| Palaeos: | |
Life |
| Cosmic Evolution | Life |
| Page Back: Earth - Glossary | Unit Up: Cosmic Evolution | Unit Up: Cosmos | Unit Home (you are here) |
Page Next: Biological Evolution |
| Unit Back: Earth |
Unit Back: Abiotic (emergent complexity) |
Unit Down: Tellurobiota (subcategory) |
Unit Next: Mind (emergent complexity) |
Unit Next: Astrobiology (subcategory) |
 The Green Algae, Chlorella sp. (Division Chlorophyta, Order Chlorellales. Family Chlorellaceae). This photo is found at a number of places online, e.g. Integrated Algae Production in Built Environments, Algae Research, HFood: Chlorella, This hardy freshwater organism has a number of uses (food, medicinal, wastewater treatment, biofuel, etc). |
The above shows the second of a series of three integrative diagrams on Cosmic evolution by Erich Jantsch. In his book The Self Organizing Universe, Jantsch, an astronomer and futurist influenced by systems theorist Illya Prigogine, unifies the various fields of science and human knowledge in a single evolutionary framework. The above diagram, entitled "Socio-biological evolution", continues the same events and processes shown in the previous diagram. As the name indicates, evolution is here not only about life but about communities of organisms and social behaviour. Here, following the development of the Earth, life appears and evolves through feedback between the micro- and macro- scales. On the macro- or more properly collective scale, there is the evolution of the prebiotic Earth (macro) and dissipative structures (micro) into planetary biosphere (Gaia - macro) and prokaryote organisms (micro). The evolution of eukaryotes makes possible diversified ecosystems, while multicellular organisms and more complex nervous systems and intelligence levels enable intraspecific societies and group and family behaviour (ethology, sociobiology). MAK110907. (diagram copyright, Erich Jantsch, Pergamon Press).
Evolution: Can there be any more controversial subject than evolution? Or anything more interesting? Without evolution, there would only be a stifling sameness, no rise and fall of vendobionts, anomolocarids, trilobites, sea scorpions, weird armoured paleozoic fish, primordial coal swamps, dinosaurs, and all the other incredible denizens and ecosystems that have populated and shared our planet through the ages. Nor would we be where we are now (which may or may not be considered a good thing, depending on your perspective). So telling the story of life on Earth also means explaining the dynamics of the evolution of life on Earth. This will not be a detailed and in depth review (for that a number of links are provided), but only a cursory one. Also included is a timeline and glossary of evolutionary science, which also (just to be different) includes but the history of the ideas that preceeded and led up to it, as well as its rejection by literalist religion, as well as philosophical and cultural reflections. All that these things have in common is that they are in some ways concerned with evolution.
Ecology : Just a holding page at the moment.
There is no reason why Life should be limited to Earth alone. Hence this page should perhaps be titled "Life in the Universe", rather than just Life. In any case, as shown below, we have purely informally divided life into two categories - Life on Earth ("Tellurobiota") and LIfe elsewhere in the Universe (Astrobiology). wherever life appears however, and whatever form it takes, it is likely to be governed by the same rules of evolution, ecological guilds and niches, and so on. Also central to the topic at hand is paleontology, the study of ancient life via fossil remains (which raises also the possibility of exopaleontology, the study of fossil lifeforms from other worlds, currently only the province of science fiction, apart from controversial Martian meteorite fossils), and phylogeny and systematics, putting it all together in one big evolutionary tree (so far only applicable to Earth, but who knows in the future what science will uncover). MAK110905
Astrobiology : Of course life is certainly not limited to this planet alone, hence we have a page on the very speculative but also very cool science of astrobiology.
Life on Earth : Here is our basic introduction to Life on Earth; which we have informally christened "Tellurobiota". This unit covers such topics as the Meaning of Life, the Facts of Life, and the Purpose of Life, Kingdoms of Life, and the Tree of Life and serves as a springboard to more detailed consideration of the phylogeny (evolutionary tree) of Life on Earth.
Two methodologies, or tools and approaches for mapping out and understanding the history and evolution, and building the family tree of, life on Earth are Paleontology and Phylogeny:
Paleontology : Palaeos is about paleontology, the study of ancient life via fossil remains, but it feels strange to have separate pages for what is essentially the topic of the whole site. So this section includes only a basic description, and the inevitable and unavoidable glossary.
Phylogeny : The evolutionary relationships of life is presented in terms of a series of nested dendrograms or cladograms which make up the big genealogical tree or family relationship of all of life on Earth, the field of biology known as phylogeny, putting it all together in one big evolutionary tree. The classification side of it is called systematics.
| Page Back: Earth - Glossary | Page Up: Cosmic Evolution | Page Top | Page Next: Evolution |
