Mini Symposium 2026 Apr 8 Andreas Nicolaides: Difference between revisions

These functions do not direct development itself but transform the regulatory logic that structures it. In this sense, the system constitutes a meta-programme: a higher-order genomic architecture that converts existing developmental programmes into novel ones, linking organisms across space and time. Crucially, they also resolve the anomalies: stasis reflects stability maintained by stabilisers, sudden transformations occur when initiators cross thresholds, reticulated histories arise from coordinating processes across lineages, and hybrid dysfunction stems from divergence in stabilising systems.

On this basis, the hypothesis yields distinctive predictions: genomic turnover should track clade-specific tempos of speciation; bursts of mobile elements and duplications should cluster around radiation events; shared viral or symbiotic agents should generate concordant genomic change; and hybrid dysfunction should correlate with divergence in coherence-preserving systems. Evolutionary anomalies, on this view, are not noise but signatures of a genomic meta-programme in action.