Symmetry in Evolution

International Society for Complexity, Information and Design ^ | 11-30-02 | Philip L. Engle

[CalConservative]

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Symmetry in Evolution

by Phillip L. Engle


ABSTRACT#8212;In this paper, evidence is presented that multicelled plants and animals are organized in accordance with a strict typological hierarchy consisting of a nested structure of monophyletic taxons (i.e., clades). It is further shown that, if this strict monophyletic hierarchy is to be regarded to be the result of an evolutionary process, then it must be the case that (in general) evolution has proceeded in such a way that each more-generic taxon has split symmetrically into two more-specific taxons: By symmetrically I mean that each moregeneric taxon has ceased to exist as an independent entity after the split, instead continuing to exist only in the generic features of the two more-specific taxons into which it has become divided..

It is next demonstrated that there is no formulation of the evolutionary theory of neo-Darwinism that can account for this fact of symmetry in evolution, but that Robert F. DeHaan’s theory of macrodevelopment (suitably expanded using concepts from nonlinear science) can explain evolutionary symmetry.

Finally the Stewart/Cohen formulation of the principle of evolutionary symmetry is presented and is then expanded to include cases of “temporary” imbalance in nested evolutionary bifurcations. The resulting law of macrodevelopmental symmetry is shown to provide for a far-more-elegant explanation of protein molecular-sequencing data than neo- Darwinism’s clumsy and intricate “molecular clocks” hypothesis.

(Portions of this paper have been adapted from my book Far From Equilibrium, which can be found at www.laurelhighlandsmedia.com, as well as from portions of the paper “Teleology and Information in Biology”, which I presented at the first e-symposium of the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID) on October 3, 2002)

To read the entire paper, please click here

[dirtboy]

Explain The Haiwan Islands then.

Did you ever see the videos or the pictures of Surtsey Island in the North Atlantic. A brand new island formed in a matter of weeks and inside of a year, plant life was springing up, birds were nesting and so on.

That's one island. The Hawiian Islands are just part of a long chain of shield volcanoes that stretch all the way to the Aleutian Trench, each one progressively older, all the way to the Emperor Seamounts, which are buried (hence, eroded and subsided) islands. All in all, I believe the sequence is over 100 million years old.

[f.Christian]

bm1 ...

Explain The Haiwan Islands then.


42 posted on 01/31/2003 11:32 PM PST by Burkeman1

fC ...

I've lived in both . . . N. Californis and Maui - - -

and I see same geolgy --- similarities here !

A christmas tree farmer living upcountry told me . . . "only the monterey pine grow wells here" !

[Burkeman1]

I just finished a book entitled "Guns, Germs, and Steel." It is an amalgamation of scientific thought from dozens of scientific fields- botonoy, archeology, linguistics, genetics, geology, climatology and many others. The book cites hundreds of studies from hundreds of different fields to show how and why western civilization ended up on top of all others. I suggest you read it.