ELFT HÍRADÓ

[tcsaba <tcsaba AT eik.bme.hu>]

                 M E G H Í V Ó - I N V I T A T I O N

    Seminar Series of the Department of Theoretical Physics at the
           Budapest University of Technology and Economics

                          Géza Meszéna
       (Department of Biological Physics, Eötvös University)


        Biological adaptation – through a physicist’s eye

The essential aspect of life is adaptation to the job of 
self-replication through Darwinian selection. The entities performing 
this job are surprisingly complex non-equilibrium, self-organized 
systems. Nevertheless, complexity is not the goal. There is no inherent 
drive in evolution to increase individual complexity. Instead, 
individual complexity jumps up in rare evolutionary transitions. My own 
interest is the branching nature of evolution. Why ‘fittest wins’ leads 
to a “zoo” of different kinds of fittest? Certainly, this is not a 
gradient-dynamics. Our answer lies in the mathematical structure of 
self-regulating feedback loops of ecosystems. In a recent book we 
attempted to build the theory of ecology on this basis. The Holy Grail 
of ecological theory is understanding high-diversity ecosystems, like a 
rain-forest. My vote is the adaptationist one – not necessarily shared 
by everybody. Ultimately, biological diversity may, or may not, governed 
by some kind of self-organised criticality…


Időpont: 2017. szeptember 22. péntek, 10:15
Helyszín: BME Fizikai Intézet, Elméleti Fizika Tanszék,
Budafoki út 8. F-épület, III lépcsőház, szemináriumi szoba