Mechanisms of Evolution
There are many mechanisms of evolution that have together driven the furthered advance of both living and nonliving phenomena. In addition to those discussed already (iteration, variation, selection, and information retention), selection itself involves survival of the fittest systems and elimination of the weakest systems. While the first of these devices is of course a preservational process, the second is deleterious. Together, however, they are enormously cumulative over time, resulting in the formation of entirely new phenomena honed via natural selection.
Regulatory feedback is another vital mechanism at work in the evolution of systems. Its presence has been found in the study of adaptive systems and the study of complex systems, both of which are truly exploding in science. In short, scientists are finding that many complex systems are adaptive in their responses to both internal and external stimuli. Many are able to regulate their internal balance via responses to the properties that follow from chemistry, temperature, climate, and other environmental conditions. This involves reactions to hot, cold, particles, elements, and so on. In fact, it is well known in science that living things aren’t the only phenomena able to maintain a stable existence via regulatory feedback. Naturalist D. B. Kelley thus holds that everything from small-scale to large-scale systems appears in every regard to be a product of adaptive, regulatory control.
Entropy reduction, or the reduction of disorder, is another critical device at work in evolution. It is well known in biology that order arises by reducing the amount of disorder that is present. When a system or phenomena stumbles upon a new variation that makes it more stable, that variation is naturally selected. This occurs regularly throughout all of nature, as it happens when particles, atoms, molecules, etc. recombine in new and stable configurations. After all, stability itself is always relative to the environmental conditions at hand, even for nonbiological phenomena. Scientists are therefore finding that entropy reduction, or increased stability, occurs not only in biology but throughout natural science as a whole. Again, “the universe is populated by stable things.” (Dawkins 1976) Kelley has thus demonstrated mathematically that as disorder is reduced among phenomena, order arises naturally from chaos itself.
Kelley has also defined The Three C’s, or the mechanisms of cooperation, competition, and compromise. While cooperation and competition are diametrically opposed, or exact opposites, the first involves symbiosis, as defined by Lynn Margulis (The Symbiotic Planet, 1998). Our entire biosphere, for example, is a symbiotic whole wherein most of its species are mutually dependent upon others for survival. Competition, however, results in survival of the fittest and elimination of the weak, thereby inducing selection. In between these extremes we have compromise, wherein an entire host of other alternatives can manifest. In fact, people aren’t the only things that compromise, as such concession exists between all of the many extremes that exist in nature. For a phenomenon to endure, the environmental conditions can’t be too hot, too cold, too big, too small, too competitive, and so on.
That said, it is important to note that the three C’s are not only the most fundamental interactions at work in the universe but are the only fundamental interactions that all phenomena are inescapably subject to. Because our cosmos is so highly interactive, every last ensemble must ultimately cooperate, compete, or find some concession in the middle. While competition among systems is thus the driving force of greater evolutionary change, cooperation and compromise help make it possible at every turn.
The Three C’s
- Cooperation
- Competition
- Compromise
Although we’ve already touched upon evolution’s primary algorithm, or the overall mechanism at work, it is as follows:
Evolution’s Algorithm
- Iteration
- Variation
- Selection (includes survival of fittest and elimination of weak)
This is a three-part, mechanistic function entirely in itself. In short, a system’s cyclical iterations can lead to natural variations, which can lead to the natural selection of stable variants. This, in turn, is the basic mechanistic cycle that drives all evolution both biological and non-.
To then elaborate on information retention, every property of every natural phenomenon ultimately provides additional information about that phenomenon. These properties lead to different makeup, structure, interactions, and so on. The data stored in DNA alone is therefore but a single example of the information retention that occurs among particles, atoms, molecules, etc. (Wheeler 1998).
It should thus be clear that there are many mechanisms of evolution. While survival of the fittest and elimination of the weak play the most rudimentary roles in the selection process, we see that there are many other devices also at play. From entropy reduction to information retention, it should be increasingly clear that they all play critical roles not only in biology but throughout our cosmos. Kelley thus argues that “these deterministic mechanisms have remained prevalent from the very dawn of our interactive universe, and they have continued throughout its own extraordinary evolution from chaos to order.”