This is the best summary I could come up with:
A team of scientists and philosophers say many systems – including minerals, changes within stars and even hurricanes – are made up of multiple components that can come together in myriad ways, some of which persist while others fall by the wayside.
The researchers go on to propose that which forms persist is governed by a number of selection pressures – similar to the way Darwinian evolution is based on “survival of the fittest”.
“We see Darwinian evolution as a specific case of a more general process that applies to nonliving systems as well,” said Dr Michael Wong, first author of the research, based at the Carnegie Institution for Science.
Writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Wong and colleagues say that prior to their work there was no law of increasing complexity, despite many living and nonliving systems evolving over time to display greater diversity, distribution or patterned behaviour.
Prof Milan Ćirković of the Belgrade astronomical observatory and the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, described the work as “a breeze of fresh air blowing over the difficult terrain at the tri-junction of astrobiology, systems science and evolutionary theory”.
“Given an immense amount of space and time, and the laws of physics and chemistry, an expanding variety of materials, environments and structures will emerge in the inanimate world,” said Prof Martin Rees.
The original article contains 525 words, the summary contains 228 words. Saved 57%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Masimatutu@lemm.ee 1 year ago
No shit Sherlock
Things which are better at surviving are more likely to survive… mind blown!