Basics of Evolution - O.P. Korzh - 2006

Part II. MACROEVOLUTION

Chapter 14. Progressive Evolution

14.2. Unlimited Progress

Unlimited progress is the most general form of the Progressive development of living matter, spanning from the simplest organisms to human society.

This form of progressive evolution is considered the least elaborated; the total number of criteria defining it exceeds 40, yet this does not fully resolve the issue.

The objective existence within the Earth's biosphere of a developmental trajectory from the simplest forms to highly organized ones—which have now taken the form of human society—should be regarded as the main highway of life's evolution, comparable to unlimited progress. To us, as outside observers, such progressive development of living organisms presents itself as a series of temporal Changes in the so-called dominant forms of the biosphere.

In different geological epochs, the dominant groups were entirely different from those of today. Initially, sparse organisms bearing novel adaptations appeared on the biological arena; they gradually supplanted preceding groups and held sway for a certain period until a new turnover took place. It was through this exact pathway that progressive development led to modern mammals and humans as the apex of organic evolution, which transitioned to a new quality by forming a social Structure. According to A.I. Zotin and A.A. Zotin (1999), The Emergence of civilizations on Earth is a direct consequence of the evolutionary process.

Thus, unlimited progress acts as the most generalized form of progress inherent to living nature as a whole—serving as the overarching vector of life's development. However, one must bear in mind the relative nature even of this form, since The Development of life is constrained, one way or another, by the dimensions of planet Earth, available resources, and even the Limits of the genetic foundation of hereditary Variability (in reality, the constraints are even greater). Therefore, the boundlessness of this form of progress should be understood merely as nature's potential capacity for further progressive transformations even after the disappearance of humanity, seeing as humanity was neither the pioneer of the social mode of life nor, perhaps, will it be the last.

Among vertebrates, coelurosaurs can be considered some of The earliest representatives possessing the necessary developmental prerequisites for establishing a society. These were relatively small carnivorous dinosaurs weighing about 70-80 kg, with a cephalization coefficient 5.8 times greater than that of modern crocodiles (approximately 0.126).

Other Representatives of the animal kingdom—in particular certain birds (corvids, raptors), cetaceans, and octopuses—also possess Prerequisites for the future formation of their own civilizations, as they exhibit certain traits of a social lifestyle. The boundlessness of this form of progress lies precisely in the fact that evolution has no reason to stop at human society, and entirely different pathways of biosphere development remain possible in the future.

Quite often, unlimited progress is depicted as an unbroken chain of organismal development leading from the simplest forms to humans through a vast number of links. It must be admitted that this approach is oversimplified and fails to reflect the real proportions found in nature. A cursory glance at the independent development of social lifestyles across various animal taxa indicates that the emergence of human civilization was not strictly obligatory and highlights the parallel nature of many processes in nature. To the question of why new civilizations do not emerge in our time, one can reply as follows: doing so would require substantial transformations of the biosphere that would first lead to the disappearance of human civilization, and subsequently to its unforeseen development on a novel biological basis.

The generalized vector of the organic world's progressive development by no means refutes the phenomena of regression—we constantly observe its distinct manifestations. For instance, special attention is warranted by the process wherein certain organisms specialize toward restricted living conditions. While this may not entail general degeneration, as seen in many parasites or sessile forms, it significantly curtails the potential for further progressive development. Thus, it is traditionally believed that the narrow specialization of dolphins for an aquatic lifestyle precludes them from achieving a higher level of Organization. At the same time, one cannot rule out the possibility for these forms to somehow shed these limitations in the future.

What criteria have been proposed for this form of progress? First and foremost, progressive transformations are understood not merely as the appearance of something new, but as The formation of something better. The advancement of certain organisms via unlimited progress is tied both to their morphophysiological changes and to the restructuring of population dynamics, which ultimately helps reduce each individual Organism's dependence on environmental conditions. Such emancipation of individual organisms from the decisive impact of random fluctuations in environmental parameters facilitates the further colonization of the surrounding world. The absence of a narrow ecological niche prevents the respective organism from sliding into specialization, which also becomes a prerequisite for progressive development. The consequence of such transformations is the Autonomization of ontogeny and a substantial improvement in individual survival, accompanied by an increase in the efficiency of many biological processes—outcomes that require only a comprehensive application of the criteria of unlimited progress.