NATURAL DRIFT IN ORGANIZATIONS

Autopoiesis and evolution: the role of organisms in natural drift

Adaptive Behavior ◽

10.1177/10597123211030694 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 105971232110306

Author(s):

Vincenzo Raimondi

Keyword(s):

Living Systems ◽

Explanatory Framework ◽

Alternative Framework ◽

Natural Drift ◽

Genetic Reductionism ◽

Development And Evolution

Genetic reductionism is increasingly seen as a severely limited approach to understanding living systems. The Neo-Darwinian explanatory framework tends to overlook the role of the organism for an understanding of development and evolution. In the current fast-changing theoretical landscape, the autopoietic approach provides conceptual distinctions and tools that may contribute to building an alternative framework. In this article, I examine the implications of the theories of autopoiesis and natural drift for an organism-centered view of evolution. By shifting the attention from genes to ontogenetic organism-niche configurations and their transformations over generations, this approach presents a compelling perspective on the role of organismal behavior in guiding phylogenetic drift.

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Evolutionary Path Making and Natural Drift

The Embodied Mind ◽

10.7551/mitpress/9780262529365.003.0009 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Francisco J. Varela ◽

Evan Thompson ◽

Eleanor Rosch

Keyword(s):

Color Space ◽

Vantage Point ◽

Alternative View ◽

Color Spaces ◽

Structural Coupling ◽

Evolutionary Path ◽

The World ◽

Natural Drift

This chapter demonstrates how unique histories of structural coupling can be understood from the vantage point of evolution. To this end, it provides a critique of the adaptationist view of evolution as a process of progressive fitness, and articulates an alternative view of evolution as natural drift. These unique histories of coupling, which enact incommensurable kinds of “color space,” should not be explained as optimal adaptations to different regularities in the world. Instead, they should be explained as the result of different histories of natural drift. Moreover, since organism and environment cannot be separated but are in fact codetermined in evolution as natural drift, the environmental regularities that one associates with these various color spaces must ultimately be specified in tandem with the perceptually guided activity of the animal.

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Arthur Schopenhauer and the Current Conception of the Origin of Species: What Did the Philosopher Anticipate?

SAGE Open ◽

10.1177/2158244019837467 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 215824401983746

Author(s):

Trino Baptista ◽

Elis Aldana ◽

Charles I. Abramson

Keyword(s):

Natural Selection ◽

Population Analysis ◽

Individual Variability ◽

Arthur Schopenhauer ◽

Current Conception ◽

Biological Individual ◽

New Synthesis ◽

Evolutionary Thought ◽

Gradual Evolution ◽

Natural Drift

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was deeply influenced by Plato and conceived each species as an Idea, whose shape is essentially and permanently predetermined. He rejected Lamarck’s proposal of organ’s use/disuse as a source of evolution, but he was close to the orthogenetic movement that developed after his death. The philosopher did not conceive biological individual variability as a source for evolution, mathematical population analysis, and gradual evolution; he even imagined an ultra-rapid saltatory model in “higher forms.” Moreover, he conceived a metaphysically based coupling among all phenomena which resembles the contemporary model of natural drift of evolution. Hence, Schopenhauer did not strictly anticipate Darwin’s model of natural selection. However, he expressed in his own words competition and struggle for life. The philosopher thus anticipated more the orthogenesis and natural drift and less the Darwinian’s mechanisms of evolution than what is generally alleged. His work is a valuable philosophical source in the contemporary search for a new synthesis in evolutionary thought.

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Autopoiesis and Natural Drift: Genetic Information, Reproduction, and Evolution Revisited

Artificial Life ◽

10.1162/1064546041255575 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 347-360 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Arantza Etxeberria

Keyword(s):

Genetic Information ◽

Biological Theory ◽

Definition Of Life ◽

Philosophical Inquiry ◽

Biological Autonomy ◽

Central Notion ◽

Natural Drift ◽

Definition Of

The contribution of the theory of autopoiesis to the definition of life and biological theory affirms biological autonomy as a central notion of scientific and philosophical inquiry, and opposes other biological approaches, based on the notion of genetic information, that consider reproduction and evolution to be the central aspects of life and living phenomenology. This article reviews the autopoietic criticisms of genetic information, reproduction, and evolution in the light of a biology that can solve the problem of living organization.

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Cultural-Biology: Systemic Consequences of Our Evolutionary Natural Drift as Molecular Autopoietic Systems

Foundations of Science ◽

10.1007/s10699-015-9431-1 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 21 (4) ◽

pp. 631-678 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Humberto Maturana R. ◽

Ximena Dávila Yáñez ◽

Simón Ramírez Muñoz

Keyword(s):

Autopoietic Systems ◽

Natural Drift

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An Evaluation by Field Experiments of the McLay Model of Stream Drift

Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences ◽

10.1139/f85-115 ◽

1985 ◽

Vol 42 (5) ◽

pp. 909-918 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

P. A. Larkin ◽

D. W. McKone

Keyword(s):

Linear Function ◽

Field Experiments ◽

Drift Rate ◽

Stream Velocity ◽

Upstream Migration ◽

Spatial Differences ◽

Natural Drift ◽

Stream Drift

The model of McLay (J. Fish. Res. Board Can. 27: 359–370) for describing the drift of stream organisms was tested in a variety of field experiments in which organisms were disturbed from the substrate and/or the natural drift was blocked. In each situation, appropriate corrections may be made for the catch of drift organisms by the sampling nets. Disturbed animals drifted at a rate much less than stream velocity. The logarithm of the distance travelled was a linear function of the logarithm of mean stream velocity and conformed to the McLay model. Similarly, the model adequately described experiments in which two disturbances were done simultaneously, when drift was blocked for a 2-h period, and when there was both disturbance and blockage. A more comprehensive version of the model was only partially successful in describing the drift at various distances downstream of a blockage sustained for 4 d, probably because of upstream migration of organisms through the substrate, spatial differences in the densities of animals in the substrate, or a reduction in drift rate at lower density in the substrate.

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