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Updated: Oct 30, 2025

Daily Transfers, Archiving Populations, and Measuring Fitness in the Long-Term Evolution Experiment with Escherichia coli
Published on: August 18, 2023
Cellular evolution as the flow of energy
1Departments of Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Evolutionary Medicine Program, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, United States.
Abstract:
In contrast to Darwinian evolution, which is founded on the material competition between organisms, cellular epigenetic evolution focuses on cell-cell communication of data from one stage of life to another-developmentally, phylogenetically, as injury-repair - ultimately governed by the First Principles of Physiology. By merging ontogeny and phylogeny, since both are based on cell-cell communication mediated by soluble growth factors and their receptors, evolution complies as one holistic, unified process. As such, the material aspects of the organism can be seen as 'means' instead of 'ends', begging the question as to just what the 'ends' of evolution are ? Once the superficial material aspect of lifeforms is eliminated, only the flow of energy is left, within and between generations. Contemporary biology and physics are at a critical phase, unable to reduce their problems to practice. A paradigm shift to evolution as energy flow is proposed as the solution.
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