Homeostasis, complexity and biological design

Turner, S. "Homeostasis, complexity, and the problem of biological design." Emergence: Complexity and Organization. 2008 Jun 30 [last modified: 2016 Nov 30]. Edition 1.  Abstract:

"The harmonious melding of structure and function—biological design—is a striking feature of complex living systems such as tissues, organs, organisms, or superorganismal assemblages like social insect colonies or ecosystems. How designed systems come into being remains a central problem in evolutionary biology: adaptation, for example, cannot be fully explained without understanding it. Currently, the prevailing explanation for biological design rests on essentially atomist doctrines such as Neodarwinism or self-organization. The Neodarwinist explanation for design, for example, posits that good design results from selection for 'good design genes.' Along the same lines, self-organization posits that complex systems with sophisticated structures and behaviors can arise from simple interactions among agents at lower levels of organization. There is no reason to doubt the validity of either explanation.


"Nevertheless, it is doubtful whether such doctrines by themselves can adequately explain the emergence of design in complex systems. In this paper, I argue that the missing piece of the puzzle that can draw forth well-functioning and well-designed 'organisms' from the low-level interactions of the myriad agents in a complex system is homeostasis, a classical concept that is not itself inherent in atomist explanations for adaptation and design. I couch my argument in observations on the emergence of a spectacular social insect 'superorganism': the nest and mound of the macrotermitine termites."