Börje Ekstig

borje.ekstig@gmail.com

About me

I’m a retired assistant professor at Uppsala University, Sweden. I have a basic training in physics and have in addition been interested in the evolutionary process of life and I will restrict this homepage to my investigation of evolution.

A Discovery

The interest in evolution started with my discovery of a regular pattern between the individual growth of a human being and evolution. This discovery is described in:

Ekstig, B. 1994. Condensation of developmental stages and evolution. BioScience 44(3):158–164.

Development versus evolution. Developmental traits of a modern human being versus evolutionary age of the traits. The vertical axis shows the individual age measured from the moment of fertilization including the individual’s prenatal and postnatal stages. The horizontal axis gives time measured backwards from the present point of time. Both scales are logarithmic.

By means of a mathematical analysis of the straight line in the diagram, I suggested an operational definition of complexity, admitting a quantitative estimation of its growth as described in:

Ekstig, B. 2010. Complexity and Evolution: A Study of the Growth of Complexity in Organic and Cultural Evolution. Foundations of Science 15: 263 – 278.

Ekstig, B. 2010. Biological and Cultural Evolution in a Common Universal Trend of Increasing Complexity. World Futures 66, 435 – 448.

The Pattern of Life

My investigations of complexity are summarized in the following points:

  • increasing complexity as well as stable complexity is explained as a result of ordinary natural selection and of a form that is independent of the external environment;
  • increasing complexity is followed in the lineage of the human species only, whereas most species are stagnant;
  • the analysis implies a new form of the Tree of Life as depicted in the second diagram;
  • the human species and our cultural evolution constitutes an integral part of organic evolution, and renders us the exclusive status as the species of the highest complexity.
The Pattern of Life. The diagram illustrates the growth of complexity versus time. The curve of the staircase shape represents the lineage of man and the common ancestry from the human point of view. The horizontal lines show stagnant species. The diagram may be interpreted to illustrate human cultural evolution as well.

These results are presented in the publication

Ekstig, B. 2015. Complexity, Natural Selection and the Evolution of Life and Humans. Foundations of Science, 20, 175-187.

Ekstig, B. 2016. Processes in Organic and Cultural Evolution. In Richardson, J. 2016. Natural Selection and Genetic Drift. Nova Science Publishers, Inc. New York.

Ekstig, B. 2016. Mechanisms of Progress in Organic and Cultural Evolution. International Journal of Social Science Studies Vol. 4, No. 2.

The speed of Evolution

The growth of complexity was found to be superexponentially accelerating as described in the reference:

Ekstig, B. 2012. Superexponentially Accelerating Evolution. World Futures: The Journal of Global Education 68:1, 40–48.

The change of complexity doubling time versus evolutionary time. Squares represent animal evolution; diamonds hominid and human evolution including, for the last three points, pre-Galilean scientific evolution; triangles post-Galilean scientific evolution; and circles the evolution of information technology.