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Cooperation and Altruism in Biosphere: New Look at Evolution

editors | 08 February, 2009 14:33


Alexey V. Melkikh,

Ural State Technical University, Yekaterinburg, Russia

 mav@dpt.ustu.ru

 

The biosphere of the Earth is known to be a very complicated system where organisms are related to each other. These relations can be of the "predator- prey", "parasite-host", symbiotic (when the cooperation between organisms is mutually beneficial), and other types.

The emergence of all these types of interrelations between organisms is commonly explained in terms of the Darwinian paradigm, that is, random mutations and selection. For example, using the theory of games and the Darwinian theory of evolution it is possible to qualitatively explain many forms of the altruistic behavior. Why do immediate relatives help each other? The traditional answer is that they have nearly identical genes and the mutual help supports survival of their genes. In other words, an accidental tendency to altruism is, in fact, an adaptation of organisms to life, similarly to the ability to run quickly or the protective coloration.

The same reasoning is adduced to explain the mutually beneficial cooperation in the biosphere on the large scale, such as symbiosis of fungi and trees in spruce forests, the relationship between flowers and their fertilizing insects, and other widely known examples.

Finally, some instances are known when the mutually beneficial cooperation or the altruistic behavior extends to the entire biosphere. In 1970s Lovelock put forward the Gaia hypothesis (similar to Vernadsky's concept of the biosphere), according to which the set of all biological organisms is so intimately related to the evolution of their physical environment on the global scale that integrally they form a single self-developing system with self-regulation properties resembling physiological properties of a living organism. Being a superorganism, Gaia supports some parameters of the internal environment at a relatively stable level favorable for living organisms (the modern concept of "robustness"). Recently the emphasis in this field has been changed a little. The majority of investigators do not say that the Earth is a single organism. At the same time, facts of the altruistic or mutually beneficial behavior of species (parts of the biosphere) are the subject of wide speculation. For example, microorganisms together with plants accelerate the rock decay thousands of times, resulting in self-regulation of the carbon dioxide cycle. One of the mechanisms for the climate control is adjustment of the cloud canopy through emission of sulfides by algae, etc.

But it is not that simple.

To begin with, both the modern and Darwinian theories of evolution disregard the real complexity of organisms. That is, organisms are actually viewed as some simple structures with a relatively small number of variants, which can be easily searched in several hundred generations. But it is absolutely wrong! Suffice it to say, for example, that the total number of variants of a genome 3×109 large (the human genome) is . This number is so huge that it cannot be searched in the lifetime of the Universe whatever the search rate.

For a more detailed discussion the reader is referred to the paper "DNA computing, computation complexity and problem of biological evolution rate" (Acta Biotheoretica. 2008. 56. 285-295) by A.V. Melkikh.DNA-computing.pdf

The general conclusion is that the evolution could not progress by selection and random mutations.

Let us turn back to the problem of the mutual help and altruism. The same problem arises here! Organisms are too complicated for such complex forms of behavior as symbiosis to appear by the random search of the genome. This is especially obvious when it comes to macroscopic phenomena on the biosphere scale: in this case the situation is aggravated since the number of attempts to make such structures is much smaller than with the advent of species. We can say that in this case the number of attempts to organize macroscopic symbiosis will amount to units, while systems will get, on the contrary, more complex.

Has anyone ever observed selection for entire biospheres or parts thereof (such as, for example, the Amazon forest)?

Such altruistic and symbiotic properties can be naturally explained in terms of the theory of directed (algorithmic) evolution. The central idea of this theory is directionality of the life evolution, while random mutations and selection are of secondary importance. That is, not only the property of evolving in a quite definite direction, but also the property of forming some superorganismic relations on the global scale are a priori built into organisms. Such structures can control to some extent the climate of the Earth or other planets.

 

Related papers by Professor Melkikh: 

1. Melkikh A.V., Seleznev V.D. Early Stages of the Evolution of Life: a 
Cybernetic Approach. Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres. 2008. 
38: 343-353.

Life_Origin.pdf

2. Melkikh A.V. Congenital programs of the behavior as the unique basis 
of the brain activity. NeuroQuantology. 2005. 2. 134-148.

 NeuroQuantology.pdf

 copyright 2009 Alexey Melkikh

 

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