Evolvability Is an Evolved Ability: The Coding Concept as the Arch-Unit of Natural Selection

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• 作者：Srdja Jankovi膰 ; Milan M. 膯irkovi膰
• 关键词：Evolvability ; Natural selection ; Astrobiology ; Abiogenesis ; Continuity thesis
• 刊名：Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：March 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：46
• 期：1
• 页码：67-79
• 全文大小：635 KB
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• 作者单位：Srdja Jankovi膰 (1)
  Milan M. 膯irkovi膰 (2) (3)
  
  1. University Children鈥檚 Hospital, Tir拧ova 10, 11000, Belgrade, Serbia
  2. Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade, Volgina 7, 11000, Belgrade, Serbia
  3. Future of Humanity Institute, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, Suite 8, Littlegate House, 16/17 St Ebbe鈥檚 Street, Oxford, OX1 1PT, UK
  
• 刊物主题：Life Sciences, general; Astrophysics and Astroparticles; Earth Sciences, general; Astronomy, Observations and Techniques; Biochemistry, general;
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1573-0875

文摘

Physical processes that characterize living matter are qualitatively distinct in that they involve encoding and transfer of specific types of information. Such information plays an active part in the control of events that are ultimately linked to the capacity of the system to persist and multiply. This algorithmicity of life is a key prerequisite for its Darwinian evolution, driven by natural selection acting upon stochastically arising variations of the encoded information. The concept of evolvability attempts to define the total capacity of a system to evolve new encoded traits under appropriate conditions, i.e., the accessible section of total morphological space. Since this is dependent on previously evolved regulatory networks that govern information flow in the system, evolvability itself may be regarded as an evolved ability. The way information is physically written, read and modified in living cells (the 鈥渃oding concept鈥? has not changed substantially during the whole history of the Earth鈥檚 biosphere. This biosphere, be it alone or one of many, is, accordingly, itself a product of natural selection, since the overall evolvability conferred by its coding concept (nucleic acids as information carriers with the 鈥渞ulebook of meanings鈥?provided by codons, as well as all the subsystems that regulate various conditional information-reading modes) certainly played a key role in enabling this biosphere to survive up to the present, through alterations of planetary conditions, including at least five catastrophic events linked to major mass extinctions. We submit that, whatever the actual prebiotic physical and chemical processes may have been on our home planet, or may, in principle, occur at some time and place in the Universe, a particular coding concept, with its respective potential to give rise to a biosphere, or class of biospheres, of a certain evolvability, may itself be regarded as a unit (indeed the arch-unit) of natural selection. Keywords Evolvability Natural selection Astrobiology Abiogenesis Continuity thesis