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The Darwinian Interlude, by Freeman Dyson
by k at 3:08 pm EDT, Jun 16, 2005 |
Now, after three billion years, the Darwinian interlude is over. It was an interlude between two periods of horizontal gene transfer. The epoch of Darwinian evolution based on competition between species ended about ten thousand years ago when a single species, Homo Sapiens, began to dominate and reorganize the biosphere. Since that time, cultural evolution has replaced biological evolution as the main driving force of change. Cultural evolution is not Darwinian. Cultures spread by horizontal transfer of ideas more than by genetic inheritance.
[ Very interesting... I'm very interested in a more complete development of this line of thinking... -k] |
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A New Biology for a New Century
by noteworthy at 9:26 pm EDT, Jun 16, 2005 |
k wrote:
[ Very interesting... I'm very interested in a more complete development of this line of thinking... -k]
Have you read the quoted article, A New Biology for a New Century? The full text is freely available. Biology today is at a crossroads. The molecular paradigm, which so successfully guided the discipline throughout most of the 20th century, is no longer a reliable guide. Its vision of biology now realized, the molecular paradigm has run its course. Biology, therefore, has a choice to make, between the comfortable path of continuing to follow molecular biology's lead or the more invigorating one of seeking a new and inspiring vision of the living world, one that addresses the major problems in biology that 20th century biology, molecular biology, could not handle and, so, avoided. The former course, though highly productive, is certain to turn biology into an engineering discipline. The latter holds the promise of making biology an even more fundamental science, one that, along with physics, probes and defines the nature of reality. This is a choice between a biology that solely does society's bidding and a biology that is society's teacher.
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RE: A New Biology for a New Century
by k at 3:55 pm EDT, Jun 20, 2005 |
Have you read the quoted article, A New Biology for a New Century? The full text is freely available. [ I haven't... thanks! -k] |
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The Darwinian Interlude, by Freeman Dyson
by noteworthy at 8:35 pm EDT, Jun 12, 2005 |
When did Darwinian evolution begin? Darwinian evolution did not go back to the beginning of life. In early times, the process called Horizontal Gene Transfer, the sharing of genes between unrelated species, was prevalent. It becomes more prevalent, the further back you go in time. In this golden age of pre-Darwinian life, horizontal gene transfer was universal and separate species did not exist. But then, one evil day, a cell separated itself from the community and refused to share. The Darwinian interlude had begun. Now, after three billion years, the Darwinian interlude is over. Cultural evolution has replaced biological evolution as the main driving force of change, and we are moving rapidly into the post-Darwinian era, when species will no longer exist, and the evolution of life will again be communal.
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