Branching patterns of human evolution, and the acceleration of human evolution

Received: 27-Mar-2023, Manuscript No. puljcgg-23-6277; Editor assigned: 03-Apr-2023, Pre QC No. puljcgg-23-6277(PQ); Accepted Date: Apr 25, 2023; Reviewed: 14-Apr-2023 QC No. puljcgg-23-6277(Q); Revised: 22-Apr-2023, Manuscript No. puljcgg-23-6277(R); Published: 29-Apr-2023, DOI: 10.37532.6(1).01-06

Citation: Stevens CP. Branching patterns of human evolution and the acceleration of human evolution. J Clin Genet Genom. 2023;6(1):01- 11.

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Abstract

What shapes and organizes biological variation? Scientists have long suspected that factors in addition to Darwinist natural selection shape and organize biological variation, and scientists also have suspected that increasing culture plays a role in shaping and organizing brain Encephalization in the evolution of the genus Homo. I compare a population of clones to the natural population from which the clones are derived to generate new predictions regarding the evolution of species, and also to facilitate the identification of an unrecognized branching pattern or series of branching patterns in the evolution of the human species. In the case of an individual organism taken at random to produce a population of clones, it is possible to predict that the distribution of characteristics of the species population or natural population from which the clones were derived collapses in the population of clones (i.e., in the human species: faces and facial characteristics, body types and Physical characteristics, behavioral characteristics, and also assortative mating across individuals are reduced in a population of clones). In the human species, human evolution itself involves an increasing number and differentiation of facial characteristics, body types and physical characteristics, and behavioral characteristics including intelligences, personality characteristics, and talents that reduces or collapses in a generation of clones

Key Words

Branching patterns; Biophysics; Cloning; Adaptation; Assortative mating; Evolution

Introduction

I seek to demonstrate an unrecognized branching pattern or series of branching patterns in the human species by way of a comparison of a population of clones to the natural population from which the clones are derived. In the case of an individual human organism taken at random and cloned to produce a population of clones (such as a 1,000 or a 1,000,000), it is possible to predict that the distribution of characteristics of the natural population would collapse in the generation of clones [1]. In the human species this distribution of characteristics across individual organisms in any generation is part of a larger branching pattern or series of branching patterns (faces, physical characteristics, and behavioral characteristics). That is, there is an increasing number and differentiation of faces and facial characteristics, physical characteristics (including across body types, ectomorphs, mesomorphs, and endomorphs), and behavioral characteristics including intelligences, personality characteristics, and talents from the earliest human societies to contemporary human societies, including across various ethnic, linguistic, and racial groups. In alternative terms, I seek to identify what Charles Darwin called the “diversity of mental faculties of men” or the diversity of mental faculties across individuals as being part of a larger branching pattern of characteristics including facial characteristics in the genus Homo[2]. The co-discoverer of the theory of evolution by natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace, argued that natural selection in itself did not explain the existence of higher intelligence or higher intelligences in humans (or “the diversity of mental faculties in men” as Darwin called them). This is because, in Wallace’s view, the theory of natural selection explained the conservation of adaptive characteristics that emerged to meet immediate or near immediate needs and wants of the organism and the larger species of which the breeding population of organisms was a part. Thus, Wallace argued that from the standpoint of natural selection the higher intelligence of humans was an extravagance compared to the adaptive characteristics that emerged from natural selection to meet immediate or near immediate needs and wants presented by the environment. Wallace states that the “laws of evolution” in their “essence” generate in species “a degree of organization exactly proportionate to the wants of each species, never beyond those wants” [3]. In Wallace’s view, “natural selection could only have endowed savage man with a brain a few degrees superior to that of an ape, whereas he actually possesses one very little inferior to that of a philosopher”. Branching patterns are fundamental to science, and many phenomena across branches of science are considered or classified as branching patterns [4-7]. This includes the tree of life, cellular differentiation of organisms, branching patterns of characteristics across individual organisms within species, branching patterns of characteristics and adaptive structures across species, languages and linguistic groups, religions and religious sects, fields and subfields of science, philosophy, and knowledge, families, organizations, networks of computers and electronic devices, and also human societies themselves. No Darwinist or neo-Darwinist has ever attempted to identify, recognize, or explain the branching pattern of an increasing number and differentiation of faces and facial characteristics, body types and physical characteristics, and behavioral characteristics including intelligences, personality characteristics, and talents, its emergence and diversification as a branching pattern or series of branching patterns in human evolution, or its potential isomorphism with increasing brain Encephalization and increasing structural and functional differentiation in the brain. If Darwinism does not explain or identify the existence and emergence of these patterns, what does? Since Darwinism or natural selection is commonly treated as a constant across primates and the human species, I suggest that the principle of organization of this larger branching pattern in the human species is assortative mating. Moreover, I seek to develop an explanation of this larger branching pattern based on the co-evolution of human biology, the brain, and culture, and increasing assortative mating and increasing culture in the evolution of the genus Homo and the human species. I also conjecture that there is an isomorphism between the increasing geometry of faces and facial characteristics and behavioral characteristics including intelligences, personality characteristics, and talents in the genus Homo with increasing brain Encephalization in the genus Homo.

Literature Review

In a comparison of a population of clones to a random sample of the natural population from which the population of clones was derived, a number of quantities are reduced

If a human individual taken at random was cloned to produce a population of clones (such as cloning an individual to produce a 1,000 or a 1,000,000 genetic identical or clones), it is possible to predict that the distribution of characteristics of the natural population would collapse in the population of clones, and that there would be a reduction in the number and differentiation of faces and facial characteristics, physical characteristics (including body types endomorphs, mesomorphs, and ectomorphs), personality characteristics, and also the number and differentiation of intelligences and talents across the population of genetic identical or clones compared to a random sample of the natural population from which the clones were taken, derived, or modeled.

Thus, in the case of an individual taken at random, and given the nature of genetic inheritance, the resulting population of clones would have identical or nearly identical faces, and also identical or nearly identical or highly similar sets of personality characteristics, talents, and intelligences. Thus, the resulting population of clones or genetic identical would have fewer faces, fewer personality characteristics, fewer intelligences and talents than a random sample of individuals of a similar size taken from the same ethnic group or racial group of the clone, or from the larger natural population of the species itself.

There also would be less assortative mating. There would be less assortative mating because the number of characteristics across individuals would be reduced; that is, the number of dissimilar characteristics would collapse in a generation of clones, and the number of categories of similar characteristics would be reduced in a population of clones compared to a random sample of a the natural population from which the clones were taken, derived, or modeled. Assortative mating includes mating and interaction of ‘like with like’ or mating across similar characteristics, and also mating and interaction across dissimilar and complementary characteristics, sometimes popularly referred to as ‘opposites attract’. Consequently, assortative mating as a quantity may be identified. Here, I simply want to establish that assortative mating as a quantity can be established, and that in the case of an individual taken at random that was cloned to produce a population of genetic identical or clones, there would be less assortative mating in a generation of clones compared to a random sample of a population of similar size taken from the same ethnic or racial group or the population at large; research may be able to more precisely measure and assess quantities of assortative mating across different populations of the human species, or across other species and biological systems.

Cloning collapses quantities that have been increasing in human evolution

The comparison of a generation of clones to the natural population from which the clones were derived also implies that if a number of quantities can be reduced, including the number and differentiation of faces and facial characteristics, personality characteristics, talents, intelligences, and also assortative mating, then it is in principle possible to increase these quantities.

It is also possible to reverse the logic of this comparison, or consider the comparison of clones and natural populations from the standpoint of human evolution. Human evolution itself involves increasing the quantities reduced in the comparison of clones and natural populations, and involves increasing the size and diversity of the branching pattern that collapses in the generation of clones; that is, the earliest human populations had fewer faces and facial characteristics (such as eye, nose, chin, cheek, and forehead positioning, chin and cheek dimples, hair colors, eye colors, and hair textures and patterns), fewer physical characteristics (including the spectrum of body types across ectomorphs, mesomorphs, and endomorphs), and also fewer personality characteristics, intelligences and expressed talents than contemporary human societies that manifest a greater number, differentiation, and dispersion of faces and facial characteristics, body types and physical characteristics, and personality characteristics, intelligences, and expressed talents.

The co-evolution of biology and culture in the genus Homo

Eminent biologist Edward O. Wilson, in his Sociobiology, provides a classic discussion of a paradox of human evolution: Darwinism posits that evolution is intensely gradual; however, the evolution of species in the genus Homo is faster than the evolution of primates and various mammals, and the evolution of Homo sapiens is faster than the evolution of primordial human species in the genus Homo: “The cerebrum of Homo was expanded enormously during a relatively short span of evolutionary time. Three million years ago Australopithecus had an adult cranial capacity of 400 cc -500 cc, comparable to that of the chimpanzee and gorilla. Two million years later its presumptive descendant Homo erectus had a capacity of about 1000 cubic centimeters. The next million years saw an increase to 1400 cm3-1700 cm3 in Neanderthal man and 900 cc-2000 cc in modern Homo sapiens.

The growth in intelligence that accompanied this enlargement was so great that it cannot yet be measured in any meaningful way. No scale has been invented that can objectively compare man with chimpanzees and other living primates” [8-11].

Wilson’s discussion of these patterns also suggests that the branching pattern identified above extends across the genus Homo, i.e., the branching geometry of an increasing number and differentiation of faces and facial characteristics, and also behavioral characteristics including personality characteristics, talents, and intelligences goes back not only to the earliest populations of Homo sapiens but also goes back to early primordial human species within the genus Homo as well. Moreover, Wilson’s discussion of these patterns implies that the evolution of species in the genus Homo is faster than the evolution of primates and other animals, particularly in terms of brain encephalization, and the evolution of the human species is faster than the evolution of primordial human species in the genus Homo. These patterns are counter intuitive from the standpoint of Darwinism since Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection argues that evolution is intensely gradual. Darwin comments that “natural selection will always act with extreme slowness,” and also invokes the Latin principle of “Natura non facit saltum”[12]. Darwin places great emphasis on the gradual nature of evolution in The Origin of Species, and this standpoint has been re-emphasized by contemporary Darwinists. For example, in criticisms and replies to proponents of Neutral Theory in evolutionary biology, i.e, there are Darwinist adaptionists that argue natural selection is so gradual and conservative that the “neutral” or non-adaptive evolution of genetic information established by geneticist Motoo Kimura and his colleagues is faster than highly conservative, slower, and even comparably static evolution of genes responsible for the development of particular proteins, tissues, and organs that serve particular adaptive functions in various species [13]. Darwinism seeks to explain the gradual nature of evolution and the conservation of adaptive characteristics; however, as E.O. Wilson shows, some rates of evolution across species are faster than others. Biochemist Nick Lane comments that, “the problem is that science is all about predictions. Biology is less predictive, and has no laws to compare with those of physics the predictive power of evolutionary biology is embarrassingly bad. I do not mean by this that evolutionary theory is wrong -- it is not but simply that it is not predictive” [14, 15]. Lane’s criticism may be related to Darwin’s natural selection being treated as a constant or near constant across species when it is discussed as a force of evolution, or as a constant or near constant across species with sexual reproduction; however, as discussed above, some rates of evolution are faster than others. I shall seek to provide an explanation for the increasing rate of evolution in the genus Homo and in the human species, and for the increasing number and differentiation of faces and facial characteristics, personality characteristics, and the number and differentiation of intelligences within the genus Homo and the human species. Given the nature of genetic inheritance, I suggest that the principle of organization of the branching pattern or branching geometry of an increasing number and differentiation of characteristics in the human species is assortative mating. Assortative mating and culture are not constants in the evolution of the genus Homo, they have been increasing. The comparison of populations of clones to natural populations identifies a number of quantities including assortative mating (they are identified since they are reduced in a generation of clones compared to the natural population from which the clones are derived or modeled). What increases assortative mating? Culture increases the qualities across individuals in the human species, and the genus Homo more generally, compared to primates and other animals (elaborated below). It should be recognized that I do not seek to discard natural selection as an explanation of evolution; however, intraspecific assortative mating and increasing culture may generate larger branching patterns of characteristics than natural selection on its own (similarly, interspecific assortative mating between angiosperm plants and bee species, insect species, and bird species may generate larger branching patterns or branching geometries of characteristics across species of angiosperm plants compared to ancestral species of plants that do not participate in assortative mating with bee, insect, or bird species). In the following section I shall discuss how, in the co-evolution of human biology and culture, assortative mating is increased by culture and cultural growth.

Assortative mating and culture

As suggested by the comparison of populations of clones to natural populations, it should be appreciated that my concept of assortative mating is more general than earlier conceptions that focus on assortative mating by height, wealth, and intelligence scores. Culture increases the number and differentiation of qualities across individuals, and thus culture increases assortative mating by increasing the number and differentiation of qualities across individuals [16-27]. The more culture, the more similarities or similar characteristics across individuals (for the mating of ‘like with like’), and the more culture, the more dissimilar characteristics across individuals (mating across dissimilar characteristics or complementary characteristics is also popularly recognized as ‘opposites attract’). Thus, culture increases assortative mating by increasing the number of similar characteristics and dissimilar characteristics across individuals, including roles in a division of labor, roles in an economy with increasing technological differentiation, or likes and affinities for gods, goddesses, God, dance, music, or other cultural phenomena. Culture includes different kinds of secular 11 culture, such as art, theatre, film, music, science, philosophy, literature, fashion, dance, and cuisine; religious culture, such as religious rituals and practices, literary canon, sects, churches, schools, and also similar or varying interpretations of God and religious persona across individuals and groups; language, customs, and ethnicity, including linguistic dialects and regional accents, and also customs, practices, and values many times associated with languages, and also regional dialects, accents, and ethnicity; material culture, including technology and technological differentiation across a division of labor, organization, or larger economy. In the co-evolution of culture and biology, the more culture, the more potential qualities across individuals and groups, and the greater capacity for assortative mating across individuals (and also across groups, as in assortative mating between simple societies in the evolution of primordial humans and humans in the genus Homo). The more culture, the greater the capacity for assortative mating; the more culture, the more assortative mating across similar characteristics (since there are more categories of similar characteristics across individuals) and dissimilar characteristics or complementary characteristics (since there are also more different characteristics across individuals as culture increases). Thus, culture increases assortative mating (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Fundamental patterns: Natural selection as a constant or near constant across primates and humans: Assortative mating increasing in the Genus Homo: Culture increasing in the Genus Homo

Explaining brain encephalization

Returning to the pattern discussed by Edward O. Wilson of an increasing rate of brain Encephalization in the genus Homo. This approach introduces a new explanation for the increasing rate of evolution in the genus Homo (compared to primates and animals), and also the acceleration of evolution in the human species (particularly in terms of brain encephalization in humans compared to primordial species in the genus Homo and also compared to primates and animals). Culture increases assortative mating. Early primordial human species of the genus Homo had more culture (such as early tool use and tool making, and, possibly, early expressive culture such as singing, early speech, and dance) than primates and animals, and also more assortative mating.

As suggested, a similar process occurs with Homo sapiens, though humans have more spectacular achievements in culture and cultural growth across the evolution of human societies, with, as anthropologists have demonstrated, relatively slow rates of cultural growth in the early evolution of human societies, and then more spectacular and more rapid cultural growth since early human settlements and the Neolithic revolution. Symbolic and expressive culture including writing systems, religious systems, art, architecture, music, dance, theatre, poetry, literature, philosophy, and science, and also material culture, as in technological inventions and technological growth related to horticultural and agricultural production, the production of clothing and textiles, and the production and technological growth in instruments for communication, music, hunting, and warfare. William Ogburn was the first to suggest that cultural growth in human evolution is exponential: extremely slow cultural growth including technological growth in early simple societies for much of human evolution, and then, since the Neolithic revolution approximately 10,000 years ago, comparatively fast cultural and technological growth as the mass or base of culture and inventions, the capacity for cultural diffusion, and potential combinations across technologies and inventions, increases; there are debates in the literature as to whether specific sets of technologies, or contemporary societies themselves, may plateau in their technological development and growth) [28-29]. Is increasing brain Encephalization and increasing structural and functional differentiation within the brain tied to increasing culture and cultural growth in the evolution of human societies? If they are, are they connected by more than what physicists call “action at a distance”? The present theory implies that because humans have more culture and cultural growth than primordial human species in the genus Homo and also more culture than more distantly related primate species, humans have more assortative mating than primordial human species and primates; consequently, over generations of human evolution they have developed a greater number and differentiation of faces and facial characteristics, physical characteristics including body types, and personality characteristics, intelligences and talents. This is an acceleration of human evolution. It is an acceleration of human evolution compared to proto-humans in the genus Homo, and also compared to primate species. It also involves an increasing diversity and differentiation of characteristics across human populations.

Brain encephalization, cultural growth, and the geometry of faces

The present work and theory provides a new explanation compared to Darwinist and neo-Darwinist explanations in neuroscience, psychology and cognitive science of the evolution of the brain, mind, and brain Encephalization in the human species. For example, the influential psychologist and computer scientist Marvin Minsky comments that, “one reason that our mammalian brains have so many different specialized ‘centers’ must be that as our ancestors evolved, their brains had to develop new mechanisms to adapt to new ecological niches, whereas most other animals failed to evolve multiple different ‘ways to think’” [30]. Neuroscientist Gerald Edelman also is a proponent of a neo-Darwinist perspective, sometimes called “neural Darwinism,” in explaining brain Encephalization and even consciousness itself. “At some time around the divergence of reptiles into mammals and then into birds, the embryological development of large numbers of new reciprocal connections allowed rich reentrant activity to take place consciousness arises as a result of integration of many inputs of reentrant reactions in the dynamic core. Selection occurs among a set of circuits in the core repertoire” [31]. Biochemist and neuroscientist Francis Crick argues that multiple perspectives and frameworks may be required to gain a greater understanding of the nature and emergence of consciousness, including competition amongst coalitions: “the various neurons in a coalition in some sense support one another, either directly or indirectly, by increasing the activity of their fellow members. The dynamics of coalitions are not simple at any moment the winning coalition is somewhat sustained, and embodies what we are conscious of another strategy is to consider the evolution of the brain and brain encephalization in their relationship to cultural growth, cultural diversification, and the increasing geometry of faces within linguistic and ethnic groups, and also across societies [32]. It is possible to conjecture that there is an isomorphism in the co-evolution of culture and biology: the increasing internal structural and functional differentiation and neuronal plasticity of the brain of biological evolution in the genus Homo partly resembles and is isomorphic with the increasing cultural growth and differentiation of human societies, and also the increasing number and differentiation of characteristics across human faces, physical characteristics and body types, and also personality characteristics, intelligences, and latent and expressed talents. More generally, this theory explains greater brain encephalization, and greater structural differentiation and functional differentiation of human brains compared to the brains of members of primate species and various animal species, with the co-evolution of human biology with increasing culture and assortative mating. In this work I have attempted to link the emergence of higher intelligences to two main patterns: the increasing geometry of faces, capacities, and intelligences these include faculties for language acquisition and an inner conscious “voice” is isomorphic with increasing brain Encephalization including increasing structural and functional differentiation and neuronal plasticity in the brain. The increase and acceleration of brain encephalization, and also the branching pattern of an increasing number and differentiation of faces, intelligences, personality characteristics, are explained by culture and assortative mating instead of natural selection on its own. As suggested, natural selection, as a force of evolution, is commonly treated as a constant across species, and is commonly treated as a constant in those fields that attempt to extend Darwinist or neo-Darwinist explanations to human behavior (including sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary linguistics or neo-Darwinist linguistics, and neoDarwinist philosophy). There is a branching pattern or collection of branching patterns across linguistic groups in the evolution of the human species: There is an increasing number and differentiation of faces and facial characteristics, body types and physical characteristics, and behavioral characteristics including personality characteristics, intelligences, and talents. As suggested, the principle of organization of this larger branching pattern or branching geometry of characteristics is assortative mating. It is possible to ask what increases assortative mating? Culture increases the qualities across human individuals within linguistic groups and ethnic groups, and, more generally, across the human species itself. Thus, given the nature of biological inheritance, culture and assortative mating explain the acceleration of human evolution (compared to the evolution of chimpanzees and primates). Culture and assortative mating increase brain encephalization including structural and functional differentiation in the brain in the genus Homo and in the human species, and culture and assortative mating also explain the increase and expansion of the branching geometry of an increasing number and differentiation of faces and facial characteristics, and also behavioral characteristics including intelligences, personality characteristics, and talents. More generally, in the evolution of the Genus Homo, the geometrical area of faces and facial characteristics have increased from the earliest primordial species in the Genus Homo to contemporary societies of the human species with a far greater range and diversity of faces and facial characteristics than the earliest human societies, and, by implication, earlier societies in the evolution of the Genus Homo (i.e., eye, nose, chin, and cheek positioning, eye colors, hair colors, hair types and textures, and chin and cheek dimples). Though they may be more difficult to measure than the phenotypic and physical diversity of faces and facial characteristics across different linguistic groups and ethnic groups, the geometrical area of behavioral characteristics also has increased in the evolution of the Genus Homo. The earliest primordial human species, or even the earliest human societies, compared to contemporary human societies expressed far fewer behavioral characteristics than contemporary human societies, i.e., intelligences, talents, capacities, and personality characteristics that may be expressed in human interaction, displays, productivity, labor, war, or as individuals and groups take different roles in a division of labor in a family, organization, or larger economy. From the standpoint of the evolution of the genus Homo, the increase in the expression and manifestation of behavioral characteristics in primordial human species and the human species is an increase in the branching pattern or branching geometry of behavioral characteristics, i.e., intelligences, talents, capacities, and personality characteristics. Note that the geometrical area of body types and physical characteristics has similarly increased in the evolution of the genus Homo, though not as great as faces and facial characteristics, or behavioral characteristics, i.e., intelligences, talents, capacities, and personality characteristics. Since Darwin, there has developed a large literature in the biological sciences, and also philosophy, psychology, and related fields that attempts to explain behavioral characteristics, intelligences, and emotions in terms of Darwinism. These include the emergence of higher intelligence, language, an innate capacity for language learning, personality characteristics and emotions, and the emergence of consciousness itself in terms of natural selection. As discussed, Darwin’s co-discoverer Alfred Russel Wallace questioned whether natural selection itself could explain the rise and emergence of higher intelligences and faculties in humans. Similarly, influential linguist Noam Chomsky, in his earlier work, questioned whether Darwinism or natural selection explained the emergence of higher intelligences including an innate language capacity, and did not use Darwinism as an explanation for the emergence of an innate language capacity [33-35]. This work introduces a new explanation. The “diversity of mental faculties” to which Darwin referred, including an innate language capacity, is part of a larger branching pattern or branching geometry of intelligences, capacities, talents, and personality characteristics of the human species. The principle of organization of this branching pattern is assortative mating; moreover, given genetic inheritance, the co-evolution of human biology with increasing culture and increasing assortative mating explains the increasing number and differentiation of faces and facial characteristics, and also behavioral characteristics including intelligences, personality characteristics, and talents across the branching pattern or series of branching patterns of human evolution (compared to primate species in which assortative mating within a shared language is absent, and compared to primate species and animal species in which assortative mating across cultural characteristics is absent or at least far less developed than in humans). The discussion in this section also may be connected to E.O. Wilson’s work discussed above: Connecting the theory of assortative mating to E.O. Wilson’s classic discussion of patterns in the evolution of the genus Homo also implies that the larger branching pattern of the Genus Homo, or series of branching patterns or branching geometries of the Genus Homo and the human species, have been accelerating and diversifying faster than the evolution of characteristics across individual organisms in chimpanzee species or other primate species; by contrast, sociobiologists commonly treat natural selection as a constant or near constant across primates and humans.

Explaining patterns in brain encephalization

There are a few extensions of the present theory that may be briefly explored: As discussed, above, brain Encephalization in humans is faster and greater than brain Encephalization in primordial species within the genus Homo, and also primates. Since brain Encephalization in humans may be explained by culture and assortative mating, differential rates of assortative mating also may contribute to explaining differential rates and levels of brain Encephalization across animal species. Thus, an avenue for future research is whether animal species with greater brain Encephalization have more assortative mating compared to species with less brain encephalization and less brain and central nervous system development.

Mammalian species, in general, have more assortative mating in sexual reproduction than other classes of species, and this may explain greater brain Encephalization. It is possible to test this idea, such as by performing studies involving random samples of sea mammal species (Cetacea) and other non-mammalian sea-dwelling species such as various species of Agnatha, Osteichthyes, and Chondrichthyes, i.e., primordial fish, bony fish, and cartilaginous fish, sharks, and rays. Assortative mating is present and more developed in the sea mammal species compared to species of Agnatha, Osteichthyes, and Chondrichthyes that practice various forms of spawning and more limited forms of assortative mating compared to sea mammals.

Even though there are comparatively fewer sea mammal species in relation to the larger number and diversity of Agnatha, Osteichthyes, and Chondrichthyes, and the sea mammal species share relatively similar habitats, the sea mammals have greater brain encephalization, as in the greater brain encephalization of species in the order Cetacea, including dolphin species, orca species, and various whale species. The greater brain encephalization and emergence of intelligences and talents of some sea mammal species is so developed that members of dolphin species and orca species are capable of interacting and playing with humans, and in some cases enjoy “showing off” their talents to their human observers. The demonstration of such intelligences and talents in social interaction are either not available or far less available to members of species of Agnatha, Osteichthyes, and Chondrichthyes, that is, primordial fish, bony fish, and cartilaginous fish, sharks, and rays.

Darwin and neo-Darwinists have attempted to explain the expression of intelligence and emotions in animals and also humans with natural selection. However, natural selection as a force of evolution is commonly treated as a constant or near constant across species with sexual reproduction.

It is possible to offer a new explanation (that is also connected to the explanation of the increasing geometry of faces, intelligences, and talents in the genus Homo). Greater brain encephalization and the emergence of greater talents, intelligences, and even emotions and primordial personality characteristics may be explained by greater assortative mating in mammals, including sea mammal species, compared to other classes and orders of species, including primordial fish, bony fish, and cartilaginous fish, sharks, and rays. In contrast, natural selection applies across species of Agnatha, Osteichthyes, and Chondrichthyes, and also species of Cetacea. Natural selection as a force of evolution is commonly treated as a constant or near constant across these orders and classes of species. However, assortative mating is not constant across these orders and classes of species, it is greater in species of Cetacea versus species of Agnatha, Osteichthyes, and Chondrichthyes. Thus, assortative mating provides a theory of evolution complementary to natural selection. Assortative mating generates greater brain encephalization and a greater variety of behavioral characteristics in the evolution of species than natural selection on its own.

Note also that if assortative mating is used as an alternative explanation to Darwinian and neo-Darwinian treatments of natural selection and sexual selection. Concepts of convergent and divergent assortative mating may be used instead of Darwinian language in the classification and explanation of differential sizes of males versus females, and primary and secondary sexual characteristics, behaviors, capacities, talents, and intelligences of males versus females.

That is, greater differences in sizes, and also secondary sexual characteristics, capacities and talents of members of one sex versus the other in species may be explained as a product of divergent assortative mating. Smaller differences in size, secondary sexual characteristics, behaviors, capacities, and talents of members of one sex versus the other in species may be explained by greater convergent assortative mating compared to divergent assortative mating (although in some species, such as in some bird species these patterns may overlap, as in convergent assortative mating for some characteristics, such as parental investment, and then divergent assortative mating across the sexes by colors, plummages, and song). Convergent assortative mating has to do with assortative mating in which characteristics between males and females converge more than in divergent assortative mating in which the characteristics between males and females have greater differences. The human species has both patterns of convergent and divergent assortative mating, while some species have highly developed patterns of divergent assortative mating in which one sex may be several times larger than the other, or the arms, claws, horns, or secondary sexual characteristics may be several times larger or only present in one sex versus the other. Distinguishing between convergent and divergent assortative mating also may be useful for other purposes in the investigation of biological species. For example, it may be possible to generate new predictive models and test whether speciation is more likely to occur from species with greater convergent assortative mating or greater divergent assortative mating, whether patterns of speciation as a product of divergent assortative mating are different than convergent assortative mating, and whether speciation in the biological record is more likely a product of convergent assortative mating or divergent assortative mating.

Assortative mating, the alteration of functions, and the nature of brain encephalization

The physical size of heads in humans have reached a plateau, and may actually have shrunk slightly compared to the size of heads of early or archaic humans. However, the number and differentiation of faces and facial characteristics (eye, nose, chin, cheek positioning, eye colors, hair colors, hair textures, and chin and cheek dimpling) have been increasing even as head size has plateaued or shrunk slightly in the evolution of the human species. This suggests that brain encephalization has continued in the form of greater structural and functional differentiation and plasticity in the brain even as head sizes have plateaued or shrunk slightly, and that the continuation of increasing structural and functional differentiation in the brain is isomorphic or partly isomorphic with increasing facial characteristics. Increasing assortative mating may play a role in increasing the alteration of functions in brain encephalization in the genus Homo compared to primates. Since the size of heads has plateaued in the evolution of the human species, and since head sizes may have shrunk slightly in the evolution of the human species from early archaic humans, brain encephalization may continue in increasing structural and functional differentiation of the brain, and increasing alteration of functions across sections or regions of the brain (i.e., sections of brains engage in the alteration of functions in ways that arteries and circulatory systems do not).

In nature, sexual reproduction itself involves the specialization of functions across males and female organisms; however, the alteration of functions includes the alternation of generations, as in plant and animal species that have sexual reproduction and also forms of asexual reproduction; the specialization of functions and the sharing of functions are more conspicuous than the alteration of functions. However, there are also different kinds of alteration of functions in divisions of labor. This may include the alteration of functions by experts and specialists in divisions of labor whereby they perform tasks across more than one specialization or related specializations. There is also the limited alteration of functions and sharing of functions between men and women in parental investment and childcare (that varies considerably across societies) in the human species. Social organisms may engage in the specialization of functions, the alteration of functions, and the sharing of functions across individuals more than solitary species. The alteration of functions and the sharing of functions may be more developed in some species classes than others, as in Aves. Cellular differentiation in the emergence and evolution of more complex organisms involves the specialization of functions across cells and cell lines, and tissues and organs. However, in the emergence of brains there is the potential for the alteration of functions across different sections of brains compared to other tissues that do not engage in the alteration of functions, i.e., arteries and the circulatory system.

Conjecture

In the co-evolution of humans and dog breeds, there is greater alteration of functions in the brains of dogs compared to wolves. The co-evolution of humans and dogs entails interspecific interaction, and the alteration of social interaction from conspecifics (humans with humans and dogs with dogs) to interspecifics (humans and dogs with each other). I thus conjecture that the co-evolution of humans and dog breeds increases the alteration of functions in the brains of dog breeds compared to wolves, and may also increase the alteration of functions in the brains of humans that are raised to socialize with dog breeds, or human populations that co-evolve with various dog breeds.

Darwinism & cultural patterns

Many observers have recognized that culture has both Darwinistic and non-Darwinistic aspects. I do not seek to disregard that cultural and technical inventions that increase societal productivity, or a society’s capacity for war or the deterrence and avoidance of war, may be conserved and retained in a way that is partly analogous to Darwinism. I also do not seek to disregard that cultural and biological properties that vary, and that differentially contribute to larger branching patterns of which they are a part, are conserved, retained, or eliminated by the branching patterns of which they are a part, such as the branching patterns of adaptive characteristics across organisms from species to species, or the branching patterns of characteristics across languages and linguistic groups, religions and religious sects, or families, organizations, or societies.

As suggested, branching patterns are fundamental to science, and from the standpoint of the theory of natural selection, natural selection shapes and organizes branching patterns of phenomena.

This includes the tree of life, cellular differentiation of organisms, branching patterns of characteristics across individual organisms within species, branching patterns of characteristics and adaptive structures across species, and also languages and linguistic groups, religions and religious sects, and families, organizations, and human societies themselves. However, other factors also may play a role in generating and shaping branching patterns, and as discussed in this paper, assortative mating may generate larger branching patterns of characteristics or branching geometries of characteristics than natural selection on its own.

Moreover, observers have recognized that culture, or at least some patterns of culture and cultural variation, are not “Darwinist”. For example, cultural differences are not necessarily comparable to the patterns of biological variation established by Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, i.e., that there are constant or near constant slight variations in the characteristics of individual organisms within species (and the more favorable variations are selected and retained). Culture involves differences that may be greater or are not comparable to the slight variations in characteristics across individual organisms within biological species. This involves cultural differences or cultural distances across individuals and groups, such as cultural chasms between different or foreign religions, languages, writing systems, and value systems; it also involves kinds of cultural inequality, such as greater or less formal or informal education between individuals and groups, or greater or lesser expertise or access to expertise across various fields or the division of labor, or greater or lesser access to technology, technological growth, and innovation between individuals and groups.

I thus recognize that extreme cultural distances reduce assortative mating, that is, extreme cultural distances reduce assortative mating across individuals, groups, and societies. I also recognize that extreme cultural inequalities reduce assortative mating across individuals, groups, and societies. In the co-evolution of culture and human biology, some cultural patterns may reduce the genetic diversity of populations: This may happen when cultural contact and diffusion, and population contact and diffusion, are limited or reduced by cultural chasms or barriers, including extreme cultural distances and inequalities, separating or isolating some populations from others. In some settings, if the human populations are limited, such extreme cultural differences or distances and inequalities may reduce genetic diversity to the point of genetic inbreeding: an extreme case would be the reduction in genetic diversity and consequent genetic inbreeding in royal families in early modern Europe: the royal families were separated by great cultural differences and kinds of inequality from the larger European populations of which they were a part. However, the major patterns that I am concerned with in this paper (discussed in earlier sections) is that in the co-evolution of human biology and cultural growth, increasing culture increases the number and differentiation of qualities across individuals and groups, and thus increases intraspecific assortative mating. However, I recognize that as culture increases in some societies versus others, or across some individuals versus others, great cultural differences reduce assortative mating across societies that are separated by cultural chasms (such as different religions, languages, writing systems, or value systems), or societies or individuals that have more culture than others (such as individuals and groups in advanced societies versus early simple societies).

Note that the comparison of clones and natural populations given above involves an individual taken at random; however, it is possible to consider cloning an individual that was not taken at random, such as a Leonardo da Vinci or Vitruvian Man with a large number of intelligences, personality characteristics, and talents. The cloned individuals would have sets of intelligences, personality characteristics, and talents that would approach and in some cases exceed the intelligences, personality characteristics, and talents of the population from which the clone was derived.

Note on the geometry of faces and darwin’s “abominable mystery”

This work is on the expanding geometry of faces of the genus Homo, the increasing number and differentiation of intelligences, personality characteristics, and talents in the genus Homo, and also the relationship of this expanding branching geometry of characteristics to the faster rate of evolution in the genus Homo and greater brain encephalization compared to primates.

As suggested, I do not seek to discard natural selection as an explanation of evolution; however, intraspecific assortative mating and increasing culture may generate larger branching patterns of characteristics than natural selection on its own, and it should be recognized that analogous patterns may exist in interspecific assortative mating between angiosperm plants and bee species, insect species, and bird species. Such interspecific assortative mating may generate larger branching patterns or branching geometries of characteristics across species of angiosperm plants compared to ancestral species of plants that do not participate in assortative mating with bee, insect, or bird species. This suggests a functional analogy across biological species and biological systems. Interspecific assortative mating and intraspecific assortative mating may generate larger branching patterns of characteristics across organisms than natural selection on its own (interspecific assortative mating is absent in ancestral species of plants compared to angiosperms, and intraspecific assortative mating within a shared language, shared ethnicity, or cultural heritage is absent or virtually absent in species of primates or other animals compared to humans).

Since in the evolution of the human species the emergence of culture contributes or functions as a way to increase the qualities across individual organisms in the human species, it is possible to consider functional analogies amongst animals and plants. Birdsong, feather colors, and plumage in bird species, and the colors, shapes, and patterns of angiosperm flowering plant species play similar functions in these species, i.e., they increase the number and differentiation of characteristics across individual organisms, thus increasing the capacity for assortative mating across individual organisms in bird species (intraspecific assortative mating), and increasing the capacity for assortative mating across angiosperm species and insect species, bee species, and bird species (interspecific assortative mating).

It is thus possible to link the co-evolution of culture and human biology to Darwin’s “abominable mystery”: Darwin’s “abominable mystery” was that the faster rate of evolution of angiosperms (complex flowering plants) undermined his principle of gradualism. Alternatively, the expanding geometry of characteristics of complex flowering plants, co-evolving with interspecific assortative mating involving bee species, insect species, and bird species, may be a product of an analogous co-evolutionary process to the expanding geometry of human faces and physical and behavioral characteristics. Natural selection is commonly treated as a constant across species, or is treated as a constant across species with similar modes of sexual reproduction. Natural selection as a force of evolution is treated as a constant across species such as ancestral species of plants or angiosperms (flowering plants); however, interspecific assortative mating increases in the co-evolution of pollinating flowering plants with bee species, insect species, and bird species. Increasing (interspecific) assortative mating provides a new explanation to the increasing rates of evolution of angiosperms compared to ancestral species of plants, and the increasing geometry of characteristics of angiosperms compared to ancestral species of plants. It also provides a new response and resolution to Darwin’s “abominable mystery” that the faster rate of evolution of angiosperms does not fit with patterns of gradualism implied by his theory of natural selection (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Fundamental patterns: Natural selection treated as a constant: Interspecific assortative mating increases in the evolution of angiosperms

Darwin’s classic finding that “no plant which is pollinated solely by wind has a brightly-colored flower,” may be explained in a new way, i.e., by a lack of interspecific assortative mating. Interspecific assortative mating involving bee species, insect species, and bird species and angiosperms explains the faster rate of evolution of angiosperm plants compared to ancestral species of plants (in which interspecific assortative mating is absent). It also explains the greater geometry of characteristics across angiosperm plant species compared to ancestral species of plants, including their greater variety of colors, patterns, structures, and “faces.”

Analogous to the evolution of angiosperms, the evolution of primordial human species and humans is faster than the evolution of primates including chimpanzees, and also includes larger branching patterns of characteristics across individual organisms in the evolution of the genus Homo and the human species. Instead of Darwinist explanations and interpretations, the intelligences, capacities, talents, and personality characteristics of humans compared to primates may be analogous or partly analogous to the greater diversity and larger branching geometry of characteristics of angiosperm species compared to ancestral varieties of species.

Moreover, analogous to the evolution of angiosperms, increasing brain Encephalization in the evolution of the genus Homo, including increasing structural and functional differentiation in the evolution of the brain, is analogous or partly analogous to the increasing branching geometry of characteristics of angiosperm plants compared to ancestral varieties of plants that do not participate in assortative mating with bees, insects, and birds.

Natural selection is commonly treated as a constant across animals including primates and chimpanzees; however, intraspecific assortative mating is not a constant: it has been increasing in the genus Homo as cultural growth has increased the qualities across individuals (similar qualities for assortative mating by ‘like with like’ and dissimilar qualities for mating across complementary characteristics or ‘opposites attract’). Given biological inheritance, increasing culture and assortative mating explains the increasing branching geometry of characteristics across individual organisms in the genus Homo (compared to chimpanzees and primates), including the increasing number and differentiation of faces and facial characteristics, body types and physical characteristics, and intelligences, personality characteristics, and talents.

It is an interesting question of the nature of the effects of intraspecific assortative mating in the evolution of humans and interspecific assortative mating in the co-evolution of angiosperm plants with bee species, insect species, and bird species. The number and differentiation of characteristics in the branching pattern of human individuals is far greater than primates, and the number and differentiation of characteristics in angiosperm plants is far greater than ancestral species of plants and non-flowering plants. Thus, the complexity of characteristics across the branching patterns of individual organisms in the humans species, or across angiosperm species compared to non-flowering plants and ancestral varieties of plants increases, but the number of genes may remain constant or may actually shrink, suggesting that assortative mating may make the division of labor of genes of organisms and the potential alteration of functions across genes more “efficient,” i.e., once a certain level of the number of genes and organismal complexity has been established in the evolution of species, requiring fewer genes for greater complexity. In the investigation of the human genome project, numerous scientists estimated that the number of genes in the human genome would be much larger than the eventual findings of the human genome project. Some scientists estimated that the number of genes would be 60,000 to 100,000 or more. In 2001, the journal Science published a review by Claverie. When estimates of the number of genes was revised down to approximately 30,000. J.M. Claverie commented in the journal Science, “That a mere one-third increase in gene numbers could be enough to progress from a rather unsophisticated nematode (Caenorhabditis elegans, with about 20,000 genes] to humans (and other mammals) is certainly quite provocative and will undoubtedly trigger scientific, philosophical, ethical, and religious questions throughout the beginnings of this new century. Neither the cellular DNA content nor its gene content appears directly related to our intuitive perception of organismal complexity” [36]. The number of genes of the human species has since been revised to 20,000 or slightly less.

Evolutionary transitions in natural selection

On evolutionary transitions in the nature of natural selection, and its relationship to biological evolution: In a comparison of a population of clones to a random sample from the natural population from which the clones are derived, a number of quantities are reduced, i.e., the distribution of characteristics of the natural population collapses in the population of clones; however, it should be recognized that a logical exception is if the natural population is itself a population of pure clones. If an individual organism was taken at random from a natural population of clones to produce a population of clones, the population of clones would not reduce or collapse any distribution of quantities of the natural population since the natural population was itself a population of clones. Moreover, it is interesting to recognize that in a population of pure clones, the pattern of constant or near constant slight variations across individual members of species established by Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin collapses, and opportunities for natural selection is absent.

Thus, it may be recognized that in species of cloned organisms, such as asexual plants (e.g., ferns), the intensity or severity of natural selection is less than in species with sexual reproduction and recombination. In asexual species, genetic variability is more limited (consisting of mutation and polyploidy) compared to species with sexual reproduction and genetic recombination, or sexual reproduction, recombination, and the alternation of generations. Thus, it may be said that in the evolutionary transition from asexual reproduction in species to sexual reproduction, the intensity and severity of natural selection increases. However, by this standard, it also may be recognized that in the evolution of species the intensity and severity of natural selection may decline somewhat (even if it is still clearly present and an important force in evolution), as in the decrease in the number of offspring and the increase in the physical and parental investment in offspring by mammalian species (such as longer internal gestation, mammary glands, and parental investment), and also bird species and marsupial species compared to, say, the common though not universal technique of spawning of most fish species, most amphibians, or echinoderm species. Thus, natural selection may be treated as a variable that increases or declines in its severity or intensity with evolutionary transitions in modes of sexual reproduction and degree of parental investment (in addition to or independent of attempts to assess a complex set of selection pressures in a given habitat or environment, and the severity or intensity of each) (Table 1).

TABLE 1 Evolutionary transitions in natural selection

Branching patterns, culture, & biological evolution

Scientists have long suspected that additional factors beyond Darwinism shape and organize biological variation including brain Encephalization, including Darwin’s co-discoverer Alfred Russel Wallace or linguist Noam Chomsky. In this work I have attempted to show that human biological evolution which is a branching pattern or series of branching patterns across linguistic groups of an increasing number and diversity of faces and facial characteristics, body types and physical characteristics, and behavioral characteristics including intelligences, personality characteristics, and talents is shaped by its co-evolution with culture and assortative mating.

An additional implication of the present work and theory is that human intelligence, and the intelligences, talents, and capacities of humans are not fixed or constant across ethnic, racial or different linguistic human sub-populations, but are variable. That is, intelligences and expressed and latent talents increase over generations as human sub-populations with more culture, such as high rates of literacy, or greater development of different aspects of culture, including the accumulation of different kinds of material culture or technology, and also the accumulation of different kinds of symbolic culture, including religion, philosophy, science, sports, arts, literature, theatre, film, and music, generate more and different patterns of assortative mating compared to human sub-populations with less culture. In principle, as suggested, declines in culture, cultural growth and cultural diffusion may stunt or reduce assortative mating, thus also stunting the acceleration of human evolution (compared to primates or primordial human species in the genus Homo).

In principle, declines in cultural capacity or cultural isolation reduce the capacity for assortative mating, and thus cultural isolation and a lack of cultural diffusion and growth may stunt or reduce assortative mating and thus the acceleration of biological evolution in the genus Homo, including stunting the increase of structural and functional differentiation in the brain related to higher intelligences and talents in the human species. If culture disappeared or collapsed, then assortative would decline, thus stunting or reversing the acceleration of evolution in the human species; however, there may be few or no instances of cultural decline to such an extent that the acceleration of human evolution would reverse instead of merely stunting or reducing its acceleration. In principle, assortative mating varies directly with culture, which implies that societies with more culture have more assortative mating than societies with less culture, and groups and sub-populations with more culture have more assortative mating than groups and sub-populations with less culture. However, as suggested, it may be simpler to test the idea that, in the evolution of the genus Homo, culture increases assortative mating.

An important discovery of 20th century science, by Einstein and Eddington, was that light curves as it travels through space-time instead of traveling through Newtonian absolute space in straight Euclidian lines. A potentially important discovery of 21st century science is that higher intelligence, intelligences, and talents are not absolutely fixed or constant across racial and ethnic groups (as is normally assumed in Western and Eastern civilizations) but are variable.

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