this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2025
664 points (98.5% liked)

Science Memes

16412 readers
2688 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] squaresinger@lemmy.world 18 points 4 days ago

Evolution likes local maxima. Getting out of them is difficult. That's what the OOP meant with "evolution was powerless to correct it".

Getting out of local maxima means you first have to go with a worse setup until you get to a new, better local maxima. That's why evolution doesn't really do that all that often and instead prefers small optimizations.

(I use "like" and "prefer" not to say that evolution has goals or emotions, but to say that that's what the "algorithm" of evolution leads to.)