Maybe it should be called “Universe Day”

I learned from physics that the universe is alive. I learned from biology that evolution crafts ecosystems.

Foundations of Physics

A child of the Space Age, I was drawn to study physics because I believed that the world could be understood from the bottom up. The world is made of particles that follow mechanical laws, and everything could be understood if I plumbed the broad implications of those laws.

Many physicists still think this way, but some of the deepest thinkers have realized that 20th century physics points to the inference that the Universe is alive. Three lessons from physics:

• Quantum mechanics is not about particles, but about systems. The concept of “entanglement” is often explained in terms of pairs of particles that must be considered as one system. Reality is far more radical. Everything is entangled, and physics is described by equations that cannot be solved.
  
  (Particle physicists continue to study individual particles in isolation, but only because that is the only case we know how to calculate. Particle physics tells us little about how the universe really works.)
  

• There is not one objective reality, but a reality co-created by observers. What each of us chooses to observe delivers flux and novelty into each physical moment.
  
  (This is called the “measurement problem”. It is a “problem” because most physicists want to believe in a world without consciousness, and they have to invent some material process to “collapse the wave function” — except that this material, whatever it is, cannot be governed by quantum mechanics.)
  

• The fundamental laws of physics — for example, the inverse square laws and the mass of the electron and the velocity of light and even the fact that electrons are quantum rather than classical particles — these laws are not arbitrary, but are finely-tuned to make a universe in which life is possible.
  
  (Many physicists are deeply committed to the principle that there is no “creator”, so they reject the idea that the laws of physics could have been created by consciousness as a way to make a physical home for itself. The only way they can do this is to assume the existence of a “multiverse” an unimaginably large number of universes, each with its own physical laws. Almost all of these are incapable of supporting life, so there is no one in them to look back and ask questions about physics. This is supposed to explain the fact that we find ourselves in a universe built on such hospitable physics.) 

Life is not an opportunistic phenomenon that took the particles and laws that it found and happened on a way to create self-reproducing systems that could evolve. No, life is built into the fabric of the universe. Life is the reason that this universe is what it is. The universe is a response to life’s longing for a home.

Evolution

At age 46, I was drawn to study biology. It was not the above reasoning that prompted my move out of physics. I became intrigued by the evolutionary paradox of programmed death.

Anyone who looks without theoretical preconception at the many ways that aging manifests in nature realizes that aging is a biological function. It is not a bug but a feature of the software. Aging is an epigenetic program.

But if we believe that all biological functions are products of evolution, we face a paradox: Fitness is about producing lots of babies. Fitness is about surviving robustly in challenging circumstances. Aging is the opposite of fitness. How could aging have evolved through a process of natural selection?

I was obsessed with this question from 1996 to 2001. I pursued dozens of hypotheses to dead end conclusions. My “eureka” moment came with a radical message, for which I have been a passionate advocate in the community of aging science and also in the field of evolutionary biology. In one sentence,

Evolution has worked to craft robust ecosystems.

A little scientific history 

Starting in 1966, mathematical theorists dominated the field of evolutionary biology with a concept of the “selfish gene”. Natural selection works at the lowest possible level. A gene is “fit” to the extent that it produces more copies of itself in the next generation. There is no such thing as a “fit individual” — only a collection of fit genes. There is no such thing as a “fit community” or a “fit species”. Natural selection might, in theory, operate on higher levels than the gene, but in reality, those higher level processes are too slow to matter.

This was the dogma introduced by R. A. Fisher, evangelized by George Williams, explicated theoretically by John Maynard Smith, presented to the public by Richard Dawkins.

…and opposed by one man, David Sloan Wilson. During the era 1966 - 2005 when the “selfish gene” ruled evolutionary biology, Wilson was meticulously laying a mathematical foundation for what he called “multilevel selection”, MLS. Wilson interpreted the mathematics of the selfish gene through a lens invented by George Price. He detailed circumstances under which group selection might be able to override individual selection, leading to altruistic behaviors. 

The prevailing dogma was ruthless. According to standard evolutionary theory, there is no real altruism, no cooperation in nature. Even something as integrated and clearly cooperative as a beehive had to be explained in terms of selfish genes. It was an absurdity.  I use the past tense, but this absurdity still has a chokehold on much of the academic community of evolution.

Wilson became my mentor, and introduced me into the evolutionary community as co-author of my first evolution paper. But even for Wilson, “fitness of an ecosystem” was beyond the pale. The dynamics of George Price as realized in MLS theory could not support a mechanism as radical as selection among ecosystems. It was mathematically implausible. 

My eureka moment

Damon Centola and Michael Gilpin were my inspiration. 

I was able to break out of selfish gene theory and MLS theory to understand aging when I realized that both those bodies of theory were built within an assumption of a stable ecosystem. But selfish genes are not compatible with a stable ecosystem. I was able to demonstrate this with mathematical models, and I consider this to be my principal contribution to science. Selfish genes very rapidly destroy the ecosystem in which they appear. This is how natural selection has so ruthlessly eliminated the selfish gene.

The fact that individual animals share a prey population ties their destinies tightly and inextricably together in a way that changes the fundamentals of evolutionary dynamics. All animals are forced to cooperate to preserve the pool of plants or animals on which their future depends. Selfish genes inevitably lead to overconsumption. No one can afford to be ruled by selfish genes.

The requirement of ecosystem stability changes everything about evolution, which is ultimately everything we understand about biology. Biology can only be understood in the context of evolution, and evolution can only be understood in the context of ecosystems. For four billion years, natural selection has been in the business of creating robust, homeostatic ecosystems. The scope of the “selfish gene” in this picture is limited indeed. 

Earth Day

So we come, at last, to the theme of the day. Sharks and lions and killer whales and polar bears may look ruthless to us, but no predator is evolved to be as efficient as physically possible. All predators are smart enough to protect the prey upon which they depend. (“Smart” may be in their genes rather than their brains.) 

V. C. Wynne-Edwards observed this in nature and described it with great eloquence. But his book was not sufficiently mathematical, and he was tarred and feathered by the theoretical wing of academic evolution.

Human brains have taken over from our genes and, just in the last few thousand years, have conceived the idea of turning nature into a “resource”. We have lost the knowledge that we are part of nature, and we have convinced ourselves that nature is something we can use.

Many indigenous peoples did not go astray in this way, but our dominant culture of the West used the temporary advantage that it gained via our exploitative mindset to subdue them. In recent decades, many in the West have learned the word “unsustainable”; but our institutions have a momentum that continues to carry us toward the precipice. 

In the 21st century, the study of molecular biology has vastly outpaced ecology. We have the illusion that life might be understood from the bottom up. We have the related and very dangerous illusion that if Gaia dies, that will be very sad, but humans will still be able to support our species using hydroponics and lab-grown food. 

No. If Gaia dies, then we all die with her. Every species depends on an ecosystem, and no individual can live without robust ecosystem “services”. If we are really “selfish” then we will organize to restore nature as if our lives depended on it — because they do.

You don’t have to march in the streets. You don’t have to write to your Congressperson. You don’t even have to plant a garden. But please celebrate a living Universe and give yourself space to feel a part of Life.