Natural Computing and Biological Evolution: A New Paradigm.

After a brief outline of the available hypotheses on the mechanism of biological evolution, attention is called on the global nature of the variations leading to the generation of new species. Integrated changes may hardly be attributed to beneficial random mutations of single traits even if assiste...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biology Forum / Rivista di Biologia Vol. 101; no. 1; pp. 119 - 129
Main Author: Giuditta, Antonio
Format: Article
Published: Fabrizio Serra Editore 2008
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Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Description
Summary:After a brief outline of the available hypotheses on the mechanism of biological evolution, attention is called on the global nature of the variations leading to the generation of new species. Integrated changes may hardly be attributed to beneficial random mutations of single traits even if assisted by a phylogenetic elimination of poorly adapted individuals. Rather, integrated variations are likely to reflect the outcome of cybernetic algorithms (natural computing) operating on organism's resources and impending environmental changes. As all organisms are endowed with computing capacities that modulate and integrate ontogenetic development and maintenance of biological functions, structures, and behaviors, these capacities are assumed to have moulded the evolutionary variations of organisms, and their transfer to the progeny.