- Email: [email protected]
Evolution without selection
BioSystems, 23 (1989) 8 7 - 8 8
87
Elsevier Scientific Publi:shers Ireland Ltd.
Book Review
Evolution Without Selection: Form and Function by Autoevolution A. Lima-de-Faria, Elsevier, 1988, xxvi + 372 pages (US$168.50). As follows from the title of the book, the author suggests a new approach to the problem of evolution of live organisms. The novelty of his approach is that he considers evolution as something intrinsic to the material world as a whole and not only to its biological form. Modern physics presume that l~he multiplicity of elementary forms and functions of the physical world is limited and that new forms and functions are but combinations and transformations of the basic forms and functions. The author of the book believes that biological evolution, in its turn, is a chaneUed continuation of evolution of the physical world, the essence of which is the combination and superpositioning of a limited number of initial forms and functions. The appearance of new species is a consequence of internal instability increasing the rate of search for new variants. In this case new variants are "selected" (the author objects to the use of this word) by laws of internal symmetry and under the pressure of a surrounding medium. Evolution is directed towards stabilization of the resulting variants. The book is very interesting, easily understood and captivating. To illustrate his concepts and conclusions the author has gathered an enormous body of material from almost all the fields of lib; sciences. His own illustrations are splendidly done and represent great separate interest. The main value of the book is in its unusual approach in assessing biological evolution, in stimulating the imagination and in casting an intellectual challenge to the reader forcing him to dispute the concepts advanced by the author. The book must positively be translated into Russian. It will be read with interest both by supporters and opponents of Darwinism, by biologists and physicists, scientists and students, indeed by all interested irL problems of evolution.
A.S. Spirin A.N. Bakh Institute of Biochemistry Moscow
Evolution Without Selection is an extremely idiosyncratic book. Its main thesis is that life, a phenomenon intrir~sic to the universe, proceeds from an internal organizational imperative that the author calls "autoevolutionism". Life, furthermore, only changes by autoevolutionism (defined as "evolution inherent to matter and energy"; it has no beginning. Perhaps because the book is such an original contribution, it seems to ignore and distort the work of many scientists. It is richly illustrated - most photographs and diagrams depict superficial morphological comparison: e.g. the radial symmetry of heliozoa, calcium arsenate, and the fungus Aspergillus (identified as a plant!) are identified with crustacean sperm (Fig. 12.16). Starfish with seven arms and a seven-lobed synangium of Ptychocarpus are both compared to fossil plants; beryllium aluminosilicate (emerald) is seen to look like transverse sections of daffodil,
88
morning glory and stony coral (these all have six-fold symmetry). A hugh amount of such morphological information is collected without a textured context. The thesis, in failing to distinguish bounded organisms with exponential growth potential from their richly differentiated, biologically modulated environment, discards several decades of insight into the evolutionary process. Fields of inquiry such as molecular evolution, comparative planetology, geology, planetary biology, geomicrobiology, geochemistry, atmospheric science and global ecology are entirely absent from a book that is mainly concerned with the phenomenology of evolution and evolutionary theory. The strength of the contribution i$ in its apt criticism of current orthodox neodarwinism. Most self-identified evolutionists emphasize randomness as an explanation of the emergence of neosemes (i.e. the appearance of new traits, structures and/or functions of clear selective advantage) which depend on many genes and their interactions. Lima-de-Faria rejects the popular random mutation model; he successfully identifies evolutionary problems of utmost importance. This author, known for his earlier work on molecular cytology of chromosomes, roundly and (in my opinion), appropriately scolds current biological dogmatists and their thought-style. In this remarkably clearly written book, Lima-de-Faria attempts to integrate physical, biological and even philosophical pursuits (e.g. "Ethics has a physico-chemical basis like any other biological phenomenon. The causes of the human fight for justice and truth must be searched for in the physical and chemical signals occurring in the human body", p. 309). In demonstrating the smallminded thinking of others, he has done a great service; yet in presenting his alternative laws and postulates (e.g. "In Nature no order, no form and no function is created or lost, it is only transformed by combination", p. 310, or "biological evolution is not a phenomenon resulting from variation but, on the contrary, is mainly based on fixation", . . . and "All variation is ordered since it occurs within the frame allowed by the initial fixation", p. 304), he removes himself from the scientific discourse and its practice. He cavalierly discards the fantastic insight of life as inventor of at least three sorts of variation (e.g. genetic, immunological and neural). He fails to recognize or denies the value of at least two essential insights: the timeframe of geochronology and the necessity of natural experimentation in the generation of form. Although entirely preoccupied with morphogenesis, his explanations of the morphogenetic process are feeble; e.g. there is no discussion of microtubule-based morphogenetic processes anywhere in the book. Life, the exponentially growing inventor, is subjected to Life-Environment, the ruthless editor. These lessons of Darwin (not his latter-day saints the Neodarwinists) are also discarded as so much Victorian baggage by the autoevolutionist author. In his rejection of a belief in the linearity of time and of all origins, including that of life, he is diametrically opposed to those of us who see life as a type of moving matter: an organic-macromolecular chemical-self-bounded-autopoietic system with a discrete beginning in the Archean Eon and a probable (as our sun reaches the red giant stage) ending. Except as an antidote to current entrenched thinking and as enjoyable reading, it is difficult to recommend this book.
L. Margulis Botany Department University of Massachusetts Amherst
87
Elsevier Scientific Publi:shers Ireland Ltd.
Book Review
Evolution Without Selection: Form and Function by Autoevolution A. Lima-de-Faria, Elsevier, 1988, xxvi + 372 pages (US$168.50). As follows from the title of the book, the author suggests a new approach to the problem of evolution of live organisms. The novelty of his approach is that he considers evolution as something intrinsic to the material world as a whole and not only to its biological form. Modern physics presume that l~he multiplicity of elementary forms and functions of the physical world is limited and that new forms and functions are but combinations and transformations of the basic forms and functions. The author of the book believes that biological evolution, in its turn, is a chaneUed continuation of evolution of the physical world, the essence of which is the combination and superpositioning of a limited number of initial forms and functions. The appearance of new species is a consequence of internal instability increasing the rate of search for new variants. In this case new variants are "selected" (the author objects to the use of this word) by laws of internal symmetry and under the pressure of a surrounding medium. Evolution is directed towards stabilization of the resulting variants. The book is very interesting, easily understood and captivating. To illustrate his concepts and conclusions the author has gathered an enormous body of material from almost all the fields of lib; sciences. His own illustrations are splendidly done and represent great separate interest. The main value of the book is in its unusual approach in assessing biological evolution, in stimulating the imagination and in casting an intellectual challenge to the reader forcing him to dispute the concepts advanced by the author. The book must positively be translated into Russian. It will be read with interest both by supporters and opponents of Darwinism, by biologists and physicists, scientists and students, indeed by all interested irL problems of evolution.
A.S. Spirin A.N. Bakh Institute of Biochemistry Moscow
Evolution Without Selection is an extremely idiosyncratic book. Its main thesis is that life, a phenomenon intrir~sic to the universe, proceeds from an internal organizational imperative that the author calls "autoevolutionism". Life, furthermore, only changes by autoevolutionism (defined as "evolution inherent to matter and energy"; it has no beginning. Perhaps because the book is such an original contribution, it seems to ignore and distort the work of many scientists. It is richly illustrated - most photographs and diagrams depict superficial morphological comparison: e.g. the radial symmetry of heliozoa, calcium arsenate, and the fungus Aspergillus (identified as a plant!) are identified with crustacean sperm (Fig. 12.16). Starfish with seven arms and a seven-lobed synangium of Ptychocarpus are both compared to fossil plants; beryllium aluminosilicate (emerald) is seen to look like transverse sections of daffodil,
88
morning glory and stony coral (these all have six-fold symmetry). A hugh amount of such morphological information is collected without a textured context. The thesis, in failing to distinguish bounded organisms with exponential growth potential from their richly differentiated, biologically modulated environment, discards several decades of insight into the evolutionary process. Fields of inquiry such as molecular evolution, comparative planetology, geology, planetary biology, geomicrobiology, geochemistry, atmospheric science and global ecology are entirely absent from a book that is mainly concerned with the phenomenology of evolution and evolutionary theory. The strength of the contribution i$ in its apt criticism of current orthodox neodarwinism. Most self-identified evolutionists emphasize randomness as an explanation of the emergence of neosemes (i.e. the appearance of new traits, structures and/or functions of clear selective advantage) which depend on many genes and their interactions. Lima-de-Faria rejects the popular random mutation model; he successfully identifies evolutionary problems of utmost importance. This author, known for his earlier work on molecular cytology of chromosomes, roundly and (in my opinion), appropriately scolds current biological dogmatists and their thought-style. In this remarkably clearly written book, Lima-de-Faria attempts to integrate physical, biological and even philosophical pursuits (e.g. "Ethics has a physico-chemical basis like any other biological phenomenon. The causes of the human fight for justice and truth must be searched for in the physical and chemical signals occurring in the human body", p. 309). In demonstrating the smallminded thinking of others, he has done a great service; yet in presenting his alternative laws and postulates (e.g. "In Nature no order, no form and no function is created or lost, it is only transformed by combination", p. 310, or "biological evolution is not a phenomenon resulting from variation but, on the contrary, is mainly based on fixation", . . . and "All variation is ordered since it occurs within the frame allowed by the initial fixation", p. 304), he removes himself from the scientific discourse and its practice. He cavalierly discards the fantastic insight of life as inventor of at least three sorts of variation (e.g. genetic, immunological and neural). He fails to recognize or denies the value of at least two essential insights: the timeframe of geochronology and the necessity of natural experimentation in the generation of form. Although entirely preoccupied with morphogenesis, his explanations of the morphogenetic process are feeble; e.g. there is no discussion of microtubule-based morphogenetic processes anywhere in the book. Life, the exponentially growing inventor, is subjected to Life-Environment, the ruthless editor. These lessons of Darwin (not his latter-day saints the Neodarwinists) are also discarded as so much Victorian baggage by the autoevolutionist author. In his rejection of a belief in the linearity of time and of all origins, including that of life, he is diametrically opposed to those of us who see life as a type of moving matter: an organic-macromolecular chemical-self-bounded-autopoietic system with a discrete beginning in the Archean Eon and a probable (as our sun reaches the red giant stage) ending. Except as an antidote to current entrenched thinking and as enjoyable reading, it is difficult to recommend this book.
L. Margulis Botany Department University of Massachusetts Amherst