Saçlioğlu Cihan, Pekcan Önder, Nanjundiah Vidyanand
Muhendislik ve Doga Bilimleri Fakultesi, Sabanci Universitesi, Tuzla, Istanbul 34956, Turkey,
J Biosci. 2014 Apr;39(2):177-89. doi: 10.1007/s12038-013-9398-4.
Groups exhibit properties that either are not perceived to exist, or perhaps cannot exist, at the individual level. Such 'emergent' properties depend on how individuals interact, both among themselves and with their surroundings. The world of everyday objects consists of material entities. These are, ultimately, groups of elementary particles that organize themselves into atoms and molecules, occupy space, and so on. It turns out that an explanation of even the most commonplace features of this world requires relativistic quantum field theory and the fact that Planck's constant is discrete, not zero. Groups of molecules in solution, in particular polymers ('sols'), can form viscous clusters that behave like elastic solids ('gels'). Sol-gel transitions are examples of cooperative phenomena. Their occurrence is explained by modelling the statistics of inter-unit interactions: the likelihood of either state varies sharply as a critical parameter crosses a threshold value. Group behaviour among cells or organisms is often heritable and therefore can evolve. This permits an additional, typically biological, explanation for it in terms of reproductive advantage, whether of the individual or of the group. There is no general agreement on the appropriate explanatory framework for understanding group-level phenomena in biology.
群体展现出的特性，在个体层面要么不被认为存在，要么可能根本不存在。这类“涌现”特性取决于个体之间以及个体与周围环境的相互作用方式。日常物体的世界由物质实体构成。归根结底，这些物质实体是基本粒子的集合，它们自行组织成原子和分子，占据空间等等。事实证明，即便要解释这个世界最平常的特征，也需要相对论量子场论以及普朗克常数是离散而非零这一事实。溶液中的分子群，特别是聚合物（“溶胶”），能够形成表现得像弹性固体（“凝胶”）的粘性聚集体。溶胶 - 凝胶转变是协同现象的例子。它们的发生是通过对单元间相互作用的统计进行建模来解释的：随着一个关键参数越过阈值，两种状态的可能性会急剧变化。细胞或生物体之间的群体行为通常是可遗传的，因此能够进化。这使得可以从生殖优势的角度，无论是个体的还是群体的，对其进行额外的、通常是生物学上的解释。对于理解生物学中群体层面现象的适当解释框架，目前尚无普遍共识。
