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V. A Quickening Evolution: The Genesis Synthesis
Over the past decade or so, largely unnoticed, a much enriched understanding of the evolution of life, mind and personal selves has been achieved from a multitude of contributions. A prime difference has been to include the prior effect of complex self-organizing dynamics, not known to Charles Darwin or the mid-20th century Modern Synthesis. As evolution was in the air in the 1850s, we seem today at the verge a novel reconception of the course of earth life as a convergent embryonic development. But this time our Darwin would be its latest manifest sphere, humankind altogether. Rather than an arbitrarily branching tree as before such as a spreading maple, instead a vectorial, cedar-like trunk is now implied of bodily complexity, larger brains, represented information and enhanced awareness. A spectrum of relevant advances can be gathered by the noosphere compass, as listed next. For a working name, lets call it the Genesis Synthesis:
A nonequilibrium thermodynamics connects biological systems with physical theory to give life's evolution a generative force. (Ilya Prigogine, Eric Chaisson)
New sciences of complexity describe an innate dynamics at work prior to selection which forms self-organized scales of modular wholes. (Stuart Kauffman, David Depew, Walter Fontana, et al)
Hierarchical expansion of evolution into multiple, sequential levels from gene networks to human societies, which exhibits a nested emergence. (Daniel McShea, Stan Salthe)
A punctuated equilibrium whence species remain fixed for a long period and change relatively fast, rather than by a gradual transition. (Niles Eldredge, Stephen Jay Gould)
A constant modularity of semi-independent, labor-dividing, functional units or organs and genetic or metabolic processes at each stage. (Gunter Wagner, Mary Jane West-Eberhard)
A fractal-like self-similarity is exhibited by self-organized speciation, extinction and intricate ecosystems. (Ricard Sole, Susanna Manrubia, Siegfried Fussy, Yuri Wolf)
A rational morphology or structural biology revives the sense of an archetypal Bauplan as a basis for a lawful science of homologous bodily form. (Brian Goodwin, Gerry Webster)
The occasion of novel species, is not explained by genetic drift alone and requires epigenetic influences such as dynamical self-organizing systems. (Gerd Muller, Stuart Newman, et al)
The perception of an intrinsically convergent evolution of anatomical form (wings, eyes)and cognitive ability rather than random contingency. (Simon Conway Morris, Mark McMenamin, Lori Marino)
A reunion of evolution and embryology known as evolutionary developmental biology (EDB) integrates individual ontogeny with the paleological radiation of organisms. (Brian Hall, Scott Gilbert, Wallace Arthur)
The recognition of beneficial symbiotic union as a major contributor to the emergence of cellular, organismic, and social assemblies. (Lynn Margulis, Jan Sapp)
A developmental systems theory (DST) whence epigenetic factors such as topological constraints and organism-environment interactions complement molecular genetic codes. (Susan Oyama, Eva Jablonka)
Altruistic cooperation is the prevalent mode with competitive conflict secondary in the formation and maintenance of animal and human societies. (David Sloan Wilson, Elliott Sober, et al)
Behavior influences genetic programs and selection from environmentally active rather than passive organisms. Also known as the Baldwin effect or niche construction. (Bruce Weber, Kevin Laland)
Over the course of evolution organisms gain an increased degree of consciously self-determined actions and freedom of choice.
(Daniel Dennett, et al)
A relatively linear increase in modular brain complexity and cognitive capacity defines an advance of encephalization and intelligence. (Harry Jerison, Barbara Finlay & Richard Darlington, Damon Clark)
A further axial, emergent quality is a cerebrally stored, schematic representation of a species expanding environmental niche. (Derek Bickerton)
An evolutionary continuum of animal intelligence is now admitted for the rise of stored representations, cognitive abilities and reflective consciousness. (David Griffin, Marc Bekoff, Irene Pepperberg)
A semiotic component of evolution as an ever-better information processing ability and relative knowledge gain.
(Werner Loewenstein, Jesper Hoffmeyer, Terence Deacon)
Major transitions in evolution from gene and cell to human society are facilitated by a novel code or template from molecules to language. (John Maynard Smith, Eors Szathmary)
An appreciation of evolution as the processional emergence of individuality of more distinct, aware selves.
(Richard Michod, David Buss, Daniel McShea)
A recovery of the parallel between ontogeny and phylogeny not only for embryonic form but cognitive ability, motor skills, behavior and language learning. (Ernst Mayr, Wallace Arthur, Michael McKinney, Sue Taylor Parker)
If these many features are integrated into a single scenario, an oriented evolutionary nest and axis of intricacy, cognition and learning begins to takes shape. This tandem rise of complexity and cognition is no longer a blind meander but instead a directional sequence. In place of a static ladder of Being, a temporal progression of Becoming is appropriate. And as this rises from a geological substrate to global superorganism, it may be seen to take on the characteristic scale-free, invariant form of a self-organizing genesis.
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A. Systems Biology
A new subsection to highlight the significant, intentional turn in biological and evolutionary science, broadly conceived, to reassemble all the reduced, separate pieces and components - DNA strands in a gene network, organelles in a cell, complete genomes, organisms, and so on. Now that they have been firstly identified, the equally real interrelations between them, and the information they carry and convey, can be studied. By this nascent paradigm, the dynamic web of life sheds its mechanistic cast to be better appreciated in its emergent vitality. This category will also report the archetypal reconception of immune systems.
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