Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1999 December 21; 96(26): 15368–15373.
PMCID: PMC24825
Copyright © 1999, The National Academy of Sciences
Population Biology
Empirical laws of survival and evolution: Their universality and implications
Mark Ya. Azbel'†

RC: Just one right now. . . but he's listed several others that might be for further reading. I think you assumed I was talking about the "odds" of macro-evolution. . . I was merely speaking to the "odds" of our survival during the process. If this source is tainted or I have totally misunderstood the research, let me know. . . did i have to ask?

I'll get to the other stuff peter. . .

The full text of that article is available here.

I read the article and, while I am not a scientist, I am pretty sure it does not support the specific claim that "our survival during [the process of evolution] was improbable." Instead, the author appears to be arguing simply that lifespan and mortality rates have a strong genetic component, meaning that, with sufficient knowledge about the genetic information of an individual at birth, one might predict with surprising accuracy how long that individual will live.

The author also speculates, in a bizarre section on the sixth page of the article (page 15372 of the journal), about the likelihood of making contact with an extraterrestrial civilization, apparently based on his conclusion that "all evolutionary changes during billions of years are subject to fundamental biological constraints," which I guess he extends to life on other planets, which has yet to be discovered:



The fact that the author of this paper leaps from a statistical study of lifespans and mortality rates to the possibility of contacting extraterrestrial civilizations should tip off an alert reader that he is really just framing a question for someone else to research, rather than stating a conclusion of his own. In short, this author is not concluding that "our survival during [the process of evolution] was improbable," but suggesting that technological societies may be rare, though he does not even sufficiently explain why that rarity arises from the genetic basis for mortality rates of individuals within populations. That much should be clear from the fact that he begins the section quoted above with the words "One wonders," signaling a departure from hard research and the commencement of speculative hypothesizing. Unfortunately, he does not suggest a hypothesis that is specific enough to support any real research (at least so far as I can tell; again, RC is welcome to correct me).

After that passage, the article continues with ideas that of the kind that I might expect to read in the pages of a poorly-written science fiction novel:



That is interesting, but not scientifically useful (so far as I can tell). And then he says strange things like this, which raises another red flag to warn that we are not dealing with an evolutionary biologist, or even someone who thinks clearly:



First, if you want to talk about the "rapidity" of "natural evolution," what is your point of reference? We have not discovered life on other planets, so we cannot say things like, "Well, on Earth it took 100 million generations between the first fishes and humans, but on Planet X it took them 400 million generations to do the same thing." (And that's even putting aside the problems (1) that evolution never intended to make humans, so talking about how quickly humans arose is nonsensical in the first place and (2) if life is evolving on other planets, there is no reason to believe it would involve fishes or humans or anything comparable to life on Earth.)

Second, since when are collisions between molecules in water comparable to generations of organisms? That comparison is not remotely appropriate. But it also reminds me of the not-remotely-appropriate comparisons that you are fond of making, Plotinus, so I can see why you would like this article.

Thanks, this comment is clarifying (I was on the track of "odds of macro-evolution").

I have to admit an upfront bias in my reading of the cited paper -- when a grad student in physics submits a non-peer reviewed paper on biology, I am immediately skeptical as to the "authority" of the information presented. But delving into the paper I found an unbiased mathematical analysis of survival rates and a simple "universal law" of survival.

What is interesting however is its constant reference to the word evolution, as the results are based only upon empirical mortality data, and not data that results from evolutionary processes -- the informational content of the genome, or mutation rates, etc. This explained with a little more research:

Title: Law of universal mortality
Author(s): Azbel' MY
Source: PHYSICAL REVIEW E Volume: 66 Issue: 1 Article Number: 016107 Part: Part 2 Published: JUL 2002

Mr. Azbel published the same paper a few years later, with all mention of evolution removed. Not uncommon, and a problem that is currently a hot topic in the arena of peer-reviewed publishing of scientific papers -- the reuse of the same research with small edits in a attempt to build one's resume. Modern information retrieval systems have revealed this to be a major problem.

But I am totally off topic.

Does this paper speaks to the "odds of survival"? No. Mr. Azbel is not an evolutionary biologist, and it shows in his summary, where he commits the "lottery fallacy", as so many other (some Nobel Prize winning) physicists have done when commenting outside their area of expertise:

The Lottery Fallacy: The odds I will win the lottery are very small. The odds that someone will win is almost 100%.




Mr. Azbel uses the probability calculations for a pre-determined individual, and notes their low probablity. However, evolution does not have the goal of producing a particular individual. In fact, it has no goal whatsoever -- it merely produces.

Note his statement:



By his own, definition, the odds that there is a survivor is 100%. The odds of a pre-selected survivor is 1/Q. But evolution is not preselecting survivors.

I suspect Mr. Azbel corrected this error in his subsequent re-issue.

What is the probability that the human species survived the evolutionary process? Remove the presumption that we were the target, and it is 100%.

Do you even need to "[r]emove the presumption that we were the target" reach that conclusion?

Holy teacherman RC: Thanks--excellent and clear summary.