Have you read Darwin's work? - I did, it took me two years, but to me it seems quite consistent. Of course a theory cannot be really complete in a sense that it explains everything and at the same time be correct (as proven by Goedel).

Darwin also did not aim at the explanation of the origin of live - just the origin of species which means he tried to explain why there is such a vast variety of them. It also follows from his work that higher organisms have a better chance to survive in certain environments due to the enhanced degree of organisation of cells - more complex creatures can solve more complex problems (regarding food, ...) and are therefore better adepted to their habitat (which regards your 3rd comment).

But of course you can develop a deeper understanding of the processes involved, but that does not makes Darwin's theory as a whole obsolete.

Have you read Darwin's work? - I did, it took me two years, but to me it seems quite consistent. Of course a theory cannot be really complete in a sense that it explains everything and at the same time be correct (as proven by Goedel).

Darwin also did not aim at the explanation of the origin of live - just the origin of species which means he tried to explain why there is such a vast variety of them. It also follows from his work that higher organisms have a better chance to survive in certain environments due to the enhanced degree of organisation of cells - more complex creatures can solve more complex problems (regarding food, ...) and are therefore better adepted to their habitat (which regards your 3rd comment).

But of course you can develop a deeper understanding of the processes involved, but that does not makes Darwin's theory as a whole obsolete.

Perhaps some counter-questions:

Did Popper understand about the nature of data and sciencemaking in the bio- and geosciences?

Was the origin of life really Darwin's building site (or was he satisfied with a model that explains much of what has happened ever since)?

Do you ask for internal or external consistency of Darwin's theory?

Why consider Darwin's theory if we have more comprehensive theories (for biological evolution) today?

Are today's simple organisms functionally/energetically superior to the earliest simple organisms? To what degree are individual complexities of organisms relevant for Darwin's theory of evolution?

Is transpiration really biologically useless (e.g. function as the motor of circulation in plants)?

Johannes, obsolete no, but maybe its time to take a more fundamental look at what is really happening in nature? I think that Darwinian theory is a good first approximation, a good descriptive statement, but it is not a fundamental theory that can make understandable the complete evolutive history of life on Earth. A complete theory would have to include statements about the uniqueness of life, for example, why don't we see evolution in silicate materials? It would also have to address the origin of life and a statement as to where life is "headed" so to speak. There are many very clear trends in evolution, e.g. succession in ecosystems, increases in metabolic rates per unit biomass, increase in intelligence, increases in complexity of organs and individuals. At the same time, there are the archea and the bacteria that have remain unchanged for thousand of millions of years. I think that a thermodynamic perspective is more fundamental and can answer many of the above questions, but it is not at all easy to build a thermodynamic view of life and evolution. I would start by saying that life, as any irreversible process, arose and persists to dissipate a generalized thermodynamic potential (e.g. a temperature or concentration gradient). In the case of life this thermodynamic potential is the solar photon potential. Without a background in physics, I know that all this would sound like a lot of nonsense, but you have to admit that Darwin's theory has an awful lot of loose ends and unexplainables and paradoxes. Going to a new, more fundamental level, may provide answers to these problems and may shed light on other questions such as life in the universe.

Michael, I don't think that there has been anybody before or since Popper that has analyzed the scientific paradigm in such detail. You ask many interesting questions but it would difficult to give a dignified answer to all of them. How about concentrating on just the first one for now? Darwin's theory doesn't give any clues with respect to the origin of life and you suggest that that is alright because ti was not his intention (or perhaps, more accurately, it was for him a much more difficult question given the knowledge available at his time), but lets say that you ask someone to develop a theory on hurricanes and that person comes back to you with all detail about how hurricanes are steered by ocean temperature and atmospheric pressure differentials and how they loose their force over land. That would be only a descriptive theory, you would not truly understand them. You would want to know why and how they form, why they loose their energy over land, etc. I see Darwin's theory as only a descriptive theory of the evolution of living systems, it does not satisfy my desire for a real understanding,.

Karo, you say that you see Darwin's theory as a descriptive theory of the evolution of living systems, but that is exactly what it meant to be.

A theory cannot answer all questions in a certain field (at least not in natural sciences and maths) it has to be limited to the questions where it applies. Within this limitations I did not found any loose ends of Darwins thoughts. This would be the same thing as if I would say: "Oh, there are so many loose ends in Newton's theory because it doesn't cover relativistic effects." - there are no loose ends to be found in Newton's models within the physical framework where they hold (i.e. for low velocities compared to the speed of light and not too high masses).

Darwin's theory is a very fundamental theory when it comes to the evolution of species but it cannot address, say, thermodynamical evolutions of biological systems because it is not meant to do that.

What we can do in natural sciences is to make theories or models which describe something - a good description is equivalent to understanding what's going on. Take your example of a hurricane - when someone comes to me with such a good model, in fact I would understand how hurricanes are formed or behave over land, because the real understanding lies in the equations and assumptions of the model.

I'm not sure what you are really searching for, but I get the impression that you rather want to have a philosophical answer (an answer to a "why" question that is) than an answer that can be provided by natural science.

Maybe you could also explain what paradoxes you find in Darwin's theory because your example with archaic bacteria is not a very good one. In fact Darwin explains in detail why these types of bacteria still exist: just because an organism is evolving into another one does not mean that the former becomes extinct automatically. The former organism will still survive in an environment that fits him (until the environment itself changes in a way that is harmfull to the organism - then it becomes extinct). However, the newly evolved organism can survive in new environments because it has adapted to them.

But this is clearly written in Darwin's book in full detail.

Dear Karo, a consideration of evolutionary theories from a thermodynamics point of view can be fascinating. But I think individual complexity of organisms and whether it has risen or not over time (probably yes: average complexity for bacteria + higher life forms is higher than for bacteria alone) might be not so relevant (for evolution & thermodynamics) compared to other global trends:

Has the complexity of ecological relations risen over time? (Probably yes.)

Has the recycling capability of ecosystems risen over time? (Probably yes.)

Has the energy turnover per area or space unit risen over time? (Probably yes.)

Raising individual complexity might be only a minor symptom of bioshere evolution.

Hi Johannes, I don't deny that Darwin's theory has been very useful in helping us understand a lot of, at one time, seemingly unconnected facts in biology. I understand that it has its limitations and was not meant to explain everything. However, what I am saying is that maybe its time to search for a more encompassing theory, that, in analogy with general relativity, will reduce to Darwin's theory in the classical limit. The new theory, just like general relativity, may open up whole new ares of understanding and research. Two important problems or "paradoxes" in the classical theory of gravity stimulated Einstein to look for a more encompassing theory, they were, 1) Newton's laws obeyed Galilean transformations and not Lorentz invariance (in contrast to the new and very successful Maxwell theory of electrodynamics), 2) the planet Mercury appeared to significantly (measurably) deviate from predictions using Newton's laws. Einsteins new theory opened up many new avenues of understanding (e.g. the standard cosmological model) and could be shown to reduce to Newtons theory in the approximation of flat space.

I believe that there are now enough problems and paradoxes in Darwin theory that it is now time to attempt to look for a more encompassing theory. Many biologists are very resistant to this and try to squeeze everything new into Darwinian theory. The pieces that don't fit they simply leave out, ignoring them. My personal opinion is that one must go to a more fundamental level of nature (I would argue that thermodynamics is at an appropriate level) to build a more encompassing theory. I have made some preliminary attempts at this but I am often discouraged by the off hand rejection by the biologists. Perhaps the new generation of biologists are more open to this, and that was my purpose in starting this question here.

Dear Michael,

I agree with you that individual complexity, not withstanding factors such as endosymbiosis, should take a back seat to "global" or biosphere complexity. In fact, I argue that what natural selection is really selecting is increases in global biosphere photon dissipation rates. This selection process trickles all the way down to the gene level and at the individual level we experience what know as Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection. It would be interesting to be able to demonstrate that this global thermodynamic "fitness function" does indeed lead to something close to Darwin's theory on the individual level and to something analogous on all other levels.

"it is now time to attempt to look for a more encompassing theory". I think this is happening all the time. You may need more biological course works to understand what we have come to. There are neo-Darwinism, selfish gene theory, evolvability theory, and my theory of genetic creativity. Thermodynamics is a tool life uses, but it is not life itself, and that is why evolutionary theorists are not particularly interested in it.

Jon,

I am not saying that thermodynamics is completely useless in evolutionary biology. It is just not the focus, and cannot be the focus. It is like gasoline to cars. Well, sure, gasoline is important for cars, and there maybe major changes in the design of cars when the price of gas increases. However, gas is just gas. People thinking about cars would hardly consider gas is as important as car itself.

Dear Jiang,

Thermodybamics is not "like gasoline to cars", it is the theory, based on the fundamental symmetries in nature, that describes the dynamics of cars plus gasoline, and, for that matter, the dynamics of all macroscopic processes from life to the expanding cosmos. Darwin's theory, and all recent additions, or modifications, will have to be describable from the perspective of themodynamics before we can really claim to understand them at this level of the fundamental symmetries in nature. Most biologists don't want to get down to this level of understanding, but the price they pay is being left with a metaphysical theory with lots of problems and paradoxes. By "thermodynamics" I mean "irreversible thermodynamics" or even better "quantum statistical mechanics". There may be a level still more fundamental, for example quantum gravity statistical mechanics, but that will be the next step.

Karo,

I perfectly understand thermodynamics. But you failed to understand my argument. Thermodynamics is something life depend on, but it is not life itself. In the view of thermodynamics, you cannot even distinguish between a car or a washing machine and an organism. The theory of evolution deals with the change of life, the rule of which cannot be found in thermodynamics. Life does not just depend on thermodynamics either, it also depend on materials. Life happens above the level of thermodynamics and materials. If you cannot understand this, sorry but I cannot explain to you anymore, since I am not particularly interested in this topic. I would suggest you reading more basic biology book with real understanding before rushing your life into this field. Otherwise it is a waste of your time, and no biologists would accept your opinion. Do not just assume that biologists are stupid without physics training and cannot think about thermodynamics.

” Popper called Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection a "metaphysical research program" ”

have you got a pdf of Popper's work You mentioned?

Hi Jon,

That's a hard boiled response from a hard nosed scientist! I have always wondered why it was that biologists have such a hard time imagining that their cherist theory might have a more fundamental underpinning. Then I came across your question "Are the laws of physics a product of biology?" and I almost had a heart attack! Was it that every scientist believes that his area is the most fundamental? But, don't worry, reading further I understood, I think that what you wanted to ask was "Are the human concepts of physics a product of biology?", but isn't that a tautology? Sorry for using that word again.

"Why not those teeth of osmium?", was just the question I wanted you to answer. How clever to turn it around and try to get me to answer it for you! Ok, enough of tangents. Again, why does natural selection not operate on inorganic substances and lead to an "ecology" of these substances? If one can't answer at least that, one cannot argue that they understand natural selection. Sorry, but I can't take the anthropic principle or the idea of a magical starting arrangement of atoms at the time of the primordial soup as valid answers.

Please don't quote me incorrectly.I didn't say that my answer was "not relevant to biology" only that it was not possible frame it within the terminology of biology. Since you give me the permission to air it, here goes (in thermodynamic terms,sorry); Life is not an object or a magical arrangement of material, it is a process. For any process to occur (exist) it needs to dissipate an external generalized thermodynamic potential (e.g.hurricanes dissipate the temperature gradient between the hot sea and cold atmosphere). For the case of life, it is dissipating (overwhelmingly) the photon potential of the sun. Organic elements are the only elements that form covalent bonds which are strong bonds such that the quantum electronic energy levels in organic pigments exactly match the quantum photon energies arriving from the sun. Organic pigments in water form photon dissipative systems. Electronic excitation gets transformed into vibrational excitation of the water molecules. The net result is that one visible photon gets converted into 20 infrared photons. This is entropy production. But, entropy production is not a byproduct of the dissipative system, really the dissipative system spontaneously forms to produce entropy (dissipate the external potential). Evolution through natural selection is simply the natural process of the dissipative system proliferating over the globe and coupling to other dissipative systems (eg. the water cycle, ecosystems) all in the name of increasing the global entropy production. Evolution and natural selection do not apply to inorganic elements as molecules formed by these simply do not absorb and dissipate the solar photons, or at least not in the enthropically important region of the spectrum (UV and visible). I hope that some of this is understandable to you and other biologists. I would be happy to go into detail on any point. I woiuld also like to refer you to my paper entitled "Thermodynamic dissipation theory for the origin of life" available on ResearchGate.

Hi Jon,

Thanks for your concrete answer. I believe that scarcity of the element has little to do with the selection of the element as a component of life. Remember that nitrogen (as an element, not as a dimolecule) is very very scarce, but life has managed to obtain it and uses it a lot. I believe, as I said before, that its the match of the covalent excited state energies which match the solar photon energies (for absorption and later dissipation) which is the reason that life selected these elements (their chemical compound excited states match the solar spectrum). We cannot treat life as a simple chemical system, the dissipation has to be there. The photons have to be taken into account.

I would also say the "the chance for rival lines was grim" but not because the dominant line would eat them up, as is the prevalent view, but simply because there are no other lines with matching solar spectrum characteristics. To be correct, there really are other lines, but they are just so different from the life line that we don't even associate them with life. For example, hurricanes dissipate in the infrared.

Thanks for your interest in my idea, I will be looking forward to your comments on my article. I also have an article on the proliferation of organic pigments over the surface of the earth, which for me is the only unique and defining characteristic of evolution. I attribute this proliferation to a non-linear non-equilibrium effect analagous to something that Prigogine showed was true for autocatalytic purely chemical reactions. I copy him, but for photochemical reactions. I warn you that you will need a bit of irreversible thermodynamics to make sense out of it, but it gives a physical reason for the "motor" behind evolution.

Yes, RG is scarmbling the order of the comments and putting dates which are in the future. I really hope they fix this.

Karo, I wonder whether the hypothesis of global photon dissipation rates as the driving factor yields certain predictions (for the past) which can be tested on the basis of geological and palaeontological data.

Evolution of the biosphere is cyclical insofar as there are mass extinctions that cause setbacks followed by a recovery until a certain optimum is reached (before the next mass extinction knocks in). Is there some way to measure the effects of an increase in photon dissipation rates between two mass extinctions? Is there any way to make such a motor of evolution visible (through data)?

Hi Michael,

Interesting question. Zotin has collected data showing that metabolic rates (roughly equal to entropy production if we neglect structuring processes) per unit biomass have been increasing in animals since the origin of life on earth. Now this is not directly related to photon dissipation rates, but there is a relation. According to my theory, the main thermodynamic reason for being of animals is to distribute the required nutrients necessary for plants and cianobacteria. Higher metabolic rates of animals, or a larger number of animals, would mean higher limiting nutrient areal distribution rates and therefore larger plant and cianobacteria photon dissipation rates. Ok, you are probably thinking that this is far fetched, but before dismissing it, take a look at this article that recently appeared, "The legacy of the Pleistocene megafauna extinctions on nutrient availability in Amazonia", C.E. Doughty et al., Nature GeoScience, 2013.

One could also try to measure the incident and emitted spectrum of earth from space and compare the differences from year to year. This would be a very subtle effect probably very difficult to measure given the variation in solar output, volcanic eruptions on earth, humans playing havoc on the environment, etc.

We are now also looking at the evolutionary history of pigments as we believe that this should have a relation to the evolutionary history of the solar spectrum arriving at the earth's surface.

Mapping evolutionary changes in pigment composition on a tree of life sounds like a reasonable approach. (For the emitted spectrum of the earth it would helpful to have faster-than-light travel to get the spectrum from 10 or 100 million years ago.)

I think it might be helpful to look in detail at certain crucial biosphere-transforming events, e.g. terrestrialization and its effects on landscape evolution:

Davies & Gibling (2010), Gibling & Davies (2012):

http://www.fsl.orst.edu/wpg/events/W12/Gibling_2012_Paleozoic%20landscapes_plants.pdf

http://webarchive.nced.umn.edu/system/files/2010sicm_davies2010b.pdf

I would expect that your motor of evolution becomes visible there. I would also expect to find it in the stages of 'mineral evolution' discussed by Hazen and colleagues (2008):

http://www.geo.umass.edu/petrology/Hazen_p1693-1720_08_LR.pdf

Do you expect any counterintuitive effects of photon dissipation rates as a driving force - some phenomena which can be observed but not explained in another way?

Dear Karo, and colleagues,

I just came across your interesting question. I am a paleontologist, so I will focus on evolutionary biology, not chemistry and physics, although these fields are most exciting as well. I will start with your inital question, not the latest development.

I think you are hinting at the constraints debate, among others. Which other factors, apart from selection, are there operating? I found Stuart Kauffman's insights most interesting, although they are mostly theoretical and hard to test. He views life as originating at the "edge of chaos", employing chaos theory and related subjects of synergetics. (He adds on to earlier work of Manfred Eigen and Ilya Prigogine, two physicists/chemists, who wrote fantastic books which I think are must-reads). This, I believe, may help understand those aspects not readily answered by the selection aspect. Self organization almost certainly plays a role in pre-structuring life, thus probably in part relevant to answer your question (1).

It is harder to address the other points. "Will to survive" seems rather metaphysical itself to me, more than any component of the current version of the Modern Synthesis. Popper coined a range of metaphysical ideas, such as his 3-worlds-concept, hence we should perhaps not take his comment on the status of Evolutionary Theory too serious...(after all, I am a big fan of his clarity - but I am also a big fan of his student and most ardent critic, Paul Feyerabend :)).

I think constraints of various sorts (physical, chemical, developmental) play important roles in addition to selection. They do not necessarily oppose selection, but may pre-structure the conditions on the proximate level which are then selected against/for on the population level (ultimate level).

As this whole issue is not fully understood, and not generally accepted, there is much work that lies ahead. Evo-Devo will have to add to this, and certainly further study of self organization. Physics and chemistry, of course, as well. This, at least, is my take of the current status of Evolutionary Theory.

Best regards

Rainer

Dear Rainer,

Thanks for your interesting reflections on the subject. What draws most of my interest is to try to explain "evolution through natural selection" from a purely physical basis, i.e. fundamental laws and symmetries in nature. I am physicist, so you can imagine that I have a hard time trying to understand phrases such as "selection of the fittest". There is just nothing of its kind in physics textbooks. What there is, what may come close, is "minimization of free energy" and "optimization of entropy production". I believe that "selection" has to do with the latter, and I have written some articles along these lines, but it is really still only a conjecture at this moment. I believe that if we can put Darwin's theory on a thermodynamic (or statistical mechanics basis) then that would clear up a lot of problems and paradoxes that I pointed to in my initial question.

I think that the point is really more than just "constraints", it has to be a complete redefinition, in physical terms, of "natural selection". If natural selection were something fundamental, as many biologists seem to claim, then it should act on all material, and not just on "magical" arrangements of material. What I see as being fundamental to a description of evolution, and completely ignored by the biologists and evolutionists, is the external photon potential. Realizing that life is living system dissipating the external photon potential limits at once the kinds of material which can form part of life; to those that can dissipate the external photon potential. Knowing also that material systems under external potentials form dissipative systems (Prigogine) that can exist in many different locally stable states, each with a different entropy production, and that nature tends to augment the entropy production with time in a system with constant external constraints provides us with an interesting picture of evolution applicable to the entire material world, which may be much more than just an analogy with biological evolution through natural selection.

Dear Michael,

Thanks for the interesting references! Concerning your question;

"Do you expect any counterintuitive effects of photon dissipation rates as a driving force - some phenomena which can be observed but not explained in another way?"

Yes, transpiration rates in plants have been increasing over the evolutionary history of life on earth. Today, 98% of the absorbed solar free energy on plants is used in transpiration and only 2% in photosynthesis. Transpiration is not essential to a plant for nutrient irrigation as many biologists claim, eg. plants grow perfectly well under 100% relative humidity at which essentially no transpiration occurs. However, water in the leaf is essential to photon dissipation. The vibrational states of water molecules dissipate the energy in individual photons.

Just a throw in on the matter of 'useless' processes, e.g. transpiration . Just because a process (or generally, a (type of) morphology, behaviour, physiology) may appear suboptimal from some perspective (e.g. thermodynamic) does not make it 'useless' in the context of its evolution and the selection pressure(s) acting upon it. One may well try to remember that natural selection is not about perfection per se but optimising surivival and reproduction in the particular enviornment, under the particular level(s) of competition. etc. in the course of evolution of the organism (species, etc.). An adaptation needs only be good enough and if no environmental factor at any point in evolutionary time renders said adaptation suboptimal, i.e. overwhelmingly costly in terms of survival and reproduction, then there is no need for that adaptation to evolve further. After all, evolution is not about survival of the perfect but of the fittest - to the conditions relevant to the organism.

Antony, I am saying that transpiration is "suboptimal" from a biological perspective, not from a thermodynamic perspective. It uses up almost all the free energy available in the photons from the sun. Only a very tiny part is left for photosynthesis (in fact, the figure of 2% I gave in the previous comment is incorrect, the correct value is only 0.2%). Heavy transpiration is perfectly in line with the thermodynamic perspective of living systems optimizing photon dissipation rates.

And yet I contend, at least theoretically, that a trait, be it physiological like transpiration, cannot be 'suboptimal', especially biologically, by default if natural selection has not/does not need to act upon it and the organism(s) concerned does not have a reduced fitness as a result. That's like saying anaerobic respiration is biologically 'suboptimal', particularly in the presence of a more energy efficient alternative - the aerobic respiration. Functionally speaking, one may say so, but in the context of natural selection there has been (seemingly) no selection pressure on the former type of respiration. Why? It may be that its adaptive value is, in the context of the evolution of the anaerobic organism, 'optimal' as regards the organism's survival and reproductive success.

Perhaps a more fundamental criticism of the search for an all-encompassing explanation of abiogenesis and biological evolution from thermodynamics:

Arguably the universe is characterized by the emergence of new qualities from time to time (be it through biological evolution or other processes), such as life, conciousness, society. These novelties also introduce new sets of (natural) laws and rules in addition to (and perhaps in alteration of) previous ones.

Thus, even though the laws of thermodynamics are valid at any rate, they fail to explain the will to survive in some human beings and will to die in others or the urge to paint a painting or the development of the American legal system. States and processes of 'conciousness' and 'society' transcend/ cannot be reduced to what can be learned from a physics textbook - why should we expect something else from 'life' and 'biological evolution'?

While it appears to be a worthwhile aim to look for indications of certain driving factors of evolution like "minimization of free energy" and "optimization of entropy production" I daresay that it would be unwise to follow the reductionistic hope that thermodynamics yields an explanation for everything.

Dear Karo,

Michael just hinted at what I was going to answer:

There is no need for Natural Selection to be present at each and every level of complexity, or even just outside biological systems. Selection is a universal property of populations, an emergent property of stochastic sorting at that level (ultimate level). It would make no sense to speak of selection even at the proximate level (within a single individual). (On the topic of emergent properties it is worth reading "The music of life", by Denis Noble, which deals with reductionism and holism in the genome).

If you could show that processes similar to selection operate in non-living systems, it could form a highly interesting analogy to Natural Selection, but it would always remain an analogy. This said, I can imagine that there are universal properties shared between Selection and sorting phenomena at other levels of complexity - to study these would contribute greatly to understanding evolution, of course.

Manfred Eigen and his group focused on selection in macromolecules that are at the edge of life (hypercycle) - maybe they wrote more about this problem. At least, Eigen studied selection from the view of a physical chemist, which would come closer to your perspective.

To sum up, I think the whole debate is fantastic and very important, as it brings together people from different fields and reveals how different the perspectives are!

Cheers

Rainer

Perhaps another suggestion (especially for the German reader): the works of Gerhard Vollmer on evolutionary epistemology and biophilosophy:

https://www.tu-braunschweig.de/philosophie/personen/ehemalige/vollmer

see also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Vollmer

He extensively discusses aspects of emergence, holism vs. reductionism, evolution of the universe, basics of epistemology in the biosciences, as well as naturalism (as a philosophical position) and metaphysics.

Dear Michael and Rainer,

Looking at complex phenomena in nature as emergent properties is completely valid.You could even argue without the slightest opposition from me that natural selection and evolution are emergent properties. However, even the terminology "emergent property" begs a follow up question (particularly from a physicists point of view). That question is "Emergent from what?". A biologist might answer this question something like "Emergent from a tendency of unlimited increases in population, an inherent will to survive, and a fight for resources." However, a physicist will not be satisfied with such an answer. A physicists would say that all material is made up of the same fundamental particles and all fundamental particles, under specific conditions, always interact in the same fundamental manner. Therefore, "Why does some portion of the same material appear to behave in a manner very distinct to that of the rest of the material, i.e. subject to evolution through natural selection?" For a physicist, that is a very interesting question. To a biologist, it may not be so interesting, but I think that both of you will agree that there IS something to study here. That is the fundamental point I am trying to make. A secondary point would be "If we are able to understand how these emergent properties arise out of the fundamental particles, maybe that will tell us more, maybe we could begin to clear up some of the paradoxes, tautologies and problems in Darwin's theory. I am sure that both of you will admit, grudgingly, that there is a lot in Darwinian theory that is not quite in line with its basic postulates. Even some of the basic postulates themselves have been questioned by many biologists.

There is no problem viewing life and evolution as emergent properties, but it sure would be nice to have more fundamental knowledge regarding from exactly what these properties emerged. I think that Prigogine and others have shown just how complex emergent properties can arise from dissipative systems obeying fundamental thermodynamic law, and it is left to us to fill in the details concerning the emergence of life and evolution.

I also believe as you Rainer that this (ResearchGate) is an excellent medium to foment scientific collaboration and integration. I think that science itself may go through a phase transition thanks to this new network. I believe that we should also establish something similar for the political questions of our time as our present system of governance and decision making is terribly archaic in comparison. There are severe global problems that require open and educated discussion which we don't find in the parliament and congresses. How about a "GovernanceGate"?

Dear Karo, I would regard the question "Emergent from what?" as a misunderstanding about the nature of 'emergence':

From the combination and interaction of previous entities something completely _new_ ("more than the sum of its parts") arises which cannot be predicted ex ante from the properties of its constituents (and the laws of nature they appear to follow).

The reason why such predictions concerning the behaviour of emergent systems fail could be the complexity of the matter of study (in relation to our means of cognition) or it could be due to an indeterminacy of the universe itself or both.

Arguably some natural laws of life came into being when life emerged and cannot be reduced to what was present before that time.

Dear Michael,

You seem to take a very pessimistic view of emergent phenomena! Due to our feeble powers of cognition or indeterminacy of the universe? I'm sorry, but I cannot take that as a valid argument. I will remind you that all of thermodynamics deals with emergent phenomena but we (Boltzmann, more than any other) have come to understand its statistical mechanics basis. If we can understand evolution through natural selection from a thermodynamic viewpoint, we will also be able to describe it from a statistical mechanics point of view. I don't doubt that it may be stretching our present intellectual capabilities, but that should not stop us from trying.

Dear Karo,

I agree with you - we should try hard to understand every possible aspect of evolution, also from the perspective of physics. A key point seems to me the distinction between "ahistorical" and "historical" processes in nature. Evolution is often described as a historical process, a sequence of unique events, there are no repetitions. Although I generally agree, I regard evolutionary biology as far beyond a historical science. It has many ahistorical aspects, such as selection theory, population genetics, and biomechanics, for instance. Thermodynamics may add key aspects to this, because it is a physical theory that deals with a one-directional process (entropy), as far as I understand. In this light, I was especially amazed by Prigogines findings how physical phenomena may lead to "historical behaviour" of matter, and this may be another starting point for the search of incipient phases of evolution in the abiotic world.

If we could understand evolutionary processes from a thermodynamic perspective, and formulate it in statistical mechanics of thermodynamics, that would not only be a gain for evolutionary biology, but also strategically bind physics and biology closer together. As scientists we sit in the same boat, and realizing that will be increasingly important in the future.

Dear Karo,

Your criticism of the so called Darwin’s theory is based on some points which are absent in the Darwin’s original publication, but postulated by you. Firstly, “The Origin of Species” was published 154 years ago, when nothing were known about genetics, how the inheritance is working. The first theories of electric current or nuclear structure also were naïve and mostly erroneous, but they allowed to move forward and find more correct modern models. However these modern models are still not final and not absolute, just much more correct comparing to the previous ones. Now the Darwin’s principles are included in modern evolutional theories and references to the Darwin’s original are similar to criticism of the Thomson’s pudding theory for the atomic nucleus.

As well ecology in 1859 was just descriptive science, but now it uses calculations and models, based the interaction of populations. In the popular literature the most widely discussed interaction between population is concurrence (-/-), but in the real nature there’re other interactions like +/-, -/+, +/+, as well 0/0. If you think about species, it is great, but interaction is possible only on the basis of populations, and any models on the “species level” is not working. The interacting populations create dynamic systems, e.g. oscillatory systems and many others.

One of the main fallacy of the evolution theory is the myth about uprising species development, from lower to higher species. Well, the root of this fallacy is easily to find, it is religion. Note the ancient naturalists were religious, and Linnaeus, as well many other biologists sincerely tried to find the divine order in the nature, the hierarchy from primitive protozoans to the higher mammals with the man as a crown. Need I say how it is naïve? All parasites are younger than their hosts, but quite competitive. There’re no higher or lower species, but there’re more or less adopted to their environment species. Thus protozoans and insects are not displaced by mammals or birds and still widely exists.

In a few words the species are just the local extremes on the wide adaptive field. There’re no absolute extremes on this field. As well there no any perfect evolutional process used by every species. Every species reach the own extremes in own way, and these ways are diversified. In this way we find no any problems with the thermodynamics, or other known phenomena.

Also I would like to note every scientific discipline has the own methodology. In spite this specific methodology is based on the overall principles of the universe, it was chosen to fit the specific demands. In chemistry we consider one substance can’t be transformed into another, but in nuclear physics this transformation is “allowed”. So the evolutional theory is the good tool to study the biological diversity, but it’s hard to migrate it into the other disciplines.

Best regards,

Igor

Dear Karo, I was directing at the possibility that something truely new happens in the universe which cannot be predicted because the universe happens to be non-deterministic (in the sense of Heisenberg, "quantum indeterminacy"). Thus there are some phenomena which cannot be understood on the basis of of thermodynamics or statistical mechanics (or any other statistical basis), not because we have not tried hard enough but on principle. Why is that not a valid argument?

As hinted by Rainer evolutionary biologists have long discussed the role of contingency in the origin of life and evolutionary processes. I find likely that there are much more dependencies and interrelationships to be found - such as those suggested by you - but, given the nature of the universe, other phenomena are likely to remain opaque. These might or might not include the origin of mechanisms behind the "will to survive" or other phenomena not covered by conventional models of physics.

Quantum physicists know that the observer affects what he observes, necessarily. Since that has been demonstrated by them at above quantum level, up to molecules, then, quantum mechanics must have had something to do in evolution. Since most scientists are still excluding consciousness from matter and their research, one must admit that darwin's theory is not complete without including what is now known in Quantum physics. Consciousness is not in matter, it controls matter. Medecine shows that often. Then, consciousness must have been the driving force behind evolution. Quantum evolution must be looked in a new may within evolution theory. May be Lamarck had touched on something important already back in his time. Things could have been different if Lyell had correctly evaluation geology back then, which had a strong influence on darwin's theory.

Dear Igor,

Thanks for your comments. I can assure you that I have nothing but the highest respect for Darwin and with what he did his best to demonstrate in his time. Please don't get me wrong, what I am saying is that perhaps its now time to go a little deeper than Darwin and perhaps find a whole new facet of nature that has remained a little obscure until now. To me it seems that thermodynamics is poised to make some gains into understanding what is behind evolution. For example, as Rainer points out, biology has a history. Histories appear in non-linear, non-equilibrium systems in which the system "evolves" induced by microscopic fluctuations through bifurcations and this introduces an irreversibly in evolution. But that is just one of many facts that unite evolution with thermodynamics.

I understand the importance of populations, in fact I have written an article entitled "Thermodynamic Stability of Ecosystems" (available on ResearchGate) which takes a thermodynamic look at the population dynamics of ecosystems based on the assumption that individuals are centers of entropy production and exchange and the usual laws of thermodynamics extended by Prigogine. All of the interesting population dynamics is described by this approach. I have also another article entitled "Prediction of ecosystem response to perturbation based on thermodynamic criteria", in which we describe how thermodynamic criteria can be used to predict which populations are likely to go extinct, for example.

I agree with you that there are no "higher" or "lower" species. I would, however, state that there is a hierarchal relation between species in terms of entropy production. In this structure, I put plants and cyanobacteria at the top (they create by far the most entropy production) and the animals I consider as merely gardeners for the plants and cyanobacteria.

Dear colleagues,

I believe that Evolutionary Theory (ET) will never be complete, because the structure of the theory is essentially different from that of physical theories. At the moment, ET is expanding, struggling to include development, genetic regulation, and systems biology (among others). There are major battles about these points, ranging from hostilities to open embracing of new ideas.

The expansion will change the theory profoundly, but it will ADD to it, not change the whole structure. Any new aspect has to tackle the two querstions: (1) why is the new aspect a real factor, affecting the change of allele frequencies in a population, and (2) how does the new factor interfere with selection?

I think that a major step to take will be a Theory of the Organism (which proximate processes shape an organism, what are the causal factors behind morphology?).

Cheers

Rainer

Rarely ever do i disagree with a hypotheses as fundamentally as i have to on this topic, which doesn't mean it is an invalid or non-value-added discussion. But in this case i think there is a fundamental misinterpretation of what darwin was seeking to articulate. Or explain. 1) nothing can be obtained from the theory regarding the origin of life, - did darwin seek to answer that question? If he didn't, then the fact that he doesn't explain it doesn't mean the theory is incomplete or inconsistent it just means it may not explain something that you want to see explained. If we accept that the purpose of life is procreation then even chemical evolution is explained by darwin 2) the inherent "will to survive" of the individuals is not explained i think it is perfectly consistent if you allow for the possiblity that the sole purpose of life is procreation (isn"t the ability to repicate the origin of chemical and susbequently biological life?) then it makes perfect sense that the individual with a strong will to survive is superior to the one that doesn't and matter of fact a prerequisite, only an alive entity can procreate, 3) the paradox of the first tier (gould) ... Contrary to darwinian logic, the most simplest primitive organisms have not given up their vast kingdom on earth to more complex organisms, where did darwin say that the more complex organism is superior? It is the most adaptable organism that is superior and will hence retain the ability to procreate and survive 4) apparently useless free energy consuming processes, such as transpiration, have not been eliminated darwin made no claim about the completeness of the evolutionary process, it is religion that claims we are the pinnacle, not darwin. We cannot predict what evolution will create (or eliminate) next, but we know that transpiration plays an important role in our ability to manage our body temperature which in turn is vital to our ability to procreate an hence i would not declare them useless. Life in itself is a free energy consuming process as it is a continuous entropy generating machine. Life destroys order in the universe by creating higher order structures at the expense of the rest of the universe. There are authors that claim that generating entropy is the sole purpose of life.

Dear Achim,

I am very aware of what Darwin's goals were and what limitations with respect to scientific understanding existed in his days. That is not my point and you certainly don't have to defend him against me. I am his number one fan. I even have a dog named after him.

What I am saying is that it is now time for a deeper look at evolution through natural selection. A more fundamental theory is now needed to accommodate all of the problems and paradoxes that have arisen. 1) Any such new theory should at least attempt to deal with the question of the origin of life, 2) "will to survive", "procreation" whatever you want to focus on, should be explainable from within the new framework, preferably based on the fundamental laws of nature, 3) "the most adaptable" should also be defined on the basis of these laws, 4) I was referring to "evapotranspiration" in plants... careful studies have shown that it is evapotranspiration (and therefore entropy production through photon dissipation) and not photosynthesis which is maximized in plants and cyanobacteria. Biologists have spent thousands of papers theorizing on how this or that plant characteristic optimizes photosynthesis supposedly in accordance with Darwinian theory. However, the empirical evidence is not in accord with this supposition. More than anything else, plants dissipate photons and that is what they always optimize if external conditions are changed.

I am glad that at the end of your narrative you found a place for entropy production. I am one of those authors that claim that the sole purpose of life is generating entropy.

Karo, I apologize if my post came on a little strong. I have seen Darwin being challenged from all sorts of obscure directions. Just recently I found myself in the middle of a bible study group that concluded that the second law of thermodynamics proves that evolution is impossible and creationism explains it all.....HELLLLLP. But I sense we are on the same page here. In my humble opinion selection is not happening on the level of individual organisms but on a systems level meaning creatures that by themselves may have no justification for existence obtain such justification from their role in the system. The system selects them (fosters their existence) since they provide a benefit to the systems ability to continue and possible increase its entropy production. With that we need to consider the time horizon of our observations. The fact that a species exists does not mean it has been selected, it may just mean it may not yet have been deselected. The race is on, time will tell, either adapt fast enough or disappear. Many species have evolved themselves into extinction. Whether a system as simple as WATOR or the human race, the system calls the shots. The other possibility of course is that we have not grasped the interactions in the system and have not found the beneficiary of what we observe that seems to contradict. I am typically very cautious to declare theories incomplete or invalid just because we find examples that we (within our limitations) cannot yet explain using existing theories or constructs.

Dear Robert, Michael and colleagues,

I apologize for what I am about to do, cutting and pasting from Wikipedia, but I think that it summarizes very well what Popper thought, and how his thoughts changed over time, about evolution through natural selection. Based on the following, I think that I can fairly state that Popper, even towards the end of his life, concluded that modern (in his time) neo-Darwinism (with the addition of genetics, mutations and swapping of genes, etc.) was not complete and that pursuit of a more encompassing theory was certainly worthwhile. Popper had his own ideas of a more encompassing theory, for example, suggesting that evolution was "goal oriented" (I have to agree with him here). It is dangerous to give to much heed to a single person, but anyway, since we are on the topic, here it is, from Wikipedia, Popper; (for references, see the original Wikipedia article)

[Popper] stated "Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research program—a possible framework for testable scientific theories." He continued:

And yet, the theory is invaluable. I do not see how, without it, our knowledge could have grown as it has done since Darwin. In trying to explain experiments with bacteria which become adapted to, say, penicillin, it is quite clear that we are greatly helped by the theory of natural selection. Although it is metaphysical, it sheds much light upon very concrete and very practical researches. It allows us to study adaptation to a new environment (such as a penicillin-infested environment) in a rational way: it suggests the existence of a mechanism of adaptation, and it allows us even to study in detail the mechanism at work.[36]

He also noted that theism, presented as explaining adaptation, "was worse than an open admission of failure, for it created the impression that an ultimate explanation had been reached".[37]

Popper later said:

When speaking here of Darwinism, I shall speak always of today's theory—that is Darwin's own theory of natural selection supported by the Mendelian theory of heredity, by the theory of the mutation and recombination of genes in a gene pool, and by the decoded genetic code. This is an immensely impressive and powerful theory. The claim that it completely explains evolution is of course a bold claim, and very far from being established. All scientific theories are conjectures, even those that have successfully passed many severe and varied tests. The Mendelian underpinning of modern Darwinism has been well tested, and so has the theory of evolution which says that all terrestrial life has evolved from a few primitive unicellular organisms, possibly even from one single organism.[37]

He explained that the difficulty of testing had led some people to describe natural selection as a tautology, and that he too had in the past described the theory as 'almost tautological', and had tried to explain how the theory could be untestable (as is a tautology) and yet of great scientific interest:

My solution was that the doctrine of natural selection is a most successful metaphysical research programme. It raises detailed problems in many fields, and it tells us what we would expect of an acceptable solution of these problems. I still believe that natural selection works in this way as a research programme. Nevertheless, I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation.[37]

Popper summarized his new view as follows:

The theory of natural selection may be so formulated that it is far from tautological. In this case it is not only testable, but it turns out to be not strictly universally true. There seem to be exceptions, as with so many biological theories; and considering the random character of the variations on which natural selection operates, the occurrence of exceptions is not surprising. Thus not all phenomena of evolution are explained by natural selection alone. Yet in every particular case it is a challenging research program to show how far natural selection can possibly be held responsible for the evolution of a particular organ or behavioral program.[38]

These frequently quoted passages are only a very small part of what Popper wrote on the issue of evolution, however, and give the wrong impression that he mainly discussed questions of its falsifiability. Popper never invented this criterion to give justifiable use of words like science. In fact, Popper says at the beginning of Logic of Scientific Discovery that it is not his aim to define science, and that science can in fact be defined quite arbitrarily.

Popper had his own sophisticated views on evolution that go much beyond what the frequently-quoted passages say.[39] In effect, Popper agreed with some of the points of both creationists and naturalists, but also disagreed with both views on crucial aspects. Popper understood the universe as a creative entity that invents new things, including life, but without the necessity of something like a god, especially not one who is pulling strings from behind the curtain. He said that evolution must, as the creationists say, work in a goal-directed way[40] but disagreed with their view that it must necessarily be the hand of god that imposes these goals onto the stage of life.

Instead, he formulated the spearhead model of evolution, a version of genetic pluralism. According to this model, living organisms themselves have goals, and act according to these goals, each guided by a central control. In its most sophisticated form, this is the brain of humans, but controls also exist in much less sophisticated ways for species of lower complexity, such as the amoeba. This control organ plays a special role in evolution—it is the "spearhead of evolution". The goals bring the purpose into the world. Mutations in the genes that determine the structure of the control may then cause drastic changes in behaviour, preferences and goals, without having an impact on the organism's phenotype. Popper postulates that such purely behavioural changes are less likely to be lethal for the organism compared to drastic changes of the phenotype.[41]

Popper contrasts his views with the notion of the "hopeful monster" that has large phenotype mutations and calls it the "hopeful behavioural monster". After behaviour has changed radically, small but quick changes of the phenotype follow to make the organism fitter to its changed goals. This way it looks as if the phenotype were changing guided by some invisible hand, while it is merely natural selection working in combination with the new behaviour. For example, according to this hypothesis, the eating habits of the giraffe must have changed before its elongated neck evolved. Popper contrasted this view as evolution from within or active Darwinism (the organism actively trying to discover new ways of life and being on a quest for conquering new ecological niches),[42][43] with the naturalistic evolution from without (which has the picture of a hostile environment only trying to kill the mostly passive organism, or perhaps segregate some of its groups).

Dear Achim,

I could not agree more. I believe that it is "systems selection" based on entropy production. I would call the system the "biosphere including its abiotic components", e.g. the water cycle. By the way, Boltzmann was aware of this only 27 years after the publication of "On the origin of species". Now we just have to work out the details.

I still wonder whether Popper's uneasiness with a darwinistic 'law' of natural history comes from his critique and decline of Hegel's and Marx' historicism for human history (in "The open society and its enemies"). If so he would have neither been happy with explaining biological evolution as a historical process through the laws of thermodynamics...

Achim i sympathise, you wrote: "Just recently I found myself in the middle of a bible study group that concluded that the second law of thermodynamics proves that evolution is impossible and creationism explains it all.....HELLLLLP." Clearly the bible study group does not understand non-equilibrium thermodynamics as articulated by Prigogine and others, otherwise they would not have come to an incorrect conclusion.

Karo, thank you for initiating a stimulating discussion. I am off to read your papers and then I'll be back to participate in this discussion. Meanwhile I shall leave the participants of the discussion with these thoughts. Darwin's Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection is not complete in the sense that sources of variation on which Natural Selection acts arise through random events, e.g. mutation and genetic drift and non-random events,e.g. directed mutation and self organisation.

i find it interesting that Neo-Darwinists focused on the role of competition in evolution articulated in "The Origin of Species", but ignored Darwin's focus on the role of cooperation articulated in "The Descent of Man". Consider the veracity of the following statement - if it were not for cooperation as an evolutionary process, life would not have evolved. If quarks did not self-organise (cooperate) and form protons, neutrons etc and protons, neutrons and electrons did not self organise and form atoms and so on there would be no macromolecules such as DNA, RNA, proteins. Cell organelles would not exist, cells would not exist and therefore life would not exist. In fact, there would be no structure in the abiotic portion of the universe.

Darwin's Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection as it stands today, is a small part of an extended synthesis that integrates thermodynamics, evo-devo, ecology etc that is making inroads into our understanding of possible mechanisms for the origins of life.

You are completely right Kees. There is so much "cooperative structuring" going on, from ecosystem succession, biology catalysing the water cycle, to the spread of living organisms over the entire surface of earth, that just can't be explained by random mutation and a selection based on a tautological "fitness function" which assumes a metaphysical "will to survive". The only reasonable hypothesis is that material, biotic, abiotic and coupled biotic-abiotic, is organizing to dissipate a generalized thermodynamic potential, the solar photon flux. We need more evolutionists like like you with a real understanding of non-equilibrium thermodynamics in order to make progress.

Dear Robert. Thanks for your very interesting comments and sorry for this late reply. First, plants, of course, also employ strategies to maximize their survivability, such as producing insect toxins, closing their stoma under low humidity conditions, etc. However, what I was referring to with regards to the "will to survive unexplained" is not the employment of these individual strategies of survival (which, I will grant you, basing your reasoning on Darwinian theory, must have arisen through natural selection), but more generally the "reason" behind the employment of these strategies. Under percepts Darwinian theory, one has to accept a number of unexplained ingredients; first that the origin of life was an extraordinary event, the nature of which cannot be addressed by the theory itself, second, one also has to accept (and this is where I refer to the "metaphysical will to survive") that life has an "interest" in maintaining itself alive. Why should it bother with the struggle? You say that if it doesn't it will die. But I say "So what, it dies, all life dies, and what's the problem?" Life on a planet is not some kind of inherent characteristic like the spin of an electron.

The thermodynamic dissipation theory of life says that life arose as a structuring of material to dissipate an external thermodynamic potential, the solar photon flux. Another example is a hurricane arising to dissipate the temperature gradient between the hot ocean surface and the cold upper atmosphere. Life (through a number of hierarchical structures) is completely reliant on this external potential and everything life does (including persistence, proliferation, and evolution) will be in response to either maintaining or increasing the dissipation of that external potential. The time stability of the living system is increased as the rate of dissipation increases. We have evidence for this in the succession of ecosystems, for example. The "inherent will to survive" is not something dwelling in the living organism itself, but conferred to it by the existence of the external potential and the percepts of non-equilibrium thermodynamics, in particular, the second law of thermodynamics with its imperative to dissipate external potentials.

With regard to Gould's "paradox of the first tier", from the thermodynamic viewpoint, the organisms which are doing most of the dissipation are the cianobacteria and the plants. They are the ones absorbing and dissipating the solar photons. Therefore, the simplest organisms should never surrender their vast kingdom. In my view, "higher order" animals are here only to help the simplest organisms do their dissipation. We spread nutrients for them and spread their seeds. A lot of problems and paradoxes in evolutionary theory can be resolved from the thermodynamic perspective. Regards, Karo.

Hi Karo, I really like your explanation to Robert, it is clear and very much to the point. Your last paragraph touches on a question that some biologists have asked elsewhere. To paraphrase the question if there is a trend to increasing complexity why is it that single celled organisms have not become more complex? As you point out the organisms that are doing most of the dissipating of energy are the cyanobacteria and plants. there are vast niches filled by prokaryotes that 1. trap and convert solar photons to chemically stored energy which is then dissipated, 2. convert heat energy to chemically stored energy (around deep sea vents), or 3. decompose dead organisms making their chemical components available which other organisms use thereby completing the loop so that life can continue. they play a fundamental role in maintaining the ecological hierarchy of more complex organisms which literally feed off their products of their activities- the point that Robert makes above. therefore, I agree with your view Karo that "higher order" organisms help the simpler organisms in dissipating energy. So I do not view the fact that every age of life on earth has been the Age of Bacteria as a paradox. From a thermodynamic perspective there is no paradox.

I agree that a thermodynamic perspective resolves many problems and paradoxes in evolutionary biology. It helps provide the theatre for the evolutionary play to coin Hutchinson's metaphor. Ecology is really the economics of biology. Organisms obtain resources ( in this case energy and nutrients) from their environment and use those resources in growing, reproducing, developing etc. Lotka (1922 PNAS) argued that those organisms that can access the energy in the environment and use that to increase their numbers and increase the total energy flow through the ecosystem are favoured by natural selection. That's the broad picture and within that there are the details e.g. hereditary, life history strategies, survival of the fittest, speciation etc. Darwin's theory of Evolution by Natural Selection is not under threat, it simply is being given a much firmer basis by integrating it into a network of theories including thermodynamics, network theory, complexity theory and so on. Evolutionary theory is being placed in a more appropriate context. That is making Evolutionary Theory far more robust from a Popperian perspective.

I'm not a biologist but from what I know about the theory of evolution, I think I can answer 3 of your comments:

1/ The theory of evolution deals with the diversification of the forms of life, not how they appeared

2/ The inherent will to survive is (I think) what evolutionary theory explains best, because it seems obvious that any life form that for some reason does not have an inherent will to survive will quickly die out. So of course, all the life forms we see today most probably have an inherent will to live because if they didn't they wouldn't be here.

4/ I've seen a documentary where I've learned that transpiration was a way to cool off the body during physical effort. Organisms that sweat are more endurant - while running under the sun, having water on your skin lowers your body temperature.

To answer your question about the completion and the consistency of the theory, from what I know there are still unexplained facts, but so far there's no better scientific theory to answer the diversification of life forms.

I agree with your last sentence though.

It is not that I object to Darwin's theory, or even the last comment, but the word "will" (either verb or noun) leaves me with a certain non-scientific after-taste. This small issue is especially interesting to address in conjunction with the newest attempt to bridge the gap between biological and non-living objects described in the recent Scientific American issue where someone (forgot the name, sorry) is trying to see whether life starts as a more advanced (effective) way to dissipate the incoming energy than is available to the simpler systems in accord with the principles of non-equilibrium thermodynamics.

Dear Alex, for the original work on the connection between energy dissipation and the origin of life, please see my paper entitled "Thermodynamic Dissipation Theory for the Origin of Life" available on ResearchGate.

Dear Karo,

I have done the first (admittedly superficial) reading of your excellent article and I intend to go back to it for a more through reading. In the mean time I would like to continue in the line of thought I proposed in my previous comment. The way to "explain" the origin of life through physics and chemistry has a long and respectable tradition which seems to be on the right path as your article clearly demonstrates. However, the Darwin's formulation of the development through competition is still sits where it has always been - invoking "will to survive" with the collateral, but often missed controversy between the will to survive individually and as a species. I am not an expert by a long stretch in these matters, but reading popular literature on the subject did not help me to accept that theory as totally free of non-physical drive in the background...Can non-equilibrium thermodynamics, or information theory help?

Dear Alex and Robert,

First, thanks for the kind comments on my article. Here is my attempt to answer your questions.

When a physical-chemical system is taken out of equilibrium by placing an external generalized chemical potential (eg. temperature gradient, photon potential, etc.) over the system, and if the gradient of the potential is large (such that there develops a non-linear relation between the flows and forces (eg flow of heat not linearly proportional to the temperature gradient), then one can show that there are many solutions (stable, or, stationary states) allowed for the "dynamics" of the system. This should not be surprising since there are generally many solutions available for non-linear equations.

It turns out that these "stationary solutions" can look macroscopically quite different (for example a convection cell with the hottest liquid rising in the center, or the hottest liquid rising at the edges). It also turns out that each one of these stationary states can have a different entropy production rate. In other words, their ability to dissipate the external potential is different. For example, the convection cell with the hottest liquid rising in the center is more efficient at moving heat from the cold surface to the hot surface than is the convection cell with the hottest liquid rising at the edges of the cell. It is therefore producing more entropy than the latter.

Needless to say that these cells form spontaneously and in which stationary state they are in at any particular moment depends on the microscopic initial conditions and the history of whatever microscopic external perturbation. Something which is simply unpredictable. However, there seems to be a global (whole Earth level) tendency to stationary states of ever greater entropy production. Why this happens has still not been derived from first principles (it is an open research project) but there is much empirical evidence, for example in succession in ecosystems (I note other examples in my article).

This evolution to higher global entropy production is know to biologists as "biological evolution" and its existence is beyond question. That the biosphere on Earth has globally augmented the dissipation of the solar photon potential (augmented entropy production) over time through the process of evolution is also beyond question (see papers by Ulanowicz and Zotin referenced in my article). We (Aleksander Simeonov and I) also have a paper on this that we will make available shortly.

To answer Robert's question directly; It is not that organisms are "motivated" to dissipate an external potential, but rather that organisms are the evolutionary end products of molecular configurations that arose spontaneously to dissipate the Archean photon potential (biased towards the UV) . Just in the same way that a hurricane or tornado arises spontaneously to dissipate a temperature gradient. As I suggest in the article, the first molecular configurations could have been RNA/DNA coupled to aromatic amino acids as these all absorb and dissipate very strongly at 260nm, just where Carl Sagan predicted a window in Earth's early atmosphere (see my article for details). Since then, evolution has caused an increase in the photon absorption cross-section with respect to pigment size, a proliferation of the pigments, an increase in the wavelength range of the absorption pigments to cover ever more of the Sun's spectrum, and a dispersion of these pigments over almost the entire Earth surface (attributable to insects and animals, see article). All of these actions, which in my view succinctly defines biological evolution, has led to greater entropy production of the Earth in its solar environment (under the solar photon potential). Indeed, it can be said that increases in entropy production is the driving force behind the origin, persistence and evolution of life. Every planet has its own system of photon dissipation which depends exquisitely on the available material and initial conditions. On Earth it is life, but on Venus it is convection cells including the great southern vortex.

Hi Karo and Robert,

Frankly, I find this subject still wanting more understanding, and I am grateful to Karo for explaining the current situation in clear and scientifically valid terms. And yet I cannot help of having difficulty in comprehending the rise of natural selection process under the "pressure" of excess energy. Some feedback mechanism seems to be lacking. It is not a rhetorical question on my part, and I am not even sure whether it is asked in the right terms...

Anyway, thank you for your interesting answer

Hi Alex,

Natural selection is not directed by excess energy but rather by entropy production. In a physical sense entropy production can be related to the dispersal of the conserved thermodynamic quantities (energy, momentum, angular momentum, etc.) over ever more microscopic degrees of freedom. Life is the structuring of matter in space and time that aids in that process. I agree, its not initially easy to comprehend that but it can be measured, and has been measured. Perhaps a simpler approach is to first try to understand why a hurricane forms and evolves.

The hierarchical thermodynamics is the fundament of Darwin and Wallace evolution

Georgi P. Gladyshev (2015). Natural Selection and Thermodynamics of Biological Evolution. Natural Science, 7, No 5 117-126 Published Online March 2015 Pub. Date: March 9, 2015

DOI: 10.4236/ns.2015.73013 http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ns.2015.73013

Georgi P. Gladyshev (2015). Thermodynamics of Aging and Heredity. Natural Science, 7, No 5 270-286  Published Online May 2015  http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ns.2015.75031

http://www.scirp.org/journal/ns

Dear colleagues,

I am sending you the short resume about the foundation of extended Darwinism from the viewpoint of hierarchical thermodynamics..

However, in order to avoid confusion, it should be noted that this resume shows the individual results concerning the hierarchical thermodynamics. This thermodynamics is the quasi-equilibrium linear dynamic thermodynamics created by author. The hierarchical thermodynamics of author has nothing to do with thermodynamics of systems of far from equilibrium of Prigogine which (the theory) does not apply to the origin and the evolutionary development of the living world, and which, in my opinion, is a misguided theory. This theory has only historical significance.

 The hierarchic thermodynamic theory of evolution - New Way – to extend Darwinism 10.13140/RG.2.2.20588.56967

 It is a brief explanation for the third way's evolutionists. I hope that submitted a brief explanation will help the biologists to assess the possibility of thermodynamics for the development of theory of evolution (and aging). See: The Third Way web  http://www.thethirdwayofevolution.com

Modern thermodynamics investigates the spontaneous and also the nonspontaneous evolutionary processes in biological systems. The hierarchical thermodynamics is the foundation of extended Darwinism. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ns.2015.73013

Spontaneous transformation of structures within each hierarchy systems proceeds according to the second law of thermodynamics. These processes are predictable.

Nonspontaneous transformation of structures within the framework of each hierarchy is initiated by actions of environmental. These transformations as result of changing environmental influences can be unpredictable.

Environment of systems of each hierarchy it is structures of other hierarchies. However, in the absence of revolutionary changes and with relatively small fluctuations of environmental conditions that occur in the adaptive area, the general evolutional trend of second law takes place. In this case, the driving force of evolution processes, first of all, is the thermodynamics of spontaneous transformations in biological systems: nature searches the minimums of the specific free energies of formation of structures at all hierarchical levels.

It is very important to draw the attention that any theory of biological evolution (and also the theory of aging of living organisms) should be based on thermodynamics phenomena.

According to my hierarchical thermodynamic theory of evolution, the origin of life and evolution proceeds in accordance with the second law (the spontaneous processes in chemical and biological systems) on the background of a changing environment (the nonspontaneous processes in systems that are initiated by the environment). All processes of evolution are taken into account by the advanced hierarchical generalized Gibbs equation (the generalized equation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics). If the action of the environment are outside the area of adaptive existence of organisms (living systems), there is a gap evolutionary spiral. This may lead to the disappearance of life. For example, such a revolutionary (a non-evolutionary) phenomenon was observed in the extinction of the dinosaurs.

The thermodynamic theory of evolution claims that Darwin and Lamarck both right.

How to develop the theory of Darwin

Darwin's theory is a general descriptive theory. It is based, first of all, on the common notions of "a variation and a selection", which, incidentally, act at all hierarchical levels of living systems. To describe the evolution from the viewpoint of these positions it is necessary to apply this Darwinian approach separately only to the individual structural hierarchy of living systems and organisms. In other words we need to study the evolution of objects of the same type (molecules, organelles, cells, organisms, populations, and so on.) The investigation of behavior of no identical objects with scientific position has no physical meaning. Darwin's theory is not an exact theory. This theory may only indicate "the general thermodynamic mechanism" (the thermodynamic tendency) of the individual processes. The application of demands which we use to the study of simple systems to the Darwin's theory does not make sense. General concepts on "a variation and a selection" have proven themselves in their application to the study of similar systems and processes, for example, in relation to the chemical evolution. The discussion of Darwin's theory only from the viewpoint of generalized biology position, in my opinion, cannot contribute to the development of the theory. The hierarchical thermodynamics is the foundation of expanded theory of Darwin.

Without dissection of complex phenomena into simple components we cannot use the scientific methods. The scientists of exact physical sciences know about this circumstance.

Dear colleagues,

I would like to draw your attention that the driving force of chemical and biological evolution is the hierarchical thermodynamics and the principle of substance stability. The principle of "variation and selection" applies both chemical and biological evolution. Supramolecular thermodynamics is a key to understanding phenomena of the origin of life and its evolution. Without knowledge of physical chemistry is impossible to understand these phenomena from the perspective of the natural sciences!

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Georgi

Georgi thank you for the insights and the articles and website of the third way of evolution. It does host an impressive array of people. Need time to digest what you have brought to my attention. I am thinking in terms of non-equilibrium thermodynamics and its associated processes such as self organisation. I have been incorporating evo devo into this model including epigenetics and inheritance of acquired characteristics a la Ted Steele and Mae Wan Ho (whom I notice is one of the people associated with the third way).  You are saying there is more. So I am looking forward to reading and learning more. Thanks for the opportunity to do so!!

regards Kees

Dear Kees,

Thanks!

Sincerely,

Georgi

The words used by Darwin such as "Natural Selection" and "Survival of the fittest" are so elusive and abstract that they leave a lot of unknowns left not clarified. So many papers and discussion is there on their application to even human behavior creating more confusion than clarity. Each case presented by these scientists is with examples which fit the Darwin's theory and no deviations are being discussed for reasons unknown to people like me. Blind application of this theory is going on as though it is a scripture or Veda that can not have deficiencies or deviations at all. Surprisingly, we do not find any improvements or advancements to this theory till today!

Yes Kameswara, I agree, before claiming that a theory is complete or even consistent, it is necessary to support its postulates on the basis of physical and chemical law. Most Darwinists are either hostile or oblivious to such attempts. This leads to much vagueness and ambiguity and students are expected to simply swallow the dogma.

Excellent Mr Karo, This is the way theory changes. As it changes always in history. 1st every theory is accepted. Then exception comes. Too much exceptions accumulate and changes existing theory to new theory. Darwin's theory didn't compatible with paleontology, neither with molecular genetics and tree of life fails. We need to think further.

Please join the discussion at:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Do_you_believe_in_the_Theory_of_Evolution#answers

Neither "natural selection" at the macroscopic level, nor "molecular stability" at the microscopic level can explain complexation (i.e. the build up on molecular complexity seen in biology). The only physical-chemical process that does explain complexation is "dissipative structuring" ;

.Article Microscopic Dissipative Structuring and Proliferation at the...