Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Selection Is Entailed by Self-Organization and Natural Selection Is a Special Case

  • Published:
Biological Theory Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In their book, Darwinism Evolving: Systems Dynamics and the Genealogy of Natural Selection, Depew and Weber (1995) argued for the need to address the relationship between self-organization and natural selection in evolutionary theory, and focused on seven “visions” for doing so. Recently, Batten et al. (2008) in a paper in this journal, entitled “Visions of evolution: self-organization proposes what natural selection disposes,” picked up the issue with the work of Depew and Weber as a starting point. While the efforts of both sets of authors are to be commended, there are substantive errors in both the presentations of my work and of my work with colleagues (one of the “visions” discussed) that undermine theirs. My purpose here is to correct the errors in question, thereby removing the undermining effects and in so doing reassert the position my colleagues and I first advanced more than two decades ago, and that I still stand by and argue for today. The central points are as follows: (1) Self-organization or spontaneous ordering is a process of selection; (2) this selection process is governed by a “physical selection principle”; (3) this principle is the law of maximum entropy production; and (4) natural selection is a special case where the components are replicating.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Barlow C (1994) Evolution Extended: Biological Debates on the Meaning of Life. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Batten D, Salthe S, and Boshetti F (2008) Visions of evolution: Self-organization proposes what natural selection disposes. Biological Theory 3: 17–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boltzmann L ([1886] 1974) The second law of thermodynamics. In: Ludwig Boltzmann, Theoretical Physics, and Philosophical Problems (McGuinness B, ed), 20. Boston, MA: Reidel.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boltzmann L ([1896, 1898] 1995) Lectures on Gas Theory. New York: Dover.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burgers JM (1963) On the emergence of patterns of order. Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 69: 1–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Camazine S, Deneubourg J-L, Franks NR, Sneyd J, Theraulaz G, Bonabeau E (2001) Self-Organization in Biological Systems. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carriveau R (2006) The hydraulic vortex—an autocatakinetic system. International Journal of General Systems Research 35(6): 707–726.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cloud P (1976) Beginnings of biospheric evolution and their biogeochemical consequences. Paleobiology 2: 351–387.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dawkins R (1982) The Extended Phenotype. San Francisco, CA: Freeman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dennett D (1995) Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. New York: Simon and Schuster.

    Google Scholar 

  • Depew D, Weber B (1995) Darwinism Evolving: Systems Dynamics and the Genealogy of Natural Selection. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dewar RC (2005) Maximum entropy production and the fluctuation theorem. Journal of Physics A 38: L371–L381.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gibson JJ (1966) The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grinstein G, Linsker R (2007) Comments on the derivation and application of the “maximum entropy production principle.” Journal of Physics A 40: 9717–9720.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hoelzer GA, Smith E, Pepper JW (2006) On thelogical relationship between natural selection and self-organization. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 19: 1785–1793.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Houghton Mifflin (2009) The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. 4th ed. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jaynes ET (1980) The minimum entropy production principle. Annual Review of Physical Chemistry 31: 579–601.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kleidon A, Lorenz RD (2005) Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics and the Production of Entropy. Berlin, Germany: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mahulikar SP, Harwig H (2004) Conceptual investigation of the entropy principle for identification of directives for creation, existence, and total destruction of order. Physica Scripta 70: 212–221.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Martínez-Castilla LP, Martínez-Kahn M (2010a) The fourth law of thermodynamics: The law of maximum entropy production (LMEP), an interview with Rod Swenson. Ecological Psychology 22: 69–87.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Martínez-Castilla LP, Martínez-Kahn M (2010b) Darwin y el descubrimiento de una nueva ley de la termodinámica [Darwin and the discovery of a new law of thermodynamics]. Education Química, May: 2–9.

  • Maruyama M (1963) The second cybernetics: Deviation-amplifying mutual causal processes. American Scientist 51: 164–179.

    Google Scholar 

  • Polanyi M (1968) Life’s irreducible structure. Science 160: 1308–1312.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Prigogine I (1980) From Being to Becoming: Time and Complexity in the Physical Sciences. New York: Freeman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prigogine I (1993) Time, structure and fluctuations. In: Nobel Lectures, Chemistry 1971–1980 (Forsén S, ed), 264–285. Singapore: World Scientific.

    Google Scholar 

  • Runnegar B (1982) The Cambrian explosion: Animals or fossils? Journal of the Geological Society of Australia 29: 395–411.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salthe SN (1985) Evolving Hierarchical Systems: Their Structure and Representation. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salthe SN (1993) Development and Evolution: Complexity and Change in Biology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salthe SN (2000) Ecology and infodynamics. Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems 21: 223–237.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schopf, JW, ed (1983) Earth’s Earliest Biosphere. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schrödinger E (1945) What is Life? New York: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwartzman DW, Shore SN, Volk T, McMenamin M (1994) Self-organization of the Earth’s biosphere, geochemical or geophysiological? Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 24: 435–450.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Spencer H (1857) Progress: Its law and cause. Westminster Review, April: 179–222.

  • Swenson R (1988) Emergence and the principle of maximum entropy production: Multi-level system theory, evolution, and non-equilibrium thermodynamics. Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the International Society for General Systems Research 32.

  • Swenson R (1989a) Engineering initial conditions in a self-producing environment. In: A Delicate Balance: Technics, Culture and Consequences (Rogers M, Warren N, eds), 68–73. IEEE Catalog 89CH291-4. Los Angeles, CA: Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swenson R (1989b) Emergent attractors and the law of maximum entropy production: Foundations to a theory of general evolution. Systems Research 6: 187–198.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Swenson R (1989c) Emergent evolution and the global attractor: The evolutionary epistemology of entropy production maximization. Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences 33: 46–53.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swenson R (1989d) Gauss-in-a-box: Nailing down the first principles of action. Perceiving-Acting Workshop Review (Technical Report of the Center for the Ecological Study of Perception and Action, University of Connecticut) 5: 60–63.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swenson R (1990) A robust ecological physics needs an ongoing crackdown on makers conjured out of thin air. Perceiving-Acting Workshop Review (Technical Report of the Center for the Ecological Study of Perception and Action, University of Connecticut) 6: 35–38.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swenson R (1991a) End-directed physics and evolutionary ordering: Obviating the problem of the population of one. In: The Cybernetics of Complex Systems: Self-Organization, Evolution, and Social Change (Geyer F, ed), 41–60. Salinas, CA: Intersystems Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swenson R (1991b) Order, evolution, and natural law: Fundamental relations in complex system theory. In: Cybernetics and Applied Systems (Negoita C, ed), 125–148. New York: Marcel Dekker.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swenson R (1992) Autocatakinetics, yes, autopoiesis, no: Steps toward a unified theory of evolutionary ordering. International Journal of General Systems 21: 207–228.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Swenson R (1997a) Autocatakinetics, evolution, and the law of maximum entropy production: A principled foundation toward the study of human ecology. Advances in Human Ecology 6: 1–46.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swenson R (1997b) Evolutionary theory developing: The problem with Darwin’s dangerous idea. Ecological Psychology 9: 47–96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Swenson R (1998a) Thermodynamics, evolution, and behavior. In: The Handbook of Comparative Psychology (Greenberg G, Haraway M, eds), 207–218. New York: Garland Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swenson R (1998b) Spontaneous order, evolution, and autocatakinetics: The nomological basis for the emergence of meaning. In: Evolutionary Systems (van de Vijver G, Salthe S, Delpos M, eds), 155–180. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Swenson R (1999) Epistemic ordering and the development of spacetime: Intentionality as a universal entailment. Semiotica 127: 181–222.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Swenson R (2000) Spontaneous order, autocatakinetc closure, and the development of space-time. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 901: 311–319.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Swenson R (2009) The fourth law of thermodynamics or the law of maximum entropy production (LMEP). Chemistry 18: 333–339.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swenson R, Turvey MT (1991) Thermodynamic reasons for perception-action cycles. Ecological Psychology 3: 317–348.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vernadsky VI ([1929] 1986) The Biosphere. London: Synergetic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • von Bertalanffy L (1968) General System Theory. New York: George Braziller.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for the Ecological Study of Perception and Action, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

    Rod Swenson

Authors
  1. Rod Swenson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rod Swenson.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Swenson, R. Selection Is Entailed by Self-Organization and Natural Selection Is a Special Case. Biol Theory 5, 167–181 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1162/BIOT_a_00030

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/BIOT_a_00030

Keywords

Search

Navigation