Physical and Life Evolution

Abstract

Darwinism and neo-Darwinism were formulated, by necessity, on purely biological grounds because physics was, until recently, hostile to evolution. Today, strong new theories of evolution are possible because (a) the physics of far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics has explained how evolution is inherent in material processes, (b) our computational power has brought to light the wonders of complexity theory, and (c) molecular biology has established the reasonability of life’s arising from pre-biotic processes.

Darwinian evolution does not make use of these advances in physics, computation, and molecular biology. Two newer theories of evolution explain evolution in more powerful ways. The component system model of Vilmos Csanyi and George Kampis expands the principles of non-equilibrium thermodynamics to explain pre-biotic and biotic evolution. The theory of autopoiesis proposed by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela explains how living things maintain their lives and grow by structurally coupling with their environments. These two theories are complementary as intersystemic and intrasystemic descriptions of the same phenomena