Complexity Theory Takes Evolution to Another Level

[TheManeki]

I was doing a bit of surfing and came across an interesting news item at Wired Magazine's blogs section. I figure it should make good discussion fodder, and have quoted an excerpt from the article below:

One hundred and ninety-nine years after Charles Darwin was born, and 149 years after he published On the Origin of Species, some scientists say that the theory of evolution is due for a revision.

Not a religiously inspired revision -- intelligent designers need not apply. Nobody suggests that genetic mutation and natural selection aren't responsible for the evolution of birds from reptiles or humans from tree-swingers.

But a growing number of scientists do say that neo-Darwinian evolution doesn't explain certain jumps in biological complexity: from single-celled to multicellular organisms, from single organisms to entire communities.

The jumps -- saltations, in complexity parlance -- appear to be non-linear emergent phenomena, the result of networked interactions that produce self-organization at ever higher levels. From this perspective, Darwinian evolution is a mechanism of a higher universal law, perhaps even a variant on the second law of thermodynamics.

 

[thaumaturgy]

If I recall my paleo class correctly, sponges and jellyfish aren't really a "single" animal but actually a colony that has specialized members. Is that correct?

I hope I'm remembering that correctly. I'm also hoping some biologists on this board can talk about this more authoritatively. It seems that "emergent" complexity might play a role in what we think of as a single animal.

And then there's the whole Mitochontria thing within our own cells. Is it a visitor who just stayed and became part of us?

Thanks for posting this, Maneki!

 

[stumpjumper]

My brain hurts.

Can someone explain that in layman's terms?

 

[Washington]

From the linked article

"I've got an article in the pipeline on the union of complexity theory and evolutionary biology, and over the next few days will publish outtakes from the interviews here. One interviewee was Carl Woese, a titan of 20th century microbiology, who with colleague George Fox reorganized the organismal kingdom from five branches to three."​

The only thing that changed was the creation of a higher rank, domain, under which the kingdoms reside. And his redesign of the kingdoms is not unique. There has been an on-going reconfiguration of the kingdoms for some time now with the number of kingdoms ranging all the way up to 34.





Also,

"But a growing number of scientists do say that neo-Darwinian evolution doesn't explain certain jumps in biological complexity: from single-celled to multicellular organisms, from single organisms to entire communities."​

Perhaps so, but this doesn't amount to taking evolution to "another level." All it is is another operant; the example given [click on "saltations"] being, polyploidy, wherein spontaneous aberrations occur during chromosome duplication. It's a new facet to evolutionary theory, a speciation mechanism, but I think that's all it is.

If I recall my paleo class correctly, sponges and jellyfish aren't really a "single" animal but actually a colony that has specialized members. Is that correct?

Most are not, but some, like the Portuguese Man o' War, are.

 

[Split Rock]

If I recall my paleo class correctly, sponges and jellyfish aren't really a "single" animal but actually a colony that has specialized members. Is that correct?

Coral, slime molds and most bacteria are actually colonial. It is not really a great leap to the specialization required for a "true" multicellular organism. Sponges are usually considered the simplest "true" multicellular organism and have no true tissues, though they have different cell types.

 

[just another skeptic]

I was doing a bit of surfing and came across an interesting news item at Wired Magazine's blogs section. I figure it should make good discussion fodder, and have quoted an excerpt from the article below:...snip...

Well, this is actually not very new. Ilya Prigogine got his nobel price 1977 for his work on dissipative structures. These are structures far from thermodynamic equilibrium. He showed that these structures behave like complex systems in chaos theory with strange attractors, self-similarity and butterfly effect. Because of being far from thermodynamic equilibrium these structures are capable of gaining complexity despite the second law of thermodynamics.
Living organisms behave like dissipative structures and the findings also apply to these.
Google for system theory of evolution and synergetic theory of evolution but you could also ask me if you want to know more.
This stuff is nothing new for an evolutionary biologist. At least 20 years old.

 

[InTheCloud]

But a growing number of scientists do say that neo-Darwinian evolution doesn't explain certain jumps in biological complexity: from single-celled to multicellular organisms, from single organisms to entire communities.

The jumps -- saltations, in complexity parlance -- appear to be non-linear emergent phenomena, the result of networked interactions that produce self-organization at ever higher levels. From this perspective, Darwinian evolution is a mechanism of a higher universal law, perhaps even a variant on the second law of thermodynamics.

These are structures far from thermodynamic equilibrium. He showed that these structures behave like complex systems in chaos theory with strange attractors, self-similarity and butterfly effect. Because of being far from thermodynamic equilibrium these structures are capable of gaining complexity despite the second law of thermodynamics.

Theistic Evolutionists like Teilhard de Chardin talked about a "process of complexization" and more recently Karl Schmitz Mooreman added some incredients of chaos theory in the 1980s to the idea influenced by Ilya Prigogine.
So is not new.
The news is that more and more people are using chaos theory in biology. That might create a breakthrought sometime in the future.