stagnant, it is equivalent to extinction.

Sometimes even if you want to make progress, you may be eliminated in progress, and you have to work hard all the time to have a very safe state, but of course, this theory is not universal, and it is one-sided, but there is still some truth.

<> this is like our current life is forced to run forward, children are under heavy academic pressure every day, and at the same time have to attend a variety of tutoring classes outside of class, every parent and student is constantly comparing, for fear that their children are one step behind other students, everyone is forced to move forward, not daring to slack off for a minute. Each of them has a deep sense of insecurity, and when they reach the triumph of work, they find that the pressure at work is far greater than the pressure in learning, and it is a search for no end, because every company is implementing a wolf culture, chasing every employee to constantly earn more money for the company and for themselves, and the most important thing is that there is no end to these things.

<> is a good thing to have pressure, but if the pressure is too much, it will make people lose the joy of life and become a money-making tool for the business society, our society is indeed evolving and progressing, but is this society really much better than the previous life, what remains is not the best, the thing that can best adapt to the future development, but no one can control the direction of future development. The things that were very valuable to the ancients were replaced not because it was not good, but because there was no way to adapt to today's life, just like many people don't cook now, and three meals a day are takeout, because takeout is good, because people have become accustomed to such a convenient life, and they are increasingly losing their hands-on ability.