Dear Anatoly,

I think you re asking for an instant transplant of all the information in a biology degree to your brain by internet chat forum. I am afraid there is a lot to learn. It is all there but it takes most people about three years full time work - and that's just the rough outline. There is no striving to survive. This is a myth dreamt up by popular science. Mangrove trees never strive. I have never thought of myself as striving to survive. I just did - thanks to some reflexes when I nearly fell in front of a bus, felt hungry etc.

The basic message of Wallace (the real genius) and Darwin (the rich man with connections) was that your sort of teleological question is redundant. No experiments were done but making teleology redundant is such a huge step in heuristic parsimony that it has to be the favourite way forward.

The survival part certainly isn't random. Creatures survive and reproduce because they have traits that are advantageous in their environment.

I think it helps to frame the question in a different way. We can only observe species that "stay around for long", i.e. that successfully reproduce. Reproduction requires survival and survival requires adaptation to the environment - and also, at least for more complex creatures, survival requires behavior patterns that promote it.

Thus, an apparent will to survive is not a requirement, but a necessary result of evolution by natural selection.

It is also important to remember that success - when it comes to natural selection - doesn't imply survival of the individual, but capacity to pass on genetic material to the next generation. This is explained very nicely in Richard Dawkins early books (The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker come to mind).

A physical force that explicitly creates a will to survive is thus not necessary. I also think it would be a gross simplification and a "categorical mistake". Force is something that has a narrow meaning and a precise definition in physics, but the word is used very loosely in everyday language. In my opinion, talking about physical forces in psychology or in behavioral science in a non-trivial way doesn't make sense.

By the way, there is something called "genetic algorithms" in computer science. They mimic evolution by natural selection - and surprisingly, often find solutions to problems that look like they were explicitly and cleverly designed but in fact are the result of random changes and selection. Surprisingly, genetic algorithms are often highly efficient too.

But how the cell learned to reproduce himself? Is it natural selection?

   Obviously the cell cannot learn in the sense that we understand for such concept. The cell only tries to feed himself and just divides to create more cells. But if you go to animals with a nervous system, it is true that the male and the female are attracted as if there were an external condition, although we know that that is no the case. What happens is that our hormones do the work even against the inteligence or what could be thought as "learning".

  Darwin only explained one fact and how the evolution worked, but the genetic which was behind that, is even today far of being clear. The important thing is that he opened the book for looking it, without entering in the old beliefs which didn't allowed a scientific search. 

Dear Sirs,

You did not answer the question (sorry, in hurry I did not choose right words). How did the natural selection generate the cell division (cell reproduction)? Could you explain even why DNA replicates itself?

    Dear Anatoly,

   I'm not a specialist in genetic and less in cytokinesis to explain how is the splitting of the daughter cells is made. What I know is that mitosis is the division of the nucleus, while the cytokinesis is the splitting of the cytoplasm and allocation of the golgi, plastids and cytoplasm into each new cell.

   I suppose that this mechanism is not easy to fully understand because the cancer tumors are still without basic solution. But it seems logic to think that this is one of the informations contained in the DNA of the cell. Obviously all this knowledge is very far of the concepts employed by Darwin and this was all that I tried to say before.

Dear Anatoly,

I think you re asking for an instant transplant of all the information in a biology degree to your brain by internet chat forum. I am afraid there is a lot to learn. It is all there but it takes most people about three years full time work - and that's just the rough outline. There is no striving to survive. This is a myth dreamt up by popular science. Mangrove trees never strive. I have never thought of myself as striving to survive. I just did - thanks to some reflexes when I nearly fell in front of a bus, felt hungry etc.

The basic message of Wallace (the real genius) and Darwin (the rich man with connections) was that your sort of teleological question is redundant. No experiments were done but making teleology redundant is such a huge step in heuristic parsimony that it has to be the favourite way forward.

Dear Anatoly,

You asked nicely and this is not fantastic if exist physical forces that may manage an evolution of living creatures. I think this is correct. Cell survive associates to the 1st cell division which creates a cell asymmetry and that creates the conception of cell differentiation, self-renewal, and cell evolution.  The forces that are engaged between the spatial properties of the physical and functional boundaries of a cell drive cell destiny.  The spatial properties of cell compartments control cell function and particularly cell signaling, and that observation introduced Molecular Chorobiology as novel discipline.

Below a recent reference on cell asymmetry and cell properties.   

Metabolic maintenance of cell asymmetry following division in activated T lymphocytes

Nature 532, 389–393 (21 April 2016) doi:10.1038/nature17442

Dear Sirs,

I do not understand clearly the Darwin`s natural selection hypothesis (or theory). Could you shortly and popularly explain me it? I have the following question. Did anybody estimate the time needed for the Darwin`s evolution of any living creature (e.g. virus or simpler organism or even DNA or other molecules which living creatures consist of)?   

Dear Anatoly,

A short and popular explanation of Darwin's theory is guaranteed to be misleading. If you wish to be an educated man then the least you can do is buy a copy of The Origin of Species and read it. It is not very long but is badly written and full of mistakes so the main thing you will learn is that Darwin did not really hold the theory often attributed to him. Wallace was a much better scientist. 

Moreover, until DNA was understood the mechanisms involved in evolution (the forces you are asking about) were completely mysterious. All Wallace and Darwin revealed was that if some mechanism exists for copying genetic information very reliably, but with occasional mistakes, then evolution can be expected to occur without needing God or magic forces. In fact people had been saying this for centuries but respectable pious society had not caught up with it.

Natural selection is not the core of the idea. Darwin was wrong about that. It does not cause evolution. Evolution is just the playing out of a set of chemical reactions that lead to very reliable but not completely reliable copying of complex patterns. Natural selection explains why some patterns are to be found and not others in our finite resource biosphere. But it probably slows down the rate of evolution hugely. 

I should probably stop there because I have probably already confused yo totally. The key point is that the explanation you need is very complicated and can be understood if you study biology for several years but not otherwise. You are asking the equivalent of being told how to write Greek poetry without first learning Greek.

Perhaps the real answer to your question is that yes we do know what 'force' drives this all. It is the probability based pattern of exchange of energy between electron orbitals now given in detail by quantum theory. Everything is biology is driven by two electron orbitals meeting and transforming into two new orbitals (to grossly simplify) according to rules of thermodynamics.

The question about estimating the time needed to generate a species by evolution is one that many people have tried to address but contains too many unknowns for anyone to expect a reliable answer. What may be more illuminating is asking how much time might be needed to evolve an eye. The interesting thing there is that eyes appear to have evolved something like seven separate times in the last billion years. That suggests that the time needed to have a 50:50 chance of evolving an eye, given a cellular structure might be a few million years. 

In terms of how long it takes to synthesis the genome of a virus I suspect a PCR machine would do that overnight.

@Jonathan,

You wrote, « Perhaps the real answer to your question is that yes we do know what 'force' drives this all. It is the probability based pattern of exchange of energy between electron orbitals now given in detail by quantum theory”. 

I personally do not see such probability based pattern.  Life and Evolution are very well organized and they are based on well-established spatial patterns including chromatin/DNA organization, signal coordination, and cell response.  The physical forces that affect/control these three life elements accordingly control evolution.   

As you correctly said “given a cellular structure” eye evolution might be a few million years.

Dear Vassilis,

The three processes you mention all arise from chemistry. All chemistry is based on transitions between electron orbital modes (and 'free modes' etc.). Those transitions are inherently probabilistic. If you excite a fluorescein molecule with UV light it will take up a photon and undergo a transition to a new electron state - maybe, maybe not. And a photon of around 515 nanometers will be emitted at some time soon but on the basis of probability. All this probability tends to even out in biology but it reappears in evolution with random changes in DNA, as in translocations in meiosis, or mutations due to activation induced deaminase. 

So probabilistic laws determine evolution but I am not sure in what sense they 'control' it. Control tends to imply prediction and feedback servo systems. Evolution has none of those.

   "So probabilistic laws determine evolution but I am not sure in what sense they 'control' it. Control tends to imply prediction and feedback servo systems. Evolution has none of those"..

   The control is the environment as Darwin said. This is the main idea of the evolution. There is a mutation in the DNA reproduction which only fits in the necessary conditions for being successful

Dear Jonathan,

The three processes chromatin/DNA, signal, and response certainly imply/arise from chemistry as you very correctly said.  In addition to chemistry, I also think that they depend on Geometry and spatial conception (what I call Choros).  In example, the double helix, the signal coordination, and the spatial positioning of cell response, all these elements have a spatial order. The “hesitation state” that you described “maybe, maybe not”, the probabilistic laws, yes, they may describe the Yes or No answer to a compilation of events which result to the translation of source code into a new step/object state. But the probabilistic laws are just an event established into a geometrical and spatial conception that underline the translation events of life and evolution. 

I agree that control implies prediction and feedback systems and in that sense Evolution should engage both control and feedback systems. What we observe in Evolution is only the translation of source code into a new step/object state.  We just detect the new object state and in that sense we talk for “Evolution”. The control and feedback systems we need to imagine or experimentally observe them.

If, Space controls chromatin/DNA, signal, and cell response then the physical forces that are engaged and control the spatial properties of the physical and functional boundaries of a cell should drive cell destiny.

Dear Sirs,

As I understood the main idea of natural selection theory is that if the creature can reproduce itself so random mistakes of DNA replication together with the environment create the future creature. Could you give ANY experimental confirmations, facts of the above hypothesis. Any scientific theory have to be confirmed by experiments!

No problem Anatoly,

The entire corpus of the field of genetics provides experimental confirmation. We can observe new mutations in progeny, similarities across species and genera etc etc. What is found in genetics would make more or less no sense at all without the current post Wallace/Darwin theoretical model. Why would we share 98% of DNA sequence with chimps if we did not have a common ancestry. Why do whales have DNA that looks like mammals but not fish, despite looking like fish? We can even observe the emergence of new species like Townsend's cordgrass. Mutations in genes controlling skin melanin allowed the emergence of the fair Scandinavian races only a few thousand years ago - in response to the ability to grow cereals far north and a need for vitamin D. What other sort of theory could one possibly propose that explained everything so neatly?

Dear Mr. Jonathan Edwards,

There can be many other ways to come from chimp to human, to be fair man besides random mutations. Why do you prefer natural selection theory? Could you give me true experimental confirmation of Darwin`s theory? Please give the reference.

I cannot think of any other ways that are remotely plausible, Anatoly.

Can you suggest one?

And as indicated I do not prefer 'natural selection theory'. Natural selection is a rather small part of the story that can largely be forgotten about. The emergence of a dozen or so species of finch from a single pair on the Galapagos requires no natural selection to explain. Occasional mutation is enough. Without natural selection there would be hundreds more different sorts.

Darwin's theory is a theory about the past so you cannot do an experiment to test it - the past is done with. But you can test how well the theory applies to the future in all sorts of ways with genetic modification, induction of mutation with radiation, cross breeding and all sorts. The biological account we have at present works fine in all these situations.

Why do you think the theory is unsatisfactory when you say you do not understand how it works? I would suggest learning the biology and seeing how the theory works before worrying about what is wrong with it.

Jonathan Edwards Anatoly A Khripov

Dear Sirs - saw this interesting question and responses. To your question " is there research on a search of physic!al forces that may manage an evolution of living creatures?" please consider the published manuscript I have attached. It considers the physical forces of redoxing haem and how these polar-opposite forces may shape the topologic circulation in vertebrates from fish to human in a directed and physically bounded manner. Regards William