Note this is quickly replacing evolution and becoming the new model with the resistance from nihilistic atheist spectrum and basically claiming by proxy a more meaningful view of the universe more in line with Spinoza which is a step back towards Christian thinking....
UNIVERSAL SYMBIOGENESIS 179
It is indeed impossible to distinguish, let alone count, allthe elements that are borrowed or mixed in a givenlanguage or culture. But this does not
a priori
entail that itis not worth the effort to examine how many elements became merged throughout the course of its history.Universal symbiogenesis would thus introduce and allowfor concepts such as interaction and cooperation that oftenoperate in the humanities, notions that are often countered by concepts of competition (see e.g. Speidel, 2000), and assuch the concept of universal symbiogenesis cancomplement and/or counter cost-benefit equations and ideason selfishness.
9. Conclusion
The theory of evolution by means of natural selectionand universal selectionist accounts that grew out of themhave turned out to be very useful tools to model theevolution of life and various products of life. However, itcannot explain all the different types in which evolution canoccur and produce evolutionary novelty. If natural selectionwould indeed be able to explain all of life’s evolution, thenand only then, would it be an unscientific theory for atheory that explains everything explains nothing. The latter however is not the case.Faultfinders have rightly argued that the ModernSynthesis focuses exclusively on the mechanism of naturalselection to explain evolution. It has been argued that theModern Synthesis presents a sterile view of evolution(Sapp, 2004: 1049) for it fails to include the microcosm,which results in an evolutionary theory only applicable tozoology (Margulis and Sagan, 2002). The focus oncompetition and cost-benefit equations naturally excludescooperative and altruistic views since both are antagonisticcounterparts (Speidel, 2000), and organisms as well asspecies are, within a (post-)neo-Darwinian view,understood to be independently evolving entities (Margulisand Sagan, 2002).Here, symbiogenesis – which does not regard evolutionas a sterile process – allows for cooperative views and,following Margulis ideas, sees all organisms as chimeras, isoffered as a complementary view. Symbiogenesis can beuniversalized as well and can include at minimum theepidemiology of viruses, hybridization, cultural andlanguage evolution and even certain cosmological processes. Universal symbiogenesis even has potential inmedical applications. And also – not discussed here – epigenetic processes can be absorbed into a universalsymbiogenetic scheme, because the different interaction of the same genes lead to the emergence of new traits andsometimes even result in speciation.The already often used notion of a
symbiont
by scholarsworking within a symbiogenetic framework can thus beapplied as a universal, evolutionary epistemologicalconcept as well, where it can complement Dawkins’replicators and Hull’s interactors.The enormous potential of an evolutionary view basedon symbiogenesis is yet to be felt in many extra-biologicalfields and also within evolutionary biology itself. It would be an enormous waste not to explore this potential and todismiss symbiogenesis
a priori
as a “would-be challenger”to selectionism. The universal symbiogenetic formula presented in this article will contribute in a positive way tomaking the importance of symbiogenesis more widelyknown in these other fields of research.
Acknowledgements
Sincere thanks to the Fund for Scientific Research,Flanders, the Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Scienceand the Research and Development Department of the VrijeUniversiteit Brussel. A warm thanks also goes out toFrancisco Carrapiço (botanist) and Frank Ryan (virologistand MD) for revising earlier drafts of parts of this paper.Roslyn Frank (cognitive linguist) is cordially thanked for commenting on the linguistic aspects described in this paper and for revising the whole paper in order for it to bein accordance with English grammar and orthography.Finally, Rik Pinxten (anthropologist) is also thankedsincerely.REFERENCES
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