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WORLD AS DATA. "The growing efficiency of DNA sequencing and synthesis means that it will soon become practical to encode digital information as DNA sequence. This would provide advantages of long-term storage and the capacity for archiving far more information than is currently stored globally." https://lnkd.in/eKjEK6c View in LinkedIn

ECOSYSTEM EVOLUTION. "Can an ecosystem be organised ‘for’ anything if it is not an evolutionary unit? That is, how can natural selection at the level of individuals within multiple species result in ecological organisations that are self-supporting at the system level (homeostasis), or indeed, result in any kind of ‘ecosystem evolution’ that is more than the sum of the evolution of the parts?" http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11692-015-9358-z View in LinkedIn

EVOLUTION OF EVOLUTION. "Conversely, if all it does is find organisations that are fit over the set of past environments, then that seems to be conventional evolution, not the evolution of evolvability." http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11692-015-9358-z View in LinkedIn

PREDICTIVE EVOLUTION. "Can development be organised to facilitate future adaptation? That is, can evolution ‘predict’ or ‘anticipate’ what developmental organisations will enable adaptive variation in new environments that it has not yet been exposed to?" http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11692-015-9358-z View in LinkedIn

DUSTING OFF DARWIN. "Such problems motivate the growing recognition that the Darwinian machine needs an overhaul: That self-referential evolutionary mechanisms (where the products of evolution alter the processes of evolution) create serious problems for existing theory, and that a new and expanded theoretical framework is needed that integrates “eco-evo-devo” processes (and we would add “ego” to this list also)." https://lnkd.in/dTqS4ZN View in LinkedIn

HIGHER LEVEL SELECTION. "In the absence of a higher-level selective process that might favour evolutionary processes that are successful in the long term, it seems equally likely that such organisations might constrain or frustrate subsequent adaptation." http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11692-015-9358-z View in LinkedIn

EVOLVABILITY LIMITS. "Although it is clear that evolution can modify the parameters of variation, selection and inheritance, and this might facilitate evolvability, it is not at all clear that these organisations can be adaptations for increased evolvability." http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11692-015-9358-z View in LinkedIn

SCALE CHANGES. "Such features change the scale at which heritable variation in reproductive success is manifest, thus resulting in the evolution of new levels of Darwinian individuality." http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11692-015-9358-z View in LinkedIn

VARIOUS GROUP OPTIONS. "This may involve reproductive organisations that synchronise the transmission of information across generations (e.g. vertical transmission of symbionts; compartmentalisation of replicators; or linkage of replicating molecules into chromosomes), or restrict the channels of communication (e.g., bottle-necked life-cycle, germ-soma separation)." http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11692-015-9358-z View in LinkedIn

STEPPING IT UP. "These changes, i.e. changes that prevent independent replication, act to suppress fitness differences between individuals at one level of organisation and may provide opportunities for natural selection to create heritable fitness differences at a higher-level of organisation." http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11692-015-9358-z View in LinkedIn