Scientists the world around have found that natural selection, or Darwinian survival of the fittest, is at work among systems well beyond the traditional bounds of biology. From molecules to man, selection is now well documented as the driving force of evolutionary change (Darwin 1859, Bendal 1983). Moreover, it has been found that the survival of the fittest ideas and the elimination of the weakest ideas furthers our human knowledge, particularly in science (Campbell 1987). With recent findings in quantum physics, however, it has been discovered that subatomic particles too are self-organized via survival of the fittest (Zurek 2003). Scientists are therefore discovering that selection is at work not only in biology and anthropology but in biochemistry, chemistry, physics, quantum physics and science in general.
In the 1990’s and 2000’s, the American social scientist Donald T. Campbell defined his process of BVSR, or blind variation and selective retention. Like Darwin, he found variation and selection to explain the formation of every system in biology. Moreover, he claimed that when BVSR is applied outside of life, these mechanisms “are found to have potential application to a wide range of phenomena, far beyond the classical biological ground and the contemporary extensions into epistemological domains (2003).”
Campbell also showed that science especially is advanced through the survival of the fittest ideas and the elimination of the weakest. Through doubt itself, we rid ourselves of ideas that don’t work and reinforce those that do. Thus, even science is formed via a highly selective process where survival of the fittest prevails.
Viruses and viroids are also known to be shaped by selection. Because life is defined as anything that both metabolizes and reproduces, viruses and viroids aren’t considered living. Although they do metabolize on their own accord, they don’t carry out their own replication. They instead encounter a host cell which carries out the replication of the virus for the virus. Thus, we have one of the primary examples of how selection can hone a phenomenon that lies beyond the definition of life itself.
Similarly, the idea that life on Earth arose from molecules originated with Johann Goethe in 1809. This notion has since been built upon by Darwin (1859) and many others. In fact, there are now countless experiments that together show that life too is likely to have arisen naturally on our planet via survival of the fittest molecules. These include the well-known Miller-Urey experiment (1952), experiments by Joan Oró (1961), and all of the many scientists who have followed in their footsteps.
One of the most significant of these findings came from Julius Rebek of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California (1997). He discovered that organic material can self-assemble via a process that he has deemed chemical selection. When combining the autocatalyst amino adenosine triaci ester (or AATE) with amino adenosine and pentafluorophenyl ester, the results were competition, selection, the outright replication of AATE, and therefore a primitive form of heredity. This showed that contention and its resultant survival of the fittest do exist among populations of organic molecules. Thus, it is among these experiments and many others that Rebek has further defined his theory of chemical selection (Rebek 1997).
Theoretical physicist Wojciech Zurek of the Los Alamos National Laboratory demonstrated in 2003 that subatomic behavior is governed via a process that he calls Quantum Darwinism. More specifically, this occurs via his process of einselection, or environment-induced superselection, which leads to the survival of the fittest pointer states in quantum physics. This involves the natural selection of stable pointer states from mother-daughter states, most of which are subject to quantum entanglement and must therefore be selected against, or eliminated. This process explains how the classical world that we perceive arises naturally via the abstract world of quanta (Zurek 2003). Not only has einselection been confirmed at other unaffiliated laboratories, but this mechanism leads to a great deal of variation in subatomic behavior and, in turn, throughout nature at large.
Researcher John Campbell (2011) has also made significant contribution to this growing field. Like Zurek, Campbell has shown that our classic world is a product of Quantum Darwinism at many levels. He also predicts that many phenomena (e.g., molecules) are able to endure, as they contain internal models (like genes) with information about the outside world. Campbell therefore shows how such information can be restructured via Bayesian updating, wherein greater stability is achieved as more information is gathered through trial and error.
Theoretical physicist Lee Smolin is another known contributor to this inquiry. Not only does he apply selection at the grandest of scales, but he predicts that many large-scale phenomena are regulatory feedback systems. Because solar systems form when temperatures are low, once stars ignite, this process slows down. Once stars burn out, however, the temperature drops and the process can begin again. Like living things then, even large-scale systems are made possible by adaptive, regulatory control in an otherwise-contentious universe (Smolin 1997).
Author D. B. Kelley is another known contributor. He claims that all such phenomena are honed via “survival of the fittest systems” and “elimination of the weakest systems.” Because phenomena interact, collide and even destroy one another, Kelley has shown that, like species, they too exhibit remarkable levels of competition (2013). This, in turn, leads to many phenomena being selected for and others being selected against. Subscribing to physicist John Wheeler’s notion that “everything is information” (Kenneth 2010), Kelley holds that every time a new property arises among particles, atoms, and molecules, new capabilities arise. Not only are these newfound abilities comparable to new adaptations with new information, but they are also selected for when environmental conditions are stable in particular. Like many of those aforementioned, Kelley thus believes that Darwinian processes are at work throughout all of nature. These include competition, iteration, variation, selection and retention. He therefore predicts, among many things, that these deterministic, evolutionary mechanisms can be found wherever we look in science (Kelley 2013).
We must then ask ourselves: at what point does selection either begin or end? Scientists are unable to draw a line in the sand showing where selection applies and doesn’t apply. They are unable to decide if selection pertains solely within biology, or if it pertains in other respects. Does survival of the fittest apply from molecules to man? Does it apply from particles to man? Or does it apply universally to all natural phenomena? This question in science has, of course, led to a great deal of the inquiry discussed herein—now known for decades as Universal Darwinism, or the theory of universal selection.