• A
  • A
  • A
  • АБВ
  • АБВ
  • АБВ
  • A
  • A
  • A
  • A
  • A
Обычная версия сайта
  • RU
  • EN
  • HSE University
  • Publications
  • Articles
  • Puzzles for ZFEL, McShea and Brandon's Zero Force Evolutionary Law
  • RU
  • EN
Расширенный поиск
Высшая школа экономики
Национальный исследовательский университет
Priority areas
  • business informatics
  • economics
  • engineering science
  • humanitarian
  • IT and mathematics
  • law
  • management
  • mathematics
  • sociology
  • state and public administration
by year
  • 2027
  • 2026
  • 2025
  • 2024
  • 2023
  • 2022
  • 2021
  • 2020
  • 2019
  • 2018
  • 2017
  • 2016
  • 2015
  • 2014
  • 2013
  • 2012
  • 2011
  • 2010
  • 2009
  • 2008
  • 2007
  • 2006
  • 2005
  • 2004
  • 2003
  • 2002
  • 2001
  • 2000
  • 1999
  • 1998
  • 1997
  • 1996
  • 1995
  • 1994
  • 1993
  • 1992
  • 1991
  • 1990
  • 1989
  • 1988
  • 1987
  • 1986
  • 1985
  • 1984
  • 1983
  • 1982
  • 1981
  • 1980
  • 1979
  • 1978
  • 1977
  • 1976
  • 1975
  • 1974
  • 1973
  • 1972
  • 1971
  • 1970
  • 1969
  • 1968
  • 1967
  • 1966
  • 1965
  • 1964
  • 1963
  • 1958
  • More
Subject
News
July 24, 2026
'Physics Is What the World Is Literally Built On'
Physicist Nina Dzhanayeva, recipient of a Vladimir Potanin Foundation scholarship, focuses her research on nanophotonics. In this interview for the HSE Young Scientists project, she discusses nanowells, scientific intuition, and how physics can help in making frangipane cream puffs.
July 20, 2026
Scientists Create Open Dataset for Studying Concentration
A team of Russian researchers, including scientists from HSE University–St Petersburg, has developed the first open multimodal dataset containing recordings of brain activity, heart function, and video observations to help researchers understand what happens in the human brain during deep concentration. In the future, the dataset could accelerate the development of neural interfaces, rehabilitation technologies, and AI systems. The article has been published in Scientific Data.
July 20, 2026
‘Science Is Universal-It Knows No Borders
Fuad Aleskerov, Tenured Professor and Director of the International Centre of Decision Choice and Analysis at HSE University, together with his colleagues, has developed methods of network analysis in bibliometrics that have made it possible to identify patterns in the appearance and citation of publications in academic journals, as well as their influence on each other. When one or a number of studies are frequently cited by a wide range of journals, this is an indicator that the research is of high quality. By contrast, extensive cross-citation within a limited group of journals increases the likelihood of identifying a network of predatory publications.

 

Have you spotted a typo?
Highlight it, click Ctrl+Enter and send us a message. Thank you for your help!

Publications
  • Books
  • Articles
  • Chapters of books
  • Working papers
  • Report a publication
  • Research at HSE

?

Puzzles for ZFEL, McShea and Brandon's Zero Force Evolutionary Law

Biology and Philosophy. 2012. Vol. 27. P. 723–735.
McLoone B.

In their 2010 book, Biology’s First Law, D. McShea and R. Brandon present a principle that they call ‘‘ZFEL,’’ the zero force evolutionary law. ZFEL says (roughly) that when there are no evolutionary forces acting on a population, the population’s complexity (i.e., how diverse its member organisms are) will increase. Here we develop criticisms of ZFEL and describe a different law of evolution; it says that diversity and complexity do not change when there are no evolutionary causes

Priority areas: humanitarian
Language: English
DOI
Text on another site
Keywords: complexitynatural selection
Similar publications
Система синтаксических инвариантов текстовой деятельности: статистические дескрипторы, семантическая структура и диагностические профили
Kudriavtseva E., / РЦИС. Серия № 0148-756-286. 2026.
The content of the work is the system is a system for identifying four types of written speech structures. A set of 11 calculated parameters, statistical standards, and semantic characteristics allows for the identification of a text's structure as the result of a specific cognitive schema (scene, event, story, evaluation). The method has been verified ...
Added: June 2, 2026
Почему растущие доходы не делают людей счастливее: эмоциональное объяснение парадокса Истерлина (Why Growing Incomes Do Not Make People Happier: an Emotional Explanation of the Easterlin Paradox)
Vorchik A., / SSRN. Серия Social Science Research Network "Social Science Research Network". 2026.
This work is devoted to a theoretical explanation of the Easterlin paradox, according to which long-term economic growth does not make average level of people's happiness increasing. By happiness, we mean the intensity of emotions people experience while comparing their new income with its expected value, or the target income with its original value. In the first case, ...
Added: May 31, 2026
Школьный литературный канон эмиграции 1918–1939 гг.
Strizhkova D., / Институт русской литературы (Пушкинский Дом) РАН. Серия B001 "Репозиторий открытых данных по русской литературе и фольклору". 2026.
В базе данных представлена роспись русскоязычных литературных произведений и отрывков, напечатанных в учебниках по словесности, хрестоматиях, книгах для чтения, сборниках стихотворений и рассказов, выходивших во Франции, Германии, Латвии, Эстонии, Болгарии, Сербии в период первой волны русской эмиграции с 1918 по 1939 гг. Датасет представляет интерес для исследователей школьного литературного канона, эмиграции и детского чтения ...
Added: April 22, 2026
Современная российская мультипликация как инструмент воспитания традиционных духовно-нравственных ценностей
Жигунов А. Ю., / Basic Research Programme. Серия HUM "Humanities". 2026. № 1.
The article attempts to describe the features of the educational potential of Russian animation programmes in aspect of the representation of traditional spiritual and moral values. Based on media and semiotic analysis, the method of cultural and historical interpretation, animated Russian projects created from 2000 to the 2025, which were translated on television channels or streaming ...
Added: April 19, 2026
Relative Chaoticity of Natural Languages
Yerbolova A. S., Tomashchuk K., Kogan A. et al., Complexity 2026 Vol. 2026 No. 1 Article 5519690
Tis paper presents a novel approach to analyzing and grouping natural languages based on the degree of their chaoticity. It clusters 52 languages from 18 language families, according to the value of the entropy–complexity pair, to reveal the chaotic properties of semantic trajectories. Te obtained clusters appear to be closely correlated with the family of ...
Added: February 16, 2026
Complexity for probability logic with quantifiers over propositions
Speranski S. O., Journal of Logic and Computation 2013 Vol. 23 No. 5 P. 1035–1055
In the present article, the quantifiers over propositions are first introduced into the language for reasoning about probability, then the complexity issues for validity problems dealing with the corresponding hierarchy of probabilistic sentences are investigated. We prove, among other things, the $\Pi^1_1$-completeness for the general validity and also indicate the least level in the hierarchy ...
Added: December 27, 2025
Some new results in monadic second-order arithmetic
Speranski S. O., Computability 2015 Vol. 4 No. 2 P. 159–174
Added: December 27, 2025
Notes on the computational aspects of Kripke’s theory of truth
Speranski S. O., Studia Logica 2017 Vol. 105 No. 2 P. 407–429
The paper contains a survey on the complexity of various truth hierarchies arising in Kripke’s theory. I present some new arguments, and use them to obtain a number of interesting generalisations of known results. These arguments are both relatively simple, involving only the basic machinery of constructive ordinals, and very general. ...
Added: December 26, 2025
Infinitary action logic with exponentiation
Kuznetsov S., Speranski S. O., Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 2022 Vol. 173 No. 2 Article 103057
We introduce infinitary action logic with exponentiation — that is, the multiplicative-additive Lambek calculus extended with Kleene star and with a family of subexponential modalities, which allow some of the structural rules (contraction, weakening, permutation). The logic is presented in the form of an infinitary sequent calculus. We prove cut elimination and, in the case ...
Added: December 26, 2025
Infinitary action logic with multiplexing
Kuznetsov S., Speranski S. O., Studia Logica 2023 Vol. 111 No. 2 P. 251–280
Infinitary action logic can be naturally expanded by adding exponential and subexponential modalities from linear logic. In this article we shall develop infinitary action logic with a subexponential that allows multiplexing (instead of contraction). Both non-commutative and commutative versions of this logic will be considered, presented as infinitary sequent calculi. We shall prove cut admissibility ...
Added: December 26, 2025
An ‘elementary’ perspective on reasoning about probability spaces
Speranski S. O., Logic Journal of the IGPL 2025 Vol. 33 No. 2 Article jzae042
This paper is concerned with a two-sorted probabilistic language, denoted by QPL, which contains quantifiers over events and over reals, and can be viewed as an elementary language for reasoning about probability spaces. The fragment of QPL containing only quantifiers over reals is a variant of the well-known ‘polynomial’ language from [Fagin et al. 1990, Section 6]. ...
Added: December 26, 2025
Sharpening complexity results in quantified probability logic
Speranski S. O., Logic Journal of the IGPL 2025 Vol. 33 No. 3 Article jzae114
We shall be concerned with two natural expansions of the quantifier-free ‘polynomial’ probability logic of [Fagin et al. 1990]. One of these, denoted by QPL-e, is obtained by adding quantifiers over arbitrary events, and the other, denoted by p-QPL-e, uses quantifiers over propositional formulas — or equivalently, over events expressible by such formulas. The earlier proofs ...
Added: December 26, 2025
Complexity in Big History. An Introductory Exploration
LePoire D., Grinin L. E., Korotayev A., Journal of Big History 2025 Vol. 8 No. 3 P. 98–139
Building on foundational work in systems theory, thermodynamics, and evolutionary theory, this paper argues that complexity can serve as a conceptual bridge across disciplines. It explores the role of complexity dynamics in Big History through an integrative theoretical framework that spans physical, chemical, geological, biological, social, cognitive, and civilizational domains. By examining how complexity emerges, ...
Added: November 1, 2025
Политическая аккомодация культурных различий в индустриально развитых обществах (Political Accommodation of Cultural Differences in Industrialized Societies)
Малахов В. С., Симон М. Е., Летняков Д. Э. et al., / SSRN. Серия Social Science Research Network "Social Science Research Network". 2020.
The  notion  of  “political  accommodation” applied  to the  theory  and  practice  of managing cultural diversity could enrich the Russian academic dictionary. Liberal democratic states invented specific mechanisms for political accommodation of cultural differences. Thanks to these mechanisms, the part of the population of a democratic state that is not ready to dissolve into the ethnocultural ...
Added: September 26, 2025
Национальная мощь современных государств: сравнительный анализ. Аналитический доклад
Melville A. Y., Каберник В. В., Mironyuk M. et al., / МГИМО МИД России. 2024.
Данный аналитический доклад является одним из результатов исследований в рамках консорциума НИУ ВШЭ и МГИМО. В нем прежде всего раскрыты вопросы концептуализации национальной мощи и сопутствующих категорий и дается обзор прецедентов. Далее рассматриваются вопросы операционализации предлагаемых нами компонентов национальной мощи. В следующих разделах доклада предлагается анализ вопросов методологии, используемой в докладе. На этой основе предложен ...
Added: September 19, 2025
MIP Models and Complexity Results for DAG Scheduling in the Cloud
Yury Semenov, Oleg Sukhoroslov, , in: Mathematical Optimization Theory and Operations Research 24th International Conference, MOTOR 2025, Novosibirsk, Russia, July 7–11, 2025, ProceedingsVol. 15681.: Switzerland: Springer, 2025. P. 317–331.
Added: September 17, 2025
On the normality of the closures of spherical orbits
Arzhantsev I., Functional Analysis and Its Applications 1997 Vol. 31 No. 4 P. 278–280
Let a connected reductive group G act on a normal affine variety X with the generic stabilizer H, let the complexity of this action be one, and let the categorial quotient X//G be one-dimensional. Then the closure of any G-orbit in X is normal. ...
Added: June 13, 2025
Explicit continuum scale format reduces the ceiling effect in self-report questionnaires comparing to Likert response format
Antipkina I., Ivanov A., Guzhelya D., / Series WP BRP "Basic research program". 2024.
This study presents a methodology for developing a new questionnaire format called explicit continuum scenario scales, in the example of a client focus questionnaire. Elements of the Rasch Guttman scenario scale methodology were used in its development. In three consequent studies, different aspects of the scale functioning were investigated. In Study 1, on the sample ...
Added: February 21, 2025
Language In The Construction Of Ethnicity Among Koreans In Kazakhstan: A Case Study Of The Korean Community In Karaganda
Aitzhanov S., / NRU HSE. Series WP BRP "Linguistics". 2024. No. 116.
This study focuses on examining the role of language as an attribute in the construction of ethnicity within the Korean community in Kazakhstan. The research examines how language functions as an attribute in the categorization and identification processes, and how it interacts with other ethnic attributes such as descent and appearance. Drawing on qualitative methods, ...
Added: December 10, 2024
CONNECTING ANCIENT AND MODERN: THE MEDIEVAL PLOT ABOUT THE FOX AND THE DISCUSSION BETWEEN GOETHE AND SCHILLER ABOUT GERMAN EPIC POETRY
Микаелян А. Л., / NRU Higher School of Economics. Series WP BRP "Literary Studies". 2024. No. 28.
The article presents an attempt to examine Goethe's poem "Reineke Fox" in connection with the discussion between Goethe and Schiller about the nature of epic poetry and the principles of its renewal within the poetics of "Weimar Classicism". Goethe introduced into his interpretation of the medieval story of the Fox a number of innovations at various ...
Added: November 19, 2024
A Language Model for Grammatical Error Correction in L2 Russian
Remnev N., Obiedkov S., Rakhilina E. V. et al., / Series Computer Science "arxiv.org". 2023.
Grammatical error correction is one of the fundamental tasks in Natural Language Processing. For the Russian language, most of the spellcheckers available correct typos and other simple errors with high accuracy, but often fail when faced with non-native (L2) writing, since the latter contains errors that are not typical for native speakers. In this paper, ...
Added: October 30, 2024
You shall know a piece by the company it keeps. Chess plays as a data for word2vec models
Orekhov B., / Series Computer Science "arxiv.org". 2024.
In this paper, I apply linguistic methods of analysis to non-linguistic data, chess plays, metaphorically equating one with the other and seeking analogies. Chess game notations are also a kind of text, and one can consider the records of moves or positions of pieces as words and statements in a certain language. In this article ...
Added: August 8, 2024
How does Burrows' Delta work on medieval Chinese poetic texts?
Orekhov B., / Series Computer Science "arxiv.org". 2024.
Burrows' Delta was introduced in 2002 and has proven to be an effective tool for author attribution. Despite the fact that it was applied to different languages, they mostly belong to the same grammatical type and use the same graphic principle to convey speech in writing: a phonemic alphabet with word separation using spaces. The question ...
Added: August 8, 2024
Does Delta really confirm that Rowling and Galbraith are the same author?
Orekhov B., / Series Computer Science "arxiv.org". 2024.
Added: August 8, 2024
  • About
  • About
  • Key Figures & Facts
  • Sustainability at HSE University
  • Faculties & Departments
  • International Partnerships
  • Faculty & Staff
  • HSE Buildings
  • HSE University for Persons with Disabilities
  • Public Enquiries
  • Studies
  • Admissions
  • Programme Catalogue
  • Undergraduate
  • Graduate
  • Exchange Programmes
  • Summer University
  • Summer Schools
  • Semester in Moscow
  • Business Internship
  • Research
  • International Laboratories
  • Research Centres
  • Research Projects
  • Monitoring Studies
  • Conferences & Seminars
  • Academic Jobs
  • Yasin (April) International Academic Conference on Economic and Social Development
  • Media & Resources
  • Publications by staff
  • HSE Journals
  • Publishing House
  • iq.hse.ru: commentary by HSE experts
  • Library
  • Economic & Social Data Archive
  • Video
  • HSE Repository of Socio-Economic Information
  • HSE1993–2026
  • Contacts
  • Copyright
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site Map
Edit