V. Life's Corporeal Evolution Develops, Encodes and Organizes Itself: An Earthtwinian Genesis Synthesis

McGhee, George. Convergent Evolution on Earth: Lessons for the Search for Extraterrestrial Life. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2019. As 2020 nears, whence scientific studies in every field are coming together to presage a revolutionary vision, the Rutgers University paleontologist (search) provides an evidential treatise upon life’s propensity, aided by physical constraints, to repetitively develop and repurpose similar forms and functions across procession of myriad organisms. The first chapter, Convergence in Life Forms in the Seas and on the Land, sets the scene for creaturely internal anatomy and physiology, along with external sustenance forages, reproductive behaviors, and much more. McGhee goes on to advise that habitable exoplanets will hold to the same evolutionary convergence. He notes the Darwin’s Aliens paper by Samuel Levin, et al (International Journal of Astrobiology 18/1, 2019) to say that life’s “nested multilevel hierarchy of individuality” should generally be scaled in each instance. But he then recites the 13 reasons noted by M. Canales, et al (search) as to why our home ecoworld is so uniquely special, see third quote. In summary, it is noted while contingencies are surely in effect, an overall common trajectory will and need be followed.

Our Earth is a water world; 71 percent of the earth's surface is covered by water. The fossil record shows that multicellular life on dry land is a new phenomenon; for the vast majority of the earth's history—3,500 million years of its 4,560 million years of existence—complex life existed only in the oceans. Explaining that convergent biological evolution occurs because of limited evolutionary pathways, McGhee examines examples of convergent evolution in forms of feeding, immobility and mobility, defense, and organ systems. McGhee suggests that the patterns of convergent evolution that we see in our own water world indicate the potential for similar convergent forms in other water worlds.. (Publisher)

The first five of these strange things are Earth’s plate tectonic activity recycles ca rbon, necessary for life and habitable planetary climates, Earth’s atmosphere possesses an ozone layer which helps to shield life from solar radiation, Earth’s axial wobble is stabilized by its very large moon, which also moderates climate fluctuations, Earth’s many environmentally variable habitats aid an evolutionary diversity, and Earth’s strong magnetic field protects life from high-energy cosmic radiation and solar storms. (250)

The universe as it exists in our region was not improbably fashioned for odd living organisms, nor were odd living organisms made by a strange condition of the universe in our region – living organisms are the universe in one of its own manifestations. Namely, life as we know it is a manifestation of the universe at a particular point in space nd time in its evolution. And species of life on Earth that are self-aware – magpies, elephants, dolphins, apes, humans – are manifestations of the universe that has become aware of itself. (251)

McGhee, George. Convergent Evolution: Limited Forms Most Beautiful. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011. The author is Professor of Paleobiology in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Rutgers University. Evolutionary theory is today beset and impeded by deep quandaries due to a tacit natural selection paradigm that denies or cannot contain any sense of an intrinsic, independent development. While evidence from molecules to minds, and every creaturely species in between, confirms that organisms converge upon similar patterns and processes over and over, as this book avers, the fact remains at conceptual odds with this vested 1950s Modern Synthesis. Following colleague Simon Conway Morris, McGhee provides the most thorough, organized documentation across genes, proteins, metabolism, animals, plants, ecosystems, and behavior, of this reality so far. All of which begs the impression that something is going on by itself, as if a once and future developmental gestation due to innate genetic propensities. An important book.

Charles Darwin famously concluded On the Origin of Species with a vision of “endless forms most beautiful” continually evolving. More than 150 years later many evolutionary biologists see not endless forms but the same, or very similar, forms evolving repeatedly in many independent species lineages. In this book, George McGhee describes the ubiquity of the phenomenon of convergent evolution and connects it directly to the concept of evolutionary constraint - the idea that the number of evolutionary pathways available to life are not endless, but quite limited. Convergent evolution occurs on all levels, from tiny organic molecules to entire ecosystems of species. McGhee demonstrates its ubiquity in animals, both herbivore and carnivore; in plants; in ecosystems; in molecules, including DNA, proteins, and enzymes; and even in minds, describing problem-solving behavior and group behavior as the products of convergence. (Publisher)

In summary, convergent evolution occurs across the entire spectrum of molecules that make up life. We have studied examples of the convergent evolution of identical nucleotide substitutions in nuclear and mtDNA molecules of distantly related organisms, similar amino acid sequences in unrelated protein molecules, similar structural geometries in proteins with different amino acid sequences, and similar protein functions by gene sharing; the convergent evolution of the same enzyme function produced by the convergent evolution of the same protein producing that function;….and the convergent evolution of the same macromolecular structure in unrelated enzymes. The number of molecular evolutionary pathways available to life is not endless but is quite restricted, and convergent evolution is the direct result. (206-207)

McMenamin, Mark. The Garden of Ediacara. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. The Mount Holyoke College paleontologist relates his discoveries of Precambrian fossil microorganisms in the Ediacaran region of Australia. These findings prompt McMenamin to propose a convergent view of evolution most characterized by an emergent sentience which was present even in that ancient era.

With evidence in our hands of convergently evolved protective skeletons and eusocial animals, plus numerous cases of iterative evolution, and not only the convergent evolutionary enlargements of brains but perhaps even iterative evolution of the brain itself, we must now accept a neovitalistic view of evolutionary change. (267) Please don’t misunderstand me; with neovitalism I am not invoking some type of mystical force to accomplish these changes. Rather, there must be something about the structure of the material world that causes matter to organize in this particular and very interesting way. In other words, it would appear that life evokes mind. There is indeed some kind of evolutionary directionality and vital potency. (270)

McShea, Dan. A Universal Generative Tendency toward Increase Organismal Complexity. Hallgrimsson, Benedikt and Brian Hall, eds. Variation. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2005. A careful argument for a vectorial rise in “internal variance” as organisms evolve which produces cellular and organ components with greater complexity, defined as parts which are more differentiated from each other.

Rather, it is that the variational possibilities, the raw materials so to speak, supplied to selection will be increasingly complex, and an eye is the result of the differential survival of the subset of these ever more complex options that are functional. (437)

McShea, Daniel. The Hierarchical Structure of Organisms. Paleobiology. 27/2, 2001. An important summary of how evolution proceeds by nested spheres of whole entities from prokaryotes to cells, organisms, and ‘individuated metazoan colonies.’ By this reckoning the passage of life is not a gradual drift or meander, rather a central trend of stratified complexity is evident where each subsequent stage is an autopoietic, symbiotically formed individuation.

The degree of hierarchical structure of organisms - the number of levels of nesting of lower-level entities within higher-level individuals - has apparently increased a number of times in the history of life, notably in the origin of the eukaryotic cell from an association of prokaryotic cells, of multicellular organisms from clones of eukaryotic cells, and of integrated colonies from aggregates of multicellular individuals. (405)

McShea, Daniel and Mark Changizi. Three Puzzles in Hierarchical Evolution. Integrative and Comparative Biology. 43/1, 2003. In contrast to the standard tree or bush model of an arbitrarily branching evolution, a novel understanding of life’s ascent is coming together in the synthesis conveyed by the new journal title for the former American Zoologist. By this perspective, the development of earth life is seen to proceed as a nested scale of individuated, semi-autonomous entities: bacteria within cells within organisms, which go on to aggregate into societies. Whereas the old model has no central direction, the new version defines a vectorial, repetitive emergence.

The maximum degree of hierarchical structure of organisms has risen over the history of life, notably in three transitions: the origin of the eukaryotic cell from symbiotic associations of prokaryotes; the emergence of the first multicellular individuals from clones of eukaryotic cells; and the origin of the first individuated colonies from associations of multicellular organisms. (74)

Meincke, Anne Sophie. The Metaphysics of Development and Evolution From Thing Ontology to Process Ontology... Human Development. May, 2023. A University of Vienna philosopher of biology sharply delineates this olden emphasis on discrete objects with no notice pf the equally vital, dynamic inter-relations between them. This nascent perception is also the core message of Siddhartha Mukherjee’s 2022 book The Song of the Cell. We would hope that an allusion to an Earthumanity (EarthWin) vista might allow and unify both these (gender-like) complements within an organic familial whole across life’s florescence.

A University of Vienna philosopher of biology sharply delineates this olden emphasis on discrete objects with no notice pf the equally vital, dynamic inter-relations between them. This nascent perception is also the core message of Siddhartha Mukherjee’s 2022 book The Song of the Cell. We would hope that an allusion to an Earthumanity (EarthWin) vista might allow and unify both these (gender-like) complements within an organic familial whole across life’s florescence.

Melkikh, Alexey and Andrei Khrennikov. Mechanisms of Directed Evolution of Morphological Structures and the Problems of Morphogenesis. Biosystems. 168/26, 2018. A latest essay by the Ural Federal University, Russia and Linnaeus University, Sweden theorists (search AK), whom along with colleagues are proceeding to view life’s evolution from biochemical origins to homo sapience as a singular development amenable to mathematical and computational analysis as a complex physical system. Some sections are: Quantum model of morphogenesis and Bohmian dynamics, Critical steps in evolution, and Self-organization, modularity, and mechanisms of evolution. As a comment, a curious dichotomy can be noticed between Russian and American persuasions. Writings such as this assume a cosmic temporal phenomenon which is going forth by a preordained properties and directional course, much in the train of Russian cosmism (Vernadsky). Western tracts, e.g., Jonathon Losos’ Improbable Destinies (2017) and other many works, categorically rule out an independent teleological drive or aim, especially anthropocentric human beings.

Morphogenesis mechanisms are considered from the point of view of complexity. It has been shown that the presence of long-range interactions between biologically important molecules is a necessary condition for the formation and stable operation of morphological structures. A quantum model of morphogenesis based on non-Archimedean analysis and the presence of long-range interactions between biologically important molecules has been constructed. This model shows that the evolution of morphological structures essentially depends on the availability of a priori information on these structures. Critical steps in evolution related to the most important morphological and behavioral findings have been analyzed; the results have shown that the implementation of such steps can only be explained within the framework of a partially directed evolution. Thus, the previously proposed model for a partially directed evolution is established for modeling the evolution of morphological structures. (Abstract)

Melo, Diogo, et al. Modularity: Genes, Development, and Evolution. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics. 47/463, 2016. Some two decades after life’s beneficial employ of modular components was first noticed (search Gunter Wagner), biologists Melo and Gabriel Marroig, University of Sau Paulo, with Arthur Porto, Washington University, and James Cheverud, Loyola University Chicago, commend their ubiquitous, essential presence across life’s dynamic organismic and phylogenetic development.

Modularity has become a central concept in evolutionary biology. A system is modular if it can be divided into multiple sets of strongly interacting parts that are relatively autonomous with respect to each other. This concept has been applied in developmental biology, in which modules either are different parts of the embryo that interact with each other, as with induction and morphogenesis, or are sets of interacting molecules that act independently in the patterning of multiple tissues. In this review, we focus on the role of variational modules in evolutionary processes. Variational modules are sets of traits that vary together and somewhat independently from other modules. (464)

Mesoudi, Alex, et al. Is Non-genetic Inheritance Just a Proximate Mechanism? A Corroboration of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. Biological Theory. Online February, 2012. It is not surprising that evolutionary theory, and most science itself, seems caught in the same rancor of strident positions and personalities as politics and climate change. This paper by eleven senior researchers - along with Mesoudi, Simon Blanchet, Anne Charmantier, Étienne Danchin, Laurel Fogarty, Eva Jablonka, Kevin Laland, Thomas J. H. Morgan, Gerd Müller, John Odling-Smee, and Benoît Pujol, from the UK, France, USA, Israel, and Austria – strongly confronts vested attacks on their nascent views of an expanded, pervasive sense of “genomic” influences. From a bevy of research findings beyond these authors, nucleotide genes are no longer “ultimate” with all other effects as peripheral “proximate.” Over the last decade what is considered “genetic” has shifted in emphasis from DNA molecules to AND regulatory networks, and onto epigenetic, neural, cognitive, behavioral, societal, and environmental effects. But these frontier findings have come under harsh criticism by old guard deniers and distorters, fixated on the 1950s modern synthesis, even though a 21st century major revision is widely called for. But the charge by British biologists Tom Dickins and Nick Barton that this project impugns “real science” is most rejected. A resolve might best be to proceed apace, which this site tries to report and document, toward a procreative genesis synthesis at home in a conducive cosmos, a once and future “universal gestation” that Charles Darwin and his day actually abided in.

What role does non-genetic inheritance play in evolution? In recent work we have independently and collectively argued that the existence and scope of non-genetic inheritance systems, including epigenetic inheritance, niche construction/ecological inheritance, and cultural inheritance—alongside certain other theory revisions—necessitates an extension to the neo-Darwinian Modern Synthesis (MS) in the form of an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES). However, this argument has been challenged on the grounds that non-genetic inheritance systems are exclusively proximate mechanisms that serve the ultimate function of calibrating organisms to stochastic environments.

In this paper we defend our claims, pointing out that critics of the EES (1) conflate non-genetic inheritance with early 20th-century notions of soft inheritance; (2) misunderstand the nature of the EES in relation to the MS; (3) confuse individual phenotypic plasticity with trans-generational non-genetic inheritance; (4) fail to address the extensive theoretical and empirical literature which shows that non-genetic inheritance can generate novel targets for selection, create new genetic equilibria that would not exist in the absence of non-genetic inheritance, and generate phenotypic variation that is independent of genetic variation; (5) artificially limit ultimate explanations for traits to gene-based selection, which is unsatisfactory for phenotypic traits that originate and spread via non-genetic inheritance systems; and (6) fail to provide an explanation for biological organization. We conclude by noting ways in which we feel that an overly gene-centric theory of evolution is hindering progress in biology and other sciences. (Abstract)

Michod, Richard. Darwinian Dynamics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. The University of Arizona biologist elucidates the emergent, cooperative structures and processes of the new multiphase evolutionary theory.

Life exists as hierarchically nested levels of organization in which higher level units are composed of lower-level units (gene, chromosome, genome, cell, multicellular organism, society). My book is concerned with the study of cooperation and the principles that guide the emergence of higher levels of organization. I have tried to show that there is a common set of principles and problems that bind the study of levels of organization as disparate as the gene, the cell, the multicellular organism and whole societies. (xi)

Miller, William B.. Cognition, Information Fields and Hologenomic Entanglement: Evolution in Light and Shadow. Biology. 5/2, 2016. The author, a Northwestern University Medical School physician and artist now reside in Arizona and lists himself as an independent researcher. His 2013 book The Microcosm Within is available on Amazon, see www.themicrocosmwithin.com/author for more info. As included in a Beyond the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis collation, the paper is a good example of an incipient genesis synthesis by way of 21st century expansions into physical nature, an informational basis, a cerebral cast, along with an integral genomics from universe to microbes to human persons. For a further update see Biological Information Systems: Evolution as Cognition-Based Information Management in Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology (online December 2017)

As the prime unification of Darwinism and genetics, the Modern Synthesis continues to epitomize mainstay evolutionary theory. Many decades after its formulation, its anchor assumptions remain fixed: conflict between macro organic organisms and selection at that level represent the near totality of any evolutionary narrative. However, intervening research has revealed a less easily appraised cellular and microbial focus for eukaryotic existence. It is now established that all multicellular eukaryotic organisms are holobionts representing complex collaborations between the co-aligned microbiome of each eukaryote and its innate cells into extensive mixed cellular ecologies. Each of these ecological constituents has demonstrated faculties consistent with basal cognition. Consequently, an alternative hologenomic entanglement model is proposed with cognition at its center and conceptualized as Pervasive Information Fields within a quantum framework. Evolutionary development can then be reconsidered as being continuously based upon communication between self-referential constituencies reiterated at every scope and scale. (Abstract)

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