ReviewBioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology2025
Top-Down Coercive Mechanisms and the Major Transitions in Evolution.
Review in BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Two kinds of evolutionary individuals: the concept of common interest as an evolutionary foundation of dualism on biological individuality.History and philosophy of the life sciences · 2026Article
- Top-Down Coercive Mechanisms and the Major Transitions in Evolution.BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
We propose that top-down coercive mechanisms have played a role in the origin and maintenance of the Major Transitions in Evolution (MTE). Top-down coercion has potentially been underappreciated due to the lack of a conceptual framework. Therefore, we provide a formalized top-down coercion framework for the MTE. Our conceptualization of top-down biological coercion is a loss of potential due to a constraint from the top-down. We also present three case studies of coercive top-down mechanisms in the evolution of eukaryotic cells, multicellularity and eusocial insect colonies. The MTE project studies the origin and maintenance of new levels of individuality in the biological hierarchy. Previously, the MTE has been conceived as a bottom-up process. Our coercion framework provides new empirical questions regarding the origin of transitions and helps reframe discussions of fitness in the MTE.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.