Biology – Quantitative Biology – Populations and Evolution
Scientific paper
2010-11-15
Int. J. Astrobiology 11 (2012) 3-13
Biology
Quantitative Biology
Populations and Evolution
30 pages LaTex. Definitive (extended) version, as accepted by Int. J. Astrobiology
Scientific paper
The last few million years on planet Earth have witnessed two remarkable phases of hominid development, starting with a phase of biological evolution characterised by rather rapid increase of the size of the brain. This has been followed by a phase of even more rapid technological evolution and concomitant expansion of the size of the population, that began when our own particular `sapiens' species emerged, just a few hundred thousand years ago. The present investigation exploits the analogy between the neo-Darwinian genetic evolution mechanism governing the first phase, and the memetic evolution mechanism governing the second phase. From the outset of the latter until very recently -- about the year 2000 -- the growth of the global population N was roughly governed by an equation of the form dN/Ndt= N/T*, in which T* is a coefficient introduced (in 1960) by von Foerster, who evaluated it empirically as about two hundred thousand million years. It is shown here how the value of this hitherto mysterious timescale governing the memetic phase is explicable in terms of what happenned in the preceding genetic phase. The outcome is that the order of magnitude of the Foerster timescale can be accounted for as the product of the relevant (human) generation timescale, about 20 years, with the number of bits of information in the genome, of the order of ten thousand million. Whereas the origin of our `homo' genus may well have involved an evolutionary hard step, it transpires that the emergence of our particular `sapiens' species was rather an automatic process.
No associations
LandOfFree
Hominid evolution: genetics versus memetics does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Hominid evolution: genetics versus memetics, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Hominid evolution: genetics versus memetics will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-299060