Biology in the Early 21st Century: Evolution Beyond Selection
A special issue of Biology (ISSN 2079-7737).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 September 2017) | Viewed by 31172
Special Issue Editors
Interests: cognition; information fields; hologenomics; epigenetics; niche construction; cell–cell communication
Interests: First Principles of Physiology; ambiguity; unicellular state; endothermy; qualitative:quantitative evolution; free will/determinism
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The conventional NeoDarwinian appraisal of evolution is based on corresponding pillars of random genetic variation and selection via differential fitness. In the 21st century, a salient question arises. Is this a sufficient evolutionary narrative? This Special Issue will offer several differing perspectives on evolutionary development and phylogeny that extend beyond Darwinian selection. The role of cellular cooperativity, cellular cognition, self-reference, niche construction, stigmergy, self-organization, epigenetic modifications, genetic transfer and mobility, endosymbiosis, hologenomics, and non-stochastic genetic mechanisms will be addressed. In particular, cell–cell communication and aspects of cellular/genetic self-engineering will be considered. Over many years, movement towards a substantial revision of the NeoDarwinian synthesis has gained slow momentum through many diverging approaches. This Special Issue will explore a variety of contemporary alternative views that may provide a pathway towards a dominant, cohering, and predictive non-Darwinian narrative for evolutionary development.
Dr. William B. Miller, Jr.
Prof. John S. Torday
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- evolutionary biology
- cognition
- niche construction
- cellular engineering
- cell–cell communication
- hologenome
- epigenetics
- self-organization
- ambiguity/uncertainty
- self-Reference
- entropy/negentropy
- First Principles of Physiology
- determinism/free will
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