The direction of evolution: The rise of cooperative organization

Resource type
Author/contributor
Title
The direction of evolution: The rise of cooperative organization
Abstract
Two great trends are evident in the evolution of life on Earth: towards increasing diversification and towards increasing integration. Diversification has spread living processes across the planet, progressively increasing the range of environments and free energy sources exploited by life. Integration has proceeded through a stepwise process in which living entities at one level are integrated into cooperative groups that become larger-scale entities at the next level, and so on, producing cooperative organizations of increasing scale (for example, cooperative groups of simple cells gave rise to the more complex eukaryote cells, groups of these gave rise to multi-cellular organisms, and cooperative groups of these organisms produced animal societies). The trend towards increasing integration has continued during human evolution with the progressive increase in the scale of human groups and societies. The trends towards increasing diversification and integration are both driven by selection. An understanding of the trajectory and causal drivers of the trends suggests that they are likely to culminate in the emergence of a global entity. This entity would emerge from the integration of the living processes, matter, energy and technology of the planet into a global cooperative organization. Such an integration of the results of previous diversifications would enable the global entity to exploit the widest possible range of resources across the varied circumstances of the planet. This paper demonstrates that it's case for directionality meets the tests and criticisms that have proven fatal to previous claims for directionality in evolution.
Publication
Biosystems
Volume
123
Pages
27-36
Date
September 2014
Series
SI :Patterns in Evolution
Journal Abbr
Biosystems
ISSN
0303-2647
Short Title
The direction of evolution
Accessed
03/05/2017, 09:37
Library Catalogue
ScienceDirect
Citation
Stewart, J. E. (2014). The direction of evolution: The rise of cooperative organization. Biosystems, 123, 27–36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystems.2014.05.006