The Extended Synthesis: The Law of the Conditions of Existence

Abstract

A unified theory of biology must incorporate a naturalistic explanation for the origin of life, namely that given certain conditions, it was highly probable that life would originate. That theory, however, cannot be solely a theory of the origin of life. The same general mechanisms that allowed life to originate must also explain its subsequent evolution as embodied in the Extended Synthesis, including the origin of the inherent constraints and regularities that allowed natural selection to emerge as a natural process. A naturalistic grounding for the origin of life and its subsequent evolution, what Darwin called the Law of the Conditions of Existence, can be found in the natural law of history, the Second Law of Thermodynamics.