What We Talk About When We Talk About Evolution

Torday, John S.

doi:10.4137/cci.s29840

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 107 publications

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“…Experimentally, disruption of any one of these components results in reversion of the LIF to its myofibroblastic ancestral phenotype and simplification of the alveoli back to their evolutionary origin in the faveoli of frogs [ 29 , 30 , 31 ], or the swim bladder of fish [ 45 ]. Conversely, in the case of the frog lung, treatment with leptin drove its differentiation towards that of the mammalian lung [ 46 ], demonstrating the predictive power of this model of ontogeny, phylogeny, and pathophysiology as evolution [ 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 ].…”

Section: Biologic Structures and Processes In An Evolutionary Contmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Emergence of Physiology and Form: Natural Selection Revisited

Torday

2016

Biology

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Natural Selection describes how species have evolved differentially, but it is descriptive, non-mechanistic. What mechanisms does Nature use to accomplish this feat? One known way in which ancient natural forces affect development, phylogeny and physiology is through gravitational effects that have evolved as mechanotransduction, seen in the lung, kidney and bone, linking as molecular homologies to skin and brain. Tracing the ontogenetic and phylogenetic changes that have facilitated mechanotransduction identifies specific homologous cell-types and functional molecular markers for lung homeostasis that reveal how and why complex physiologic traits have evolved from the unicellular to the multicellular state. Such data are reinforced by their reverse-evolutionary patterns in chronic degenerative diseases. The physiologic responses of model organisms like Dictyostelium and yeast to gravity provide deep comparative molecular phenotypic homologies, revealing mammalian Target of Rapamycin (mTOR) as the final common pathway for vertical integration of vertebrate physiologic evolution; mTOR integrates calcium/lipid epistatic balance as both the proximate and ultimate positive selection pressure for vertebrate physiologic evolution. The commonality of all vertebrate structure-function relationships can be reduced to calcium/lipid homeostatic regulation as the fractal unit of vertebrate physiology, demonstrating the primacy of the unicellular state as the fundament of physiologic evolution.

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Section: Biologic Structures and Processes In An Evolutionary Contmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Emergence of Physiology and Form: Natural Selection Revisited

Torday

2016

Biology

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A systems approach to physiologic evolution: From micelles to consciousness

Torday

Miller

2017

Journal Cellular Physiology

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A systems approach to evolutionary biology offers the promise of an improved understanding of the fundamental principles of life through the effective integration of many biologic disciplines. It is presented that any critical integrative approach to evolutionary development involves a paradigmatic shift in perspective, more than just the engagement of a large number of disciplines. Critical to this differing viewpoint is the recognition that all biological processes originate from the unicellular state and remain permanently anchored to that phase throughout evolutionary development despite their macroscopic appearances. Multicellular eukaryotic development can, therefore, be viewed

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How Future Depends on Past and Rare Events in Systems of Life

Longo

2017

Found Sci

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The dependence on history of both present and future dynamics of life is a common intuition in biology and in humanities. Historicity will be understood in terms of changes of the space of possibilities (or of "phase space") as well as by the role of diversity in life's structural stability and of rare events in history formation. We hint to a rigorous analysis of "path dependence" in terms of invariants and invariance preserving transformations, as it may be found also in physics, while departing from the physico-mathematical analyses. The idea is that the (relative or historicized) invariant traces of past organismal or ecosystemic transformations contribute to the understanding (or the "theoretical determination") of present and future states of affairs. This yields a peculiar form of unpredictability (or randomness) in biology, at the core of novelty formation: the changes of observables and pertinent parameters may depend also on past events. In particular, in relation to the properties of synchronic measurement in physics, the relevance of diachronic measurement in biology is highlighted. This analysis may a fortiori apply to cognitive and historical human dynamics, while allowing to investigate some general properties of historicity in biology. 1.2-Determination and Path Dependence, from Physics to Biology History is irrelevant in most existing physical theories. However, in sect. 2, we will briefly discuss the key role of historical analysis, in cosmology and, more pertinently, "path dependence" in Riemann's manifold (by Levi-Civita's parallel transport) as well as in cascades of singularities and critical transitions. Some informal references will be also made to how statistical physics and condensed matter physics describe path dependent phenomena. The very interesting cases of "history dependence", or, more precisely, process dependence, in physics just quoted, and further discussed below, may help in the transitions from the theories of the inert to theories in biology. In (Longo, Montévil, 2014) we insisted on the possibility of this complex conceptual transition by focusing on an extension of the notion of critical phase transition. For example, physical theories of criticality are widely used in theoretical biology, since the '80s, and the reader may refer to (Longo, Montévil, 2014) for "extended criticality" in biology and references to "criticality" in physics. Others consider statistical physics and condensed matter physics as a possible theoretical junction between physics and biology (see (Goldenfeld, Woese, 2011) for an insightful survey). Biological Theories, however, are or may need to be at least as different from existing physical ones, as Relativity and Hydrodynamics are far from Quantum Mechanics (well ... these three theories present even physico-mathematical incompatibilities). Some theories of the inert may be enlightening for biology, in particular by suitable formal extensions, such as extended criticality or a two dimensional theory of biological time, where time acts as an operat...

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What We Talk About When We Talk About Evolution

Cited by 3 publications

References 107 publications

The Emergence of Physiology and Form: Natural Selection Revisited

The Emergence of Physiology and Form: Natural Selection Revisited

A systems approach to physiologic evolution: From micelles to consciousness

How Future Depends on Past and Rare Events in Systems of Life

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