Sentence examples for uphill evolution from inspiring English sources
The thermodynamically "downhill" conversion of sunlight from low to high entropy is more than sufficient to not only turn the cog of life but to drive the thermodynamically "uphill" evolution of complex multicellular life from relatively simpler single-celled ancestors.
When we calculate the amount of energy needed to push evolution thermodynamically "uphill," it is clear that, like a powerful river, the Sun provides more than sufficient "flow" to not only turn the "hydroelectric turbines" of life's foundation (the primary producers) but to distribute "electricity" with incrementally increasing efficiency over time.
[B]iological evolution marches uphill, producing increased variety and higher degrees of organization".
We present a simple model to analyze the probability that evolution will eschew immediately uphill paths in favor of crossing fitness valleys or plateaus that lead to higher fitness but less accessible genotypes.
Taken together, this provides a complete picture of the probability that evolution will eschew the immediately uphill path in favor of the more complex adaptation.
We must then ask how likely evolution is to eschew the immediately uphill paths, and instead cross valleys or plateaus to reach better but less accessible genotypes.
Together, these effects lead to a non-monotonic relationship between population size and the probability that evolution will favor the complex adaptation over the directly uphill path, as illustrated in Figure 3a.
Evolution can occur locally within a system by moving thermodynamically "uphill" (building the complex from simpler precursors) in one subsystem (e.g., a population of organisms) as long as an interlocking part of the system (e.g., the Sun) moves thermodynamically "downhill" at a significantly faster rate and magnitude than evolution moves uphill.
This dependence is not monotonic: evolution at intermediate population sizes is most "greedy", while both larger and smaller populations are more likely to eschew uphill paths in favor of complex trajectories.
