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by PeterG on May 20th, 2006

PeterG

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How can a single cell organism evolve when they lack the competition and 'fitness' of which Darwin speaks?

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  • by lynnenorth on October 24th, 2006

    lynnenorth

    Godfather Part II covered a lot of the relevant points, but the short answer is that your premise is wrong. There is competition for chemical resources from the very start, not all single celled organisms are identical, and as they are competing for resources, some will do better than others at getting them. Therefore, there is differential reproduction according to "fitness".

    Even if all single-celled, prokaryotic organisms started out identical (which is unlikely), they tend to mutate rapidly -- charted mutation rates for modern prokaryotes are one significant mutation per organism per reproductive split. Differences would appear within a couple of rounds of reproduction.

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