![]() The continuity between forms is provided by the information transmitted to successors through replication. What evolves is an historical sequence of forms, each causally related to its predecessor. Not even the forms of organisms evolve forms appear and disappear as the organisms that have them are born and die. Nor does the material substance of organisms evolve it becomes a part of some organism, and then ceases to be a part of that organism. Biological organisms themselves do not evolve they live and die. ![]() Since the rise of the neo-Darwinian synthesis, and especially with the successes of molecular biology since 1953, the genetic code is the key to understanding the nature and evolution of biological order. This requires an understanding of the dynamics of biological order. This answer is not entirely satisfactory, since although it shows the possibility of negentropic systems, it does not show why they come to exist. This leads to a paradox: Why should life be negentropic if the physical and chemical processes that underlie it are entropic? The usual response is that life depends on the existence of an entropy gradient around it, and that it gets its order at the expense of the surrounding environment. This peculiarity led Schrodinger (1945) to describe life as negentropic. Biological order, on the other hand, appears to originate spontaneously. Most things in the world, if left alone, tend to disintegrate rather than organize themselves. Before explaining this theory, though, I would like to describe a related problem concerning biological order. ![]() I believe that a theory of information coded in physical systems is required to resolve the interrelationships of entropy, information, order, complexity and organization (Collier, 1986). This suggests that entropy and information are not related in any simple way, contrary to the observations of both communications theorists (Shannon and Weaver, 1949) and measurement theorists (Brillouin, 1962). Despite this, the information required to specify any complex or any organized system is high. Whatever the connection is, it isn't straightforward: It isn't possible to have organization without order, but it is possible to have complex disorder. The connection of these concepts to complexity and organization is less clear. The precise and quantitative concept of entropy is widely thought to underlie order through its relation to information. These concepts are vague in ordinary usage, so our common notions must be replaced with more precise concepts. Rigorous, and preferably quantitative, definitions of order, complexity and organization would be helpful for formulating and comparing both specific evolutionary hypotheses and general evolutionary theories. A unified general theory of evolution must include order among its key concepts. This is a direct result of omitting order concepts from the core of evolutionary theory. ![]() Furthermore, as I will argue later, if the environment is the only cause of biological order, cyclic changes in environmental characteristics affecting fitness should result in cyclic changes in biological forms. This tactic is peculiar at best, since it deliberately relegates explanation of an obvious fact of biology to the periphery of evolutionary theory. The order concepts are required only to account for the promotion of reproduction, which is kept out of the core of the theory, and relegated to boundary conditions. Natural selection of fit traits merely requires that fitness promotes reproduction in a line of descent. Despite this, the core of conventional selectionist evolutionary theory avoids mentioning the order concepts altogether. The most striking evidence for evolution is the regular increase in these properties displayed in the fossil succession. The most casual observer notices that order, complexity and organization are found in biological organisms. ![]()
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