RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 An Evolutionary Process Without Variation and Selection JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 2020.08.30.274407 DO 10.1101/2020.08.30.274407 A1 Gabora, Liane A1 Steel, Mike YR 2021 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/03/11/2020.08.30.274407.abstract AB The theory of natural selection arose in response to the paradox of how organisms accumulate adaptive change despite that traits acquired over a lifetime are eliminated at the end of each generation. Darwin’s population-level explanation (acquired traits are discarded, but inherited traits are retained, and inherited traits that enhance fitness are selected) successfully explains how species evolve. However, in some domains that exhibit cumulative, adaptive change—e.g., cultural evolution, and primitive forms of life—acquired traits are not always extinguished at the end of a generation; therefore, the paradox that Darwin’s theory was designed to solve does not exist. Lack of transmission of acquired traits stems from the sequestering of germ cells from developmental change, which in turn requires a self-assembly code that is used in two distinct ways: (i) actively interpreted during development to generate a soma, and (ii) passively copied without interpretation during reproduction to generate germ cells. Early life and cultural evolution do not involve a self-assembly code used in these two distinct ways. We suggest that cumulative, adaptive change in these domains is due to a lower-fidelity evolutionary process, and model how it could work using Reflexively Autocatalytic and Foodset-generated networks. We refer to this more primitive evolutionary process as Self-Other Reorganisation (SOR) because it involves internal self-organising and self-maintaining processes within entities, as well as interaction between entities. SOR encompasses learning but in general operates across groups. We discuss the relationship between SOR and Lamarckism, and illustrate a special case of SOR without variation.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.