Abstract
Biological evolution turns out to be a special case, albeit an extremely important one, of a more general or universal process of increasing levels of organization and complexity of select systems over time. So long as energy flows there will be a tendency toward greater organization and increases in complexity of various subsystems. We examine several examples of evolution at work in several contexts beyond just the biological one. Even our technologies are subject to the rules of evolution as are culture and societies in general. Of particular interest is the nature of coevolution, that is, the way in which mutually interacting systems affect the further developments of one another.
“One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.”
Charles Darwin , On the Origin of Species, Chapter VII.
“Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution”
Theodosius Dobzhansky , 1973 essay
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Notes
- 1.
In this case we are claiming that the evolution of particles took place in the Big Bang and the evolution of atoms, as another example, took place in stellar furnaces and supernovae events. In this book, however, we are more concerned with the evolution of living and supra-living systems, organisms, ecosystems, and social systems.
- 2.
For example, see Gross National Happiness, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_national_happiness
- 3.
The concept of species is used in microbiology to describe recognizable characteristics in groups. However as we learn more about genetic transfers between cells in this kingdom we realize that the boundary for species is a bit more fuzzy than originally thought.
- 4.
Shortly we will include what we call “supra-biological” evolution as being the emergent layer built upon biological or neo-Darwinian evolution. There are new mechanisms that emerge in biological evolution that work at that level, but also at, say for example, the cultural level as well. Later we will examine even newer distinctive mechanisms that emerged at the supra-biological level.
- 5.
This should not be confused with the fact that most modern computers have multiple “cores” or independent microprocessors that allow it to do a limited kind of parallel processing. All personal computers are still relatively sequential when it comes to performing computations.
- 6.
See also Kauffman (2000), pp. 142 ff, where he describes what he calls the “adjacent possible” to describe the nature of the universe of possible configurations that have not yet been tried, but are near current configurations, essentially describing the way in which multiple variations on, for example, the genetics of a species that after selection has acted to favor a variant giving rise to new species. See our discussion of speciation below.
- 7.
Richard Dawkins (1987) coined the phrase “Blind Watchmaker” to highlight the notion that nature produces systems that could pass as designed by a designer, but, in fact, are the result of blind processes. This is closely related to auto-organization .
- 8.
Some species, particularly invertebrates, rely on spawning many, many embryos, whereas many vertebrates, adopting parental care for the offspring, produce fewer offspring per generation. Even so, from a population standpoint, there are many different individuals “testing” themselves in the extant environments.
- 9.
Symbiogenesis was a theory first advanced by Lynn Margulis to explain why certain cellular organelles, like mitochondria, contain their own working DNA (extra-nuclear genes). See Margulis (1993). “Origins of species: acquired genomes and individuality”. BioSystems 31 (2–3): 121–5. Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiogenesis
- 10.
There is a hierarchy of sociality that emerged over biological evolution. Cf Eusociality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusociality
- 11.
The polymath John Von Neumann (famous for many systems science concepts) showed how to build such a self-replicating machine. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_machine. Several others have done so as well. See also von Neumann (1966).
- 12.
We wish to recall your attention to the work of Morowitz (1992) covered in that chapter, giving a good account of how proto-cells may have likely emerged and then evolved into primitive bacteria and archaea.
- 13.
Stable means the knowledge encoding does not degrade easily, say due to entropic decay. As an example of this consider DNA strands. Scientists have found still viable DNA from extinct animals, including Homo neanderthalis! We say that DNA is the “principle” encoding medium because in some Archaea RNA plays this role.
- 14.
Indeed the ribosome is the best model of a general constructor we can imagine, at least for protein construction . See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribosome
- 15.
See Wikipedia: Gene, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene
- 16.
We continue to differentiate between information and knowledge as developed in Chap. 7. Genes encode knowledge rather than information. That genetic knowledge, however, can be treated as information when looking at the way it is interpreted by cellular mechanisms that have to interpret the messages conveyed from the nucleus via transfer RNA (tRNA) molecules.
- 17.
Would that there were enough pages in this book to explain this fantastic phenomenon. Anyone truly interested in the nature of biological knowledge encoding is directed to the nature of development. Cf biological development: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmental_biology for a glimpse of how this works.
- 18.
A similar mechanism is responsible for the transcription of the genetic code into a strand of mRNA. The DNA double strand is opened when a transcription is needed. The enzymes responsible for transcription extract ribonucleotides from the nuclear medium and attach them to the “sense” half of the DNA strand. Transcription is controlled by an elaborate set of control mechanisms coded in the DNA itself. These are short segments of DNA that signal such things as start and stop positions for the genes.
- 19.
We have been describing what is known as a “point mutation” in the gene code. There are actually several additional mechanisms whereby changes to the DNA can occur and they operate on varying scales. These mechanisms are beyond the scope of the book. Their ultimate effect is still similar to what we describe here.
- 20.
This is the form of cell division in which the sperm and egg cells are produced. Each gamete cell has just one of the two pairs of chromosomes in ordinary diploid species, or half of the genetic complement. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiosis
- 21.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosomal_crossover for a description of this phenomenon.
- 22.
- 23.
Of course this is meant metaphorically, not literally. Selection is blind, no judgment per se is involved.
- 24.
In fact, there are situations where selection forces are relaxed to a point that the underlying gene for the phenotypic response is no longer useful. In those cases mutations can accumulate in the gene and render it inactive. Carroll (2006) calls these genes “fossils.” A good example is the inactivation of genes associated with eye formation in embryos and function in adults of certain cave-dwelling fishes and amphibians. Sight is no longer required in these species so the selection forces (light availability) have relaxed and those genes have “fossilized.”
- 25.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics. Also, for a thorough treatment of epigenetics and the role of regulatory genes, see Jablonka and Lamb (2006) and Carroll (2006).
- 26.
This phenomenon of evolution producing an oscillation in holding, temporarily, the upper hand in fitness is known as the Red Queen hypothesis. The name is based on Lewis Carol’s “Through the Looking Glass” where the Red Queen complains, “It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.” See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_Hypothesis
- 27.
- 28.
For example, cooperation in human societies as asserted in Sober and Wilson (1998).
- 29.
- 30.
- 31.
The endosymbiosis hypothesis was proposed by Lynn Margulis and she writes about it in What Is Life? with Dorion Sagan (2000). See Chap. 5, “Permanent Mergers,” especially page 119, “Twists in the Tree of Life.” Also, for a broader analysis of symbiotic relations that have emerged throughout biological evolution, see Principles of Social Evolution by Bourke (2011). Social here means how entities of both like and unlike kinds can form persistent interactions, i.e., be social.
- 32.
- 33.
Richard Dawkins , in The Selfish Gene, introduced the term “meme,” a parallel with “gene,” as a way to think about units of cultural memory and how they get passed around and stick in minds.
- 34.
“The Expanding Digital Universe: A Forecast of Worldwide Information Growth Through 2010,” an IDC white paper, http://www.emc.com/collateral/analyst-reports/expanding-digital-idc-white-paper.pdf
- 35.
Sixth because the fossil record reveals that over the 3.8 billion years of life there have been at least five major extinction events. The resilience of life, which seems to bounce back with new bounty and variety after a few million years, is one of the encouraging aspects of this history of systemic collapse and recovery.
- 36.
The PBS Evolution Library, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution
- 37.
Norgaard (1994), p. 46, paraphrased.
- 38.
See their jointly authored book, with Hunter Lovins , Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution (1999).
Bibliography and Further Reading
Bourke AFG (2011) Social evolution. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Carroll SB (2005) Endless forms most beautiful: the new science of Evo Devo. W. W. Norton & Company, New York, NY
Carroll SB (2006) The making of the fittest: DNA and the ultimate forensic record of evolution. W.W. Norton & Company, New York, NY
Darwin C (1860) On the origin of species, American edition, New York, NY: D. Appleton and Company. Available at: http://publicliterature.org/books/origin_of_species/1. Accessed Aug 24, 2013
Dawkins R (1976) The selfish gene. Oxford University Press, New York, NY
Dawkins R (1987) The blind watchmaker: why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design . W.W. Norton & Company, New York, NY
Dennett DC (1995) Darwin ’s dangerous idea: evolution and the meanings of life. Simon & Schuster, New York, NY
Dobzhansky T (1973) Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. Am Biol Teach 35:125
Hawken P (1993) A declaration of sustainability. Utne Read 59:54–61
Jablonka E, Lamb MJ (2006) Evolution in four dimensions: genetics, epigenetics, behavioral, and symbolic variation in the history of life. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Kauffman S (1995) At home in the universe: the search for the laws of self-organization and complexity. Oxford University Press, New York, NY
Kauffman S (2000) Investigations. Oxford University Press, New York, NY
Lovins A et al (1999) Natural capitalism: creating the next industrial revolution. Rocky Mountain Institute, Boulder, CO
Margulis L, Sagan D (2000) What is life? University of California Press, Los Angeles, CA
Morowitz HJ (1992) The beginnings of cellular life: metabolism recapitulates biogenesis. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT
Norgaard R (1994) Development betrayed. Routledge, London
Nowak MA (2012) Why we help. Scientific American, July Issue, pp 34–39
Schneider ED, Sagan D (2006) Into the cool: energy flow, thermodynamics, and life. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL
Sober E, Wilson DS (1998) Unto others: the evolution and psychology of unselfish behavior. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
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Tainter J (1988) The collapse of complex societies. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK
von Neumann J (1966) Theory of self-reproducing automata, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL. Available at: http://web.archive.org/web/20080306035741/http://www.walenz.org/vonNeumann/index.html
Weiner J (1994) The beak of the finch: a story of evolution in our time. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, NY
Wilson EO (2013) The social conquest of earth. Liveright, New York, NY
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Mobus, G.E., Kalton, M.C. (2015). Evolution. In: Principles of Systems Science. Understanding Complex Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1920-8_11
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