Now 164 years later, nine scientists and philosophers on Monday proposed a new law of nature that includes the biological evolution described by Darwin as a vibrant example of a much broader phenomenon, one that appears at the level of atoms, minerals, planetary atmospheres, planets, stars and more.
Titled the"law of increasing functional information," it holds that evolving systems, biological and non-biological, always form from numerous interacting building blocks like atoms or cells, and that processes exist - such as cellular mutation - that generate many different configurations. Evolution occurs, it holds, when these various configurations are subject to selection for useful functions.
That first generation of stars, in the thermonuclear fusion cauldrons at their cores, forged about 20 heavier elements such as carbon, nitrogen and oxygen that were blasted into space when they exploded at the end of their life cycles. The subsequent generation of stars that formed from the remnants of the prior generation then similarly forged almost 100 more elements.
Hazen added that"function" might mean that a collection of atoms makes a stable mineral crystal that can persist, or that a star maintains its dynamic structure, or that"a life form learns a new 'trick' that allows it to compete better than its neighbours," Hazen added.