Towards and ExtendedEvolutionary SynthesisEörs Szathmáry

Collegium Budapest Eötvös University

München

What I am omitting

• VERY mathematical aspects, such as– Adaptive dynamics– Statistical mechanics as applied to multilocus

and quantitative genetics• Evo-Devo (too much for this talk)• Most of epigenetic inheritance• Astrobiology (so far only hunches)

J. Huxley (1942) Evolution: theModern Synthesis

• Can hardly be modern• Is it wrong?• No, BUT• It is INCOMPLETE

Units of evolution

Some hereditary traits affectsurvival and/or fertility

1. multiplication

2. heredity

3. variability

Von Kiedrowski’s replicator

Autocatalytic peptide networks

Chemical evolution was a race between tar formation and life

formation

Chemical networks

Life Tar

What fraction of planets would end up with just tar?

The major transitions (1995)

***

*

* These transitions are regarded to be ‘difficult’

Molecular hypercycle (Eigen, 1971)

autocatalysis

heterocatalytic aid

Parasites in the hypercycle (JMS)

parasite

short circuit

The stochastic corrector model for compartmentation

Szathmáry, E. & Demeter L. (1987) Group selection of early replicators and the origin of life. J. theorBiol. 128, 463-486.

Grey, D., Hutson, V. & Szathmáry, E. (1995) A re-examination of the stochastic corrector model. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 262, 29-35.

The structure of the genetic code

• Amino acids in the same column of the genetic code are more related to each other physico-chemically

The RNA world may have precededthe RNA-protein world

• Easy optimisation (with limits)• Many artifical ribozymes (BUT no replicase) • Coenzymes• Ribozyme doing peptidyl transfer during

protein synthesis in ribosomes• Amino acyl-tRNA synthetases are NOT the

most ancient proteins• 20 residues are better than 4 in catalysis

Amino acid binding RNA aptamers(Yarus, 2009)

Why is language so interesting?

• Because everybody knows that only we talk• …although other animals may understand a

number of words• Language makes long-term cumulative

cultural evolution possible• A novel type of inheritance system with

showing “unlimited hereditary” potential

What is so special about human language?

• Basically, it is the fact that we make sentences out of words, using grammar

• Languages are translatable into one another with good efficiency

• Some capacity for language acquisition seems to be innate

Recuerdos de mi vida (Cajal, 1917, pp. 345–350)

“At that time, the generally accepted idea that the differences between the brain of [non-human] mammals (cat, dog, monkey, etc.) and that of man are only quantitative, seemed to me unlikely and even a little offensive to human dignity. . .

but do not articulate language, the capability of abstraction, the ability to create concepts, and, finally, the art of inventing ingenious instruments. . .

seem to indicate (even admitting fundamental structural correspondences with the animals) the existence of original resources, of something qualitatively new which justifies the psychological nobility of Homo sapiens?. . . ’’.

Understanding language evolution is difficult

Challenges: a simple experiment (Hauser & Fitch)

• Habituation experiments• Finite state grammar

(AB)n is recognizable by tamarins

• Phrase structure grammar AnBn is NOT.

• Human studentsrecognize both

Recursive syntactic pattern learningin birds?

• European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) accuratelyrecognize recursive syntactic patterns

• They are able to exlude agrammatical forms• Centre-embedding is not uniquely human?

An unpleasant problem

Counting Real embedding

Evolution OF the brain

The coevolutionary wheel

Intermediatecapacities: e.g. analogicalreasoning

A neglected process?

• "A wonderful exploration of this strangely neglected topic, opening new vistas on how organisms - including humans - construct ecological niches over evolutionary time…. I think this book is a 'must read'." Robert May

Niche construction

• Confounded vocabulary?• More than the extended phenotype?• Niche construction is the process in which

an organism alters its own (or other species') environment, often but not always in a manner that increases its chances of survival.

Niche construction II

• Not only does the environment cause changes in species through selection, but species also cause changes in their environment through niche construction

• The effect of niche construction may be especially pronounced in situations where the alterations persist for several generations, introducing . Organisms inherit two legacies from their ancestors, genes and a modified environment.

The „traditional view”

The revised view