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posted 30. November 2002 20:06
Symmetry in Evolution
by Phillip L. Engle
phillip.engle@att.net
ABSTRACT—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)
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[ 30. November 2002, 20:13: Message edited by: Moderator ]
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