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Stasis is an Inevitable Consequence of Every Successful Evolution

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Abstract

Evolutionary stasis is discussed in light of the idea that the common output of every successful evolution is the creation of the entities that are increasingly resistant to further change. The moving force of evolution is entropy. This general aspiration for chaos is a cause of the mortality of organisms and extinction of species. However, being a prerequisite for any motion, entropy generates (by chance) novelties, which may happen to be (by chance) more resistant to further decay and thus survive. The entities that change rapidly disappear. All existing entities are endowed with an ability to resist further change. In simple organisms, the stasis is primarily achieved by means of the high fidelity of DNA reproduction. In organisms with a large genome and complex development, the achievable fidelity of genome reproduction fails to guarantee homeorhetic reproduction: there is more mutation than reproduction. Such species must be capable of surviving and remain phenotypically unchanged at continuous changes of their genes. This capability (canalization or robustness) reflects a global degeneracy of the link structure-function: there are more genotypes than phenotypes. Hence, function (i.e. meaning), not structure, is selected. The selection for successful ontogenesis in a varying environment creates developmental robustness to mutational and environmental perturbations and, consequently, to the halt of evolution. Evolution is resistance to entropy, the adaptation to environment being only one of the means of this resistance. Everything essential in biology is determined not by physical causality but by semantic rules and goal-directed programs. This principal operates on various levels of biological organization.

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Notes

  1. Here I mean biological (organic) information as a new type of natural entity (Barbieri 2004, 2008).

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Aleksey Terentiev for critical reading of the manuscript and Vladimir Rusalov and Dmitry for style correction.

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  1. Institute of Problems of Chemical Physics RAS, Chernogolovka, Moscow Region, 142432, Russia

    Victor P. Shcherbakov

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Shcherbakov, V.P. Stasis is an Inevitable Consequence of Every Successful Evolution. Biosemiotics 5, 227–245 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-011-9122-4

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