Mini Symposium 2026 Apr 1 - Charles Hall and Timothy McWhirter
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Energy and Evolution: A Systems Approach
Abstract
Some scientists have argued that evolutionary biology is poised for a third major synthesis. In the first synthesis, Darwin conceptualized and presented evidence for his evolutionary theory. The second used genetic mechanisms to explain how evolution worked. The third is based on energy. In the wake of Boltzmann’s work, a thermodynamic school of evolutionary theory has emerged, offering a number of principles alleged to guide evolutionary development. These include the principle of maximum energy flux, the maximum power principle, the minimum entropy production principle, the maximum entropy production principle, the constructal law, the maximum efficiency principle, and the equal fitness paradigm. Collectively, these principles have sometimes been described as contradictory, disunited, local, and as referring to apples and oranges. So far, different scientists have championed their principle of choice and argued that it is more “accurate” or more “general” than the other principles. In some cases, scientists have used straw man arguments that portray the other principles inaccurately. This has undermined our ability to understand the relations among these principles. The thesis of this book project is that many of these principles are fundamentally related and interdependent, and we can develop a more accurate and comprehensive understanding of the evolutionary process if we view this process from a systems perspective, as a property that emerges from the interaction of many different parts. Part of the reason for the different optimality principles scientists have developed is that they focus on different parts of the process: the maximization of power, the production of entropy, the persistence of biodiversity, the evolution of design, etc. These principles provide an ability to predict, and in some cases, explain phenomena in these different parts of the evolutionary process. This book seeks to bring the interaction among these parts of the process into clearer focus by accurately describing the relations among these optimality principles and how they can evolve over time. In the process, we hope to provide a more accurate and comprehensive understanding of the role of energy in evolutionary development, which is like listening to only the cellos in Beethoven’s Hymn to Joy when focusing exclusively on one optimality principle. This systems theory of thermodynamic evolution should help to provide a fundamental component of the third major synthesis of evolutionary biology. (383 words)
Short Bio
Charles Hall received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina from the great systems ecologist Howard Odum. He has been a research scientist at Brookhaven and Oak Ridge National Laboratories and at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, and professor at Cornell University, University of Montana, and the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. He is the author of 14 books and more than 340 peer-reviewed papers, many in our “best” journals. In his mid-career, he turned his main interests from systems analysis and modeling of the energetics of natural ecosystems to increasingly, human-dominated “economic” systems. He is especially well known within the scientific community for initiating and developing (with colleagues) the concepts of EROI (Energy Return on Investment) and BioPhysical Economics. He is the recipient of many academic awards including the Hubbert Award from the American Society for the Study of Peak Oil and the Lifetime Achievement award from the International Society of BioPhysical Economics. (159 words)
Timothy McWhirter received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Florida State University. While in graduate school, he published a paper that described the empirical evidence in the contemporary sciences that supported Nietzsche’s principle of the will to power. In 2012, he published a paper on Nietzsche’s critique of morality that described how the will to power appeared to be similar, in important respects, to the maximum power principle developed by H. T. Odum. This was the first published paper that discussed the relation between these two principles. A decade later, he received an email from the ecologist Charles A. S. Hall, who was astonished that he was quoted by a philosopher about the maximum power principle. Since then, they have worked together on a number of projects: the book Maximum Power and its Philosophical Roots, McWhirter as the author and Hall as the editor; they coauthored the paper Maximum Power in Evolution, Ecology, and Economics; and they worked together on a chapter entitled The Equal Fitness Paradigm: a thermodynamic synthesis in evolutionary biology. Their next project is ambitious. They intend to write a book that outlines a systems theory of thermodynamic evolution, which explains the relations between all the different optimality principles that have been described by scientists in the thermodynamic school of evolution. (217 words)