Abstract
Adaptation and evolution are quasi synonymous in popular language and Darwinian evolution is a prime application of complex adaptive system theory. We will see that adaptation does not happen automatically and discuss the concept of “error catastrophe” as a possible root for the downfall of a species. Venturing briefly into the mysteries surrounding the origin of life, we will investigate the possible advent of a “quasispecies” in terms of mutually supporting hypercycles. The basic theory of evolution is furthermore closely related to game theory, the mathematical theory of interacting agents, viz of rationally acting economic persons.
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Notes
- 1.
Note that the term “macroevolution”, coined to describe the evolution at the level of organisms, is nowadays somewhat obsolete.
- 2.
The probability to find a state with energy E in a thermodynamic system with temperature T is proportional to the Boltzmann factor exp( − β E). The inverse temperature is β = 1 ∕ (k B T), with k B being the Boltzmann constant.
- 3.
The energy of a state depends in classical mechanics on the values of the available degrees of freedom, like the position and the velocity of a particle. This function is denoted Hamiltonian. In Eq. (6.21) the Hamiltonian is a function of the binary variables s and s ′.
- 4.
Any system of binary variables is equivalent to a system of interacting Ising spins, which retains only the classical contribution to the energy of interacting quantum mechanical spins (the magnetic moments).
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Gros, C. (2013). Darwinian Evolution, Hypercycles and Game Theory. In: Complex and Adaptive Dynamical Systems. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36586-7_6
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