Chapter category: Evolution
Natura non facit saltum (Nature does nothing in jumps)
The Genomic Potential Hypothesis: A Chemist's View of the Origins, Evolution and Unfolding of Life
Edited by: Christian SchwabeISBN: 1-58706-044-2
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Chapter authors:
Christian Schwabe
Latin is intimidating, and people tend to defer to anything expressed in that venerable language. Of all the errors chiseled into our cultural foundation in Latin, the title of this chapter is remarkably wrong. The creation of atoms, the movement of electrons, molecular energy levels, everything is quantized and h (Planck's constant) represents the energy difference between nearest energy states anywhere in the visible universe. We live by feeding the energy difference between ground state and excited electrons into our system, taming the electron on its way down, so to speak, draining it of its energy one small package at a time. The sub-atomic world is rough but, unlike bacteria and smaller creatures that are buffeted by Brownian motion, metazoans do not feel the roughness. Macroscopic life feels molecular action as temperature, which seems to be a step-less quantity. The world perceived through our senses seems smooth and continuous so that we have to restore some credit to the idiom that is the title of this chapter.
Evolution, is it smooth or sporadic and does it matter? Sometimes our big problems boil down to silly questions. The evidence is right before us, could one not just recognize saltation without much ado? The problem is more complicated because the evidence comes in the form of still pictures (fossils) that need to be assembled to make a story and, because frames are taken millions of years apart, there is latitude for different hypotheses to exist. The mode of evolution, i.e., smooth and imperceptible, versus stop and go, versus rapid appearance with minor adjustments, are questions that are deeply embedded in different hypotheses. The answer to these questions determines what hypothesis of evolution will be viable in the final analysis so, does nature make jumps in the macroscopic world?
Additional chapters from this book:
The Genomic Potential Hypothesis: Introduction
Christian Schwabe
The Genomic Potential Hypothesis is a biochemists' view of the origin, evolution, and development of life. Large numbers are second nature to a biochemist an...
Quintessence
Christian Schwabe
Steven Weinberg once said that the complexity of physics today reaches very close to the edge of the human intellect.1 Where would that leave us, the bioch...
Experiments in Evolution
Christian Schwabe
Conceptual science interfaces with the experimental world as predictions emanate from the internal logic of a paradigm. Hypotheses concerning the origin and unfolding...
Molecular Geneology
Christian Schwabe
Is it rational to expect proteins such as insulin, relaxin, hemoglobin, or cytochrome to have followed the evolutionary route of the organisms from which they were taken? Of course it is , but...
On the Evolution of Humans
Christian Schwabe
Ancient bones are somewhat like wind vanes that show from which direction a particular hypothesis breezes across the fossil field. If a paradigm is useful one should ...
The Invariance Concept
Christian Schwabe
Tucked away, if it were possible, within the hollow of the tip of a dart gun needle aimed at man or beast one could make a memorable discovery. Just a moment after sk...
Natura non facit saltum (Nature does nothing in jumps)
Christian Schwabe
Latin is intimidating, and people tend to defer to anything expressed in that venerable language. Of all the errors chiseled into our cultural foundation in Latin, th...
Thoughts on Multi-Cellularity: How Nature got Around Darwin
Christian Schwabe
Reproductive success is the ultimate criterion for survival in the Darwinian paradigm, and since micro-organisms are undisputed champions of reproduction the countles...
Development of Biological Potential
Christian Schwabe
Should development come after speciation? Yes, of course, in the new model it is natural, one produces the Anlage and develops it to its potential. The word evolution...
The Origins of Species
Christian Schwabe
There was never a time on earth when only one kind, one species, existed. At least there is no evidence to that effect and a plausible extension of that simple though...
The Condensation of Life
Christian Schwabe
The course of biogenesis was carved into molecular structures by the events of the primeval initiation of our universe. The speed at which pure energy segregated into...
Our Young Planet: One is not a Choice
Christian Schwabe
The old model begins with one origin and the biochemist knows that to be impossible. The scientific basis for the genomist’s position has been discussed and will...
The Origin of Complexity
Christian Schwabe
Clearly, molecular complexity was a precondition for biogenesis. Contiguous molecular structures are monkey bars for electrons that provide the stream of energy requi...
Genomism and the Nature Trail
Christian Schwabe
As genes move into the center of a hypothesis one needs an "ism" to refer to the background of ideas that make up the new model. Thus, as the term Darwinism...
The Frame for New Hypotheses of Evolution
Christian Schwabe
How does one present any new idea, which is in principle impossible to proof? Hypotheses are self-limiting and an old paradigm of evolution will fall victim to its er...
Life in a Tenuous Universe
Christian Schwabe
The question is, do we live independent of the shape of our universe, or are we an intimate partner as well as a beneficiary of its peculiar structure and its awesome...
