Life is physics: evolution as a collective phenomenon far from equilibrium
Nigel Goldenfeld1 and Carl Woese1,2
1Department of Physics, Center for the Physics of Living Cells, and Institute for Genomic Biology,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1110 West Green St., Urbana, IL 61801, USA
2Department of Microbiology and Institute for Genomic Biology,
601 South Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
Evolution is the fundamental physical process that gives rise to biological phenomena. Yet it is widely treated as a subset of population genetics, and thus its scope is artificially limited. As a result, the key issues of how rapidly evolution occurs, and its coupling to ecology have not been satisfactorily addressed and formulated. The lack of widespread appreciation for, and understanding of, the evolutionary process has arguably retarded the development of biology as a science, with disastrous consequences for its applications to medicine, ecology and the global environment. This review focuses on evolution as a problem in non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, where the key dynamical modes are collective, as evidenced by the plethora of mobile genetic elements whose role in shaping evolution has been revealed by modern genomic surveys. We discuss how condensed matter physics concepts might provide a useful perspective in evolutionary biology, the conceptual failings of the modern evolutionary synthesis, the open-ended growth of complexity, and the quintessentially self-referential nature of evolutionary dynamics.
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Life is Physics: Evolution as a Collective Phenomenon Far from Equilibrium
Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics
Vol. 2 (Volume publication date March 2011)
Nigel Goldenfeld
Department of Physics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
Carl Woese
Department of Physics and Department of Microbiology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics Volume 2 is February 06, 2011. Please see
http://www .annualreviews.org/catalog/pubdates.aspx for revised estimates.
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NOTA DESTE BLOGGER:
Excerto do artigo acima:
Excerto do artigo acima:
"Not only is the Modern Synthesis afflicted by strong interactions, but its very foundation is questionable. The evident tautology embodied by “survival of the fittest” serves to highlight the backwards-looking character of the fitness landscape: not only is it unmeasurable a priori, but it carries with it no means of expressing the growth of open-ended complexity and the generation of genetic novelty. Thus, the Modern Synthesis is, at best, a partial representation of population genetics, but this on its own is a limited subset of the evolutionary process itself, and arguably the least interesting one."
Por que o silêncio da Nomeklatura científica e da Grande Mídia tupiniquins sobre estas questões fundamentais da robustez epistêmica da Síntese Evolutiva Moderna no contexto de justificação teórica? Por que a abordagem e ensino da evolução unilateral e sem nenhuma consideração do que isso significa -- uma mudança paradigmática: a SÍNTESE EVOLUTIVA AMPLIADA, que não pode mais ser selecionista?
O que este silêncio revela é uma coisa muito sórdida: quando a questão é Darwin é tutti cosa nostra, capice? Alô MEC/SEMTEC/PNLEM nossos alunos do ensino médio estão tendo sua cidadania violentada -- acesso a informações científicas objetivas e atualizadas. A abordagem da evolução dos atuais livros didáticos é um gritante e escandaloso 171 epistêmico. Algum autor de livro didático quer me processar por danos morais? Duvido. Nenhum deles tem coragem. Razão? Darwin vai comigo para o banco dos réus...
A ciência e a mentira não podem andar de mãos dadas (Shimon Peres em entrevista à revista VEJA, página amarela).
