The Evolution of Life

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i think one way of thinking about the evolution of life is not only an evolution of complexity in terms of the structures that make the physical organism but an evolution of the sophistication with which we deal with information right? The first RNA or DNA molecules actually carried some information and that was crucial obviously. And then there was this sort of differentiation of information when you got to eukaryotic life, he says. When the brain came along and the nervous system uh you could think and you could have self-awareness and these are all you know information processing leaps forward so i think this is another wonderful frontier in science and how they relate to physical evolution both of the universe and of the biology within

Our observable universe started out in a highly non-generic state, one of very low entropy, and disorderliness has been growing ever since. How, then, can we account for the appearance of complex systems such as organisms and biospheres? The answer is that very low-entropy states typically appear simple, and high-entropy states also appear simple, and complexity can emerge along the road in between. Today’s podcast is more of a discussion than an interview, in which behavioral neuroscientist Kate Jeffery and I discuss how complexity emerges through cosmological and biological evolution. As someone on the biological side of things, Kate is especially interested in how complexity can build up and then catastrophically disappear, as in mass extinction events.

There were some audio-quality issues with the remote recording of this episode, but loyal listeners David Gennaro and Ben Cordell were able to help repair it. I think it sounds pretty good!

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Kate Jeffery received her Ph.D. in behavioural neuroscience from the University of Edinburgh. She is currently a professor in the Department of Behavioural Neuroscience at University College, London. She is the founder and Director of the Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience at UCL.

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