Biology's First Law: The Tendency for Diversity and Complexity to Increase in Evolutionary Systems

By Daniel W. McShea, Robert N. Brandon
Number Of Pages: 184 
Publication Date: 2010-07-15
ISBN-10: 0226562263 
ISBN-13: 9780226562261 


Life on earth is characterized by three striking phenomena that demand explanation: adaptation—the marvelous fit between organism and environment; diversity—the great variety of organisms; and complexity—the enormous intricacy of their internal structure. Natural selection explains adaptation. But what explains diversity and complexity? Daniel W. McShea and Robert N. Brandon argue that there exists in evolution a spontaneous tendency toward increased diversity and complexity, one that acts whether natural selection is present or not. They call this tendency a biological law—the Zero-Force Evolutionary Law, or ZFEL. This law unifies the principles and data of biology under a single framework and invites a reconceptualization of the field of the same sort that Newton’s First Law brought to physics.