View Of Evolution Research Articles

ТЕОРЕТИКО-МЕТОДОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ ПРОБЛЕМЫ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ РЕЗЕРВОВ УПРАВЛЕНИЯ ОПЕРЕЖАЮЩИМ УСТОЙЧИВЫМ РАЗВИТИЕМ СЕЛЬСКИХ ТЕРРИТОРИЙ

The article deals with the theoretical and methodological problems of studying the reserves for improving the management of advanced sustainable development (ESD) in the socio-natural-economic space of the agro-industrial complex and rural areas (SNES agro-industrial complex and RA) based on new technological paradigms and associated externs (external effects). The author's definition of the concept of ESD and the main components and methodology of regional state strategies in the context of the blocks of the conference ESD SNES AIC and RA are proposed. Measures are proposed to facilitate the transition of the SEP of the agro-industrial complex and the RA to the ESD based on active and targeted state support, investment-targeted programs and schemes for the development and deployment of the productive forces of agro-industrial production. In the context of global challenges, threats and new risks associated with political and economic sanctions and embargoes, the impending global food crisis, growing competition in the level of development at the regional level, the issue of forming an intersectoral integrative management of advanced sustainable development (ESD) of the socio-natural-economic space is being updated (SNES agro-industrial complex and rural areas of the RA) - the driver of the socio-economic development of Russia and ensuring its national security and sovereignty, "building" the state of development. At the same time, the existing low-management, costly and non-systemic approach, traditionally used in the implementation of the strategy of "integrated sustainable development of rural areas", has been criticized due to contradictions in the theory and methodology of integrative management of reserves and development factors, which led to excessive cost, low quality and competitiveness of the agro-industrial sector of the country, the need to strengthen import substitution in the agro-industrial complex. This article proposes the author's modification of the theoretical analysis of the reserves and factors of ESD SNES AIC and RA, with the help of which the process of evolutionary views on the management of the spatial advanced development of ST based on new technological modes and associated externs is modernized. To form a holistic view of the ESD SNES AIC and RA, it is proposed to use a system-complex-reserve-factorial approach, in which the problem of theoretical and methodological contradictions is solved and the endogenous and exogenous parameters of the construct under consideration are solved more comprehensively and systematically. The author's definition of the concept of ESD is given. The recommendations for solving the problems of state regulation in the management system of ESD SNES AIC and RA are substantiated, the issues of increasing competitiveness and technological leadership in the context of ESD, the application of program-target methods in the management of ESD are considered. The author's model of successively implemented managerial decisions in achieving the goals of the ESD strategies SNES AIC and RA has been developed. The results of the study can be applied by state and local authorities in the development and implementation of a socially-oriented and environmentally-saving strategy for ESD in the agro-industrial complex and the RA.

Quantifying Cognitive Factors in Lexical Decline

AbstractWe adopt an evolutionary view on language change in which cognitive factors (in addition to social ones) affect the fitness of words and their success in the linguistic ecosystem. Specifically, we propose a variety of psycholinguistic factors—semantic, distributional, and phonological—that we hypothesize are predictive of lexical decline, in which words greatly decrease in frequency over time. Using historical data across three languages (English, French, and German), we find that most of our proposed factors show a significant difference in the expected direction between each curated set of declining words and their matched stable words. Moreover, logistic regression analyses show that semantic and distributional factors are significant in predicting declining words. Further diachronic analysis reveals that declining words tend to decrease in the diversity of their lexical contexts over time, gradually narrowing their ‘ecological niches’.

Proteasome Activator Blm10 Regulates Transcription Especially During Aging.

BackgroundHistones are basic elements of the chromatin and are critical to controlling chromatin structure and transcription. The proteasome activator PA200 promotes the acetylation-dependent proteasomal degradation of the core histones during spermatogenesis, DNA repair, transcription, and cellular aging and maintains the stability of histone marks.ObjectiveThe study aimed to explore whether the yeast ortholog of PA200, Blm10, promotes degradation of the core histones during transcription and regulates transcription especially during aging.MethodsProtein degradation assays were performed to detect the role of Blm10 in histone degradation during transcription. mRNA profiles were compared in WT and mutant BY4741 or MDY510 yeast cells by RNA-sequencing.ResultsThe core histones can be degraded by the Blm10-proteasome in the non-replicating yeast, suggesting that Blm10 promotes the transcription-coupled degradation of the core histones. Blm10 preferentially regulates transcription in aged yeast, especially transcription of genes related to translation, amino acid metabolism, and carbohydrate metabolism. Mutations of Blm10 at F2125/N2126 in its putative acetyl-lysine binding region abolished the Blm10-mediated regulation of gene expression.ConclusionBlm10 promotes degradation of the core histones during transcription and regulates transcription, especially during cellular aging, further supporting the critical role of PA200 in maintaining the stability of histone marks from the evolutionary view. These results should provide meaningful insights into the mechanisms underlying aging and the related diseases.

The Unknowable: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Metaphysics, by W. J. Mander

Reviewed by: The Unknowable: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Metaphysics by W. J. Mander Andrew Vincent (bio) The Unknowable: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Metaphysics, by W. J. Mander; pp. ix + 336. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2020, $80.00, £60.00. W. J. Mander's The Unknowable: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Metaphysics is a valuable text for scholars of Victorian thought, whether they work in philosophical, metaphysical, or scientific domains. The narrative motif is the concept of the unknowable. Droll quips aside, we do get to know a lot about the unknowable. The term, or cognates such as the unconditioned, clearly had an intricate provenance permeating many nineteenth-century debates. The unknowable is certainly not confined to the Victorian era. It both predates and postdates the nineteenth century. The rough structure of the book is divided into three broad schemes of thought which respond, in diverse ways, to the idea of the unknowable. The schemes are agnosticism, empiricism, and idealism. The themes through which the unknowable is commonly articulated are as follows: the ground of sensory experience, the intuited dimensions of space and time, the self and identity, causality, and the eternal ground of being and/or God. The period covered is approximately from the 1840s up to the turn of the century. These schemes are seen to constitute the rich history of overt or covert metaphysics in Victorian Britain. The figure who initially advanced the idea of the unknowable was Sir William Hamilton. Hamilton is probably best known today via the harsh critique in John Stuart Mill's An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy (1865). However, in the 1840s he was a respected figure who, in Mander's words, "energized metaphysical writing in Britain" (11). The unknowable, or what Hamilton referred to as the unconditioned, derived largely from Immaneul Kant. The basic claim is that we cannot pass beyond our own phenomenal understanding; we are governed by what Hamilton called the "law of the conditioned" and we need consequently to cultivate a "learned ignorance" (13). Hamilton was also an admirer of Thomas Reid's realism. Accordingly, objects do definitely exist, but we only know them in relational terms as we perceive them. This general point constitutes a theme of agnostic realism. Analogous themes are explored in the work of Henry Mansel, although Mansel read Kant much more comprehensively in German and was not enamored of Reid's realism. Consequently, he argued more stringently than Hamilton for the limitations of reason, especially about God or morality. Herbert Spencer was disdainful of Kantianism, unsympathetic to religion, committed to an evolutionary naturalism, and confident about the reach of the empirical sciences; nonetheless, he also formulated a gauche metaphysical theory of the unknowable. [End Page 590] Mind and all theorizing were premised on an unknowable ground. Thomas Huxley developed his early views via Hamilton and was an early admirer of Spencer's metaphysical First Principles (1862). Later, however, in advancing his own evolutionary views, Huxley moved away from Spencer. It was Huxley who first coined the term agnosticism. His unknowable became a preliminary to scientific advance. Under the expansive canopy of empiricism, Mander discusses Mill, Alexander Bain, George Croom Robertson, Shadworth Hodgson, William Clifford, G. H. Lewes, and Karl Pearson. It is impossible to deal with the sheer quantity of beguiling detail in these various studies. In effect, all of these thinkers emphasized that empirical science-based knowledge suffices and that we experience reality via the senses. As Mill memorably put it: matter becomes the permanent possibility of sensation. Empiricism is combined here with phenomenalism—namely, the argument that sensations constituting appearances always interpose between us and the world. While all such empiricists resisted the agnostics' unknowable, many were still prepared to acknowledge a realm that was not yet scientifically accessible. For Mander, the high-water mark of such empiricism was Pearson's popular Grammar of Science (1892). The third scheme concerns idealism in the work of James Ferrier, John Grote, James Hutchinson Stirling, John and Edward Caird, Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison, Henry Jones, and finally Francis Herbert Bradley. Mander employs the term objective idealism (in the main) to describe this group. He identifies...

Phylogenetic Analysis of the Membrane Attack Complex/Perforin Domain-Containing Proteins in Gossypium and the Role of GhMACPF26 in Cotton Under Cold Stress.

The membrane attack complex/perforin (MACPF) domain-containing proteins are involved in the various developmental processes and in responding to diverse abiotic stress. The function and regulatory network of the MACPF genes are rarely reported in Gossypium spp. We study the detailed identification and partial functional verification of the members of the MACPF family. Totally, 100 putative MACPF proteins containing complete MACPF domain were identified from the four cotton species. They were classified into three phylogenetic groups and underwent multifold pressure indicating that selection produced new functional differentiation. Cotton MACPF gene family members expanded mainly through the whole-genome duplication (WGD)/segmental followed by the dispersed. Expression and cis-acting elements analysis revealed that MACPFs play a role in resistance to abiotic stresses, and some selected GhMACPFs were able to respond to the PEG and cold stresses. Co-expression analysis showed that GhMACPFs might interact with valine-glutamine (VQ), WRKY, and Apetala 2 (AP2)/ethylene responsive factor (ERF) domain-containing genes under cold stress. In addition, silencing endogenous GhMACPF26 in cotton by the virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) method indicated that GhMACPF26 negatively regulates cold tolerance. Our data provided a comprehensive phylogenetic evolutionary view of Gossypium MACPFs. The MACPFs may work together with multiple transcriptional factors and play roles in acclimation to abiotic stress, especially cold stress in cotton.

An evolutionary view of self-awareness

The capacity to be self-aware is regarded as a fundamental difference between humans and other species. However, growing evidence challenges this notion, indicating that many animals show complex signs and behaviors that are consonant with self-awareness. In this review, we suggest that many animals are indeed self-aware, but that the complexity of this process differs among species. We discuss this topic by addressing several different questions regarding self-awareness: what is self-awareness, how has self-awareness been studied experimentally, which species may be self-aware, what are its potential adaptive advantages. We conclude by proposing alternative models for the emergence of self-awareness in relation to species evolutionary paths, indicating future research questions to advance this field further.

High-performance work practices and labour productivity: a six wave longitudinal study of UK manufacturing and service SMEs

This study utilises both evolutionary resource-based view (EBRV) and open systems theory to investigate the long term impact of high-performance work practices (HPWPs) on labour productivity in UK manufacturing and service sector SMEs. We investigate both forward and reverse causality and the moderating role of owner-manager strategic orientation, and whether such relationships are influenced by firm size and age. Utilising a longitudinal data set (a balanced panel) comprising 284 UK SMEs and six waves of data collection over a ten-year time period (2007–2017), we found support for both forward and reverse causality. Prior investments in HPWPs were positively associated with subsequent firm labour productivity and prior labour productivity was positively associated with future investment in HPWPs. The size of the estimated coefficients for these relationships were consistently larger for small firms than for medium sized firms, however there were not significant for firm age. We additionally found that owner-manager strategic orientation towards HR moderated both forward and reverse causality relationships and that this relationship increased over time. The size of the estimated coefficients was larger in small firms compared to medium-sized firms. Overall, our findings support calls to investigate both forward and reverse causality and to better understand potential differences between small and medium sized firms.

Who do you take to tango? Examining pairing mechanisms between underwriters and initial public offering firms in a nascent stock market

AbstractResearch SummaryPrevious studies on initial public offerings (IPOs) in mature stock markets have documented that high‐reputation underwriters primarily work with high‐quality firms and vice versa—that is, they are paired through a quality‐matching mechanism. We propose that in a nascent stock market, a pricing mechanism may also play a role, through which pricing (the underwriting fee) sets the pairing. We examine these two mechanisms in the context of China's ChiNext stock exchange, which was launched in 2009 and experienced dramatic regulatory improvements in 2012–2013. With data on IPOs in 2009–2017, we find evidence to support the pricing mechanism's effect before the regulatory improvements and the quality‐matching mechanism's effect after the improvements. We contribute to the literature by developing an evolutionary view on the pairing mechanisms between important capital market participants.Managerial SummaryIn a mature stock market, underwriter reputation signals the underlying quality of initial public offering (IPO) firms to external investors because high‐reputation underwriters primarily work with high‐quality IPO firms and vice versa. We find that in a nascent stock market before the market experiences regulatory improvements, underwriters and IPO firms are paired through a pricing mechanism. That is, underwriters with higher reputation charge higher underwriting fees, and IPO firms with lower quality pay higher fees. Since the pricing mechanism rather than the quality‐matching mechanism sets the pairing, underwriter reputation does not have a signaling effect. Instead, we find that higher underwriting fees signal lower quality of IPO firms. Our findings shed important insights on how market participants are paired in other nascent markets, nascent technology fields and industries.

A Neo-Carnegie Approach to the Agency Question: Bridging the Evolutionary and Cognitive Views of Strategy

This article discusses the role of agency in discovering strategic opportunities by comparing two perspectives: the evolutionary and the cognitive view of strategy. The conceptions put forth by evolutionary scholars and cognitivists reflect different sensibilities, make different assumptions, and end up delineating different roles for the strategist. We recognize the fact that each view focuses on relevant facets of a multifaceted phenomenon and propose a “Neo-Carnegie” path to integrate these views.

RNA regulation in immunity.

RNA regulation in immunity.

Value creation through omnichannel practices for multi-actor customers: an evolutionary view

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the omnichannel practices to porpose a conceptual overview to offer guidance on how to handle their inherent complexities.Design/methodology/approachThis study is based on a literature review of more than 100 academics papers about the multichannel practices and omnichannel practices in the global market.FindingsTo this end, this paper identifies and addresses three limitations of the contemporary omnichannel literature: the failure to articulate the sources of value creation generated by omnichannel practices, the conception of omnichannel as targeting a single customer actor only and the static conception of omnichannel practices. In response to these limitations, this study offers the following: four sources of value creation based on the business model concept, a multi-actor customer conception, where several actors partake in the overall purchase decision and an evolutionary notion of omnichannel practices in terms of their constitution and use as part of the overall evolution of a marketplaceOriginality/valueThe framework presented in this paper provides a map to take new research beyond its current boundaries and an audit tool to help managers identify their firm’s current omnichannel situation, including limitations and opportunities for further development.

Human-driven spreading and evolution of plants during the Holocene epoch: The pioneering works of Valery Taliev

Valery Taliev (1872–1932) was one of the first natural scientists who investigated the importance of anthropogenic factors in the evolution and geographic distribution of higher plants. He outlined major parameters of the origin and spreading of weed plants, of the flora of riverbanks, and proposed a direct role of man in changing the balance between forests and steppes. In his evolutionary views, Taliev emphasized the significance of parallel series of changes and of the directed evolution in several groups of higher plants as well as of geographic heterogeneity of plant species.

"Coğrafya Kaderdir" Üzerine

This study focuses on the genealogy of the idea that “geography is destiny”. It claims that beside its pejorative meaning the idea has also an imperative meaning. In this regard, it defends considering geography as destiny is closely related with definition and imagination of the geography itself and has long historical material ground. Departing from this logic, the study focuses on relationship between the idea and diverse traditions in historical development of geographical thought to put forward how this relationship has been reproduced from antique times to modern times. In this respect, after chasing contribution of theological, astrological and cosmological traditions in classical age the study analyses role of mechanical, ecological and evolutionary world views in modern times and argues the aforementioned idea is an outcome of putting the nature and culture under same explanative umbrella. The study claims perceiving geography as destiny is product of idealistic geographical thought and functions as justification and legitimization tool for every kind of conservative politics.

The cognitive science of religion: A critical evaluation for theology

This article explores the cognitive science of religion to discover the challenges and implications for theology by providing a critical evaluation through the lenses of philosophy, evolutionary biology and neuroscience. Four positive implications of the cognitive science of religion are identified. Firstly, the cognitive science of religion can function as a strong hermeneutics of suspicion through which theologians can criticise dogmatic and authoritative religions and theologies. Secondly, the cognitive science of religion invites scholars of religion and theology to consider the evolutionary view of survival. Thirdly, the discipline’s counter-intuitive concept of God could provide the basic material for theology. Finally, the folk psychology this field depends on can be harmonised with theological emphasis on the weak. Despite these positive comments, it is nevertheless clear that a constructive encounter between the cognitive science of religion and theology should follow a careful critique of the former. Thus, I criticise that the cognitive science of religion is excessively dependent on evolutionary psychology and overemphasises a reductionist explanation of religion as merely a by-product of evolutionary adaptation whilst this study almost precludes any non-reductionistic model of mind such as ‘connectionism’ and ‘enactionism’ as well as any holistic interpretation of religion and theology. Finally, I conclude that theology of nature is a proper method for establishing a relationship between the cognitive science of religion and theology.Contribution: The article explores a critical accommodation of and response to the cognitive science of religion which has challenged religion and theology. It can not only expand transdisciplinarity of theological discourse, but also enrich the discourse of science and religion.

Evolutionary view through the starless cores in Taurus

Context. The chemical and physical evolution of starless and pre-stellar cores are of paramount importance to understanding the process of star formation. The Taurus Molecular Cloud cores TMC 1-C and TMC 1-CP share similar initial conditions and provide an excellent opportunity to understand the evolution of the pre-stellar core phase. Aims. We investigated the evolutionary stage of starless cores based on observations towards the prototypical dark cores TMC 1-C and TMC 1-CP. Methods. We mapped the prototypical dark cores TMC 1-C and TMC 1-CP in the CS 3 → 2, C34S 3 → 2, 13CS 2 → 1, DCN 1 → 0, DCN 2 → 1, DNC 1 → 0, DNC 2 → 1, DN13C 1 → 0, DN13C 2 → 1, N2H+ 1 → 0, and N2D+ 1 → 0 transitions. We performed a multi-transitional study of CS and its isotopologs, DCN, and DNC lines to characterize the physical and chemical properties of these cores. We studied their chemistry using the state-of-the-art gas-grain chemical code NAUTILUS and pseudo time-dependent models to determine their evolutionary stage. Results. The central nH volume density, the N2H+ column density, and the abundances of deuterated species are higher in TMC 1-C than in TMC 1-CP, yielding a higher N2H+ deuterium fraction in TMC 1-C, thus indicating a later evolutionary stage for TMC 1-C. The chemical modeling with pseudo time-dependent models and their radiative transfer are in agreement with this statement, allowing us to estimate a collapse timescale of ~1 Myr for TMC 1-C. Models with a younger collapse scenario or a collapse slowed down by a magnetic support are found to more closely reproduce the observations towards TMC 1-CP. Conclusions. Observational diagnostics seem to indicate that TMC 1-C is in a later evolutionary stage than TMC 1-CP, with a chemical age ~1 Myr. TMC 1-C shows signs of being an evolved core at the onset of star formation, while TMC 1-CP appears to be in an earlier evolutionary stage due to a more recent formation or, alternatively, a collapse slowed down by a magnetic support.

The theory of reputation economy as a new paradigm for the study of the region economic potential

The modern economy with all the variety of its structural elements, which every year is increasingly immersed in a hyper-connected digital space, new conditions of institutional functioning caused by both a change in technological patterns and innovative forms of thinking, needs to adjust the basic, established principles and models of economic growth. If earlier the material productive factors was played a key role, today their importance is to some extent offset by the increasing role of non-material factors of production, the most important of which should include reputation capital. The purpose of the article is to comprehend and theoretically support this scientific problem. The need to revise some principles of building models of economic dynamics and strategic management of the region based on the use and revision of structural, logical and evolutionary views on the construction of this process is substantiated in the article. Based on the results of systematization of the evolution of methodological approaches to assessing the effectiveness of regional socio-economic development of territories / regions, the position is substantiated, according to which, in modern economic conditions, the effectiveness of territorial development should be based on research and strengthening of reputation capital.

Social evolution as moral truth tracking in natural law.

Morality can be adaptive or maladaptive. From this fact come polarizing disputes on the meta-ethical status of moral adaptation. The realist tracking account of morality claims that it is possible to track objective moral truths and that these truths correspond to moral rules that are adaptive. In contrast, evolutionary anti-realism rejects the existence of moral objectivity and thus asserts that adaptive moral rules cannot represent objective moral truths, since those truths do not exist. This article develops a novel evolutionary view of natural law to defend the realist tracking account. It argues that we can identify objective moral truths through cultural group selection and that adaptive moral rules are likely to reflect such truths.

Bridging the Gap Between Mammal and Insect Ears – A Comparative and Evolutionary View of Sound-Reception

Insects must wonder why mammals have ears only in their head and why they evolved only one common principle of ear design—the cochlea. Ears independently evolved at least 19 times in different insect groups and therefore can be found in completely different body parts. The morphologies and functional characteristics of insect ears are as wildly diverse as the ecological niches they exploit. In both, insects and mammals, hearing organs are constrained by the same biophysical principles and their respective molecular processes for mechanotransduction are thought to share a common evolutionary origin. Due to this, comparative knowledge of hearing across animal phyla provides crucial insight into fundamental processes of auditory transduction, especially at the biomechanical and molecular level. This review will start by comparing hearing between insects and mammals in an evolutionary context. It will then discuss current findings about sound reception will help to bridge the gap between both research fields.

The rhetorical use of B. F. Skinner in evolutionary psychology

This article examines Skinner’s often neglected ideas about evolution, which he returns to in his final academic paper. I attempt to square Skinner’s advocacy for evolutionary explanation, including his efforts to reconcile biological, individual, and cultural adaptation, with how he is framed and critiqued by a school of evolutionary psychologists who attribute to Skinner a blank slate, or so-called standard social science model, view of the mind. I argue that characterizing Skinner in this manner is inconsistent with his evolutionary writings and ignores Skinner’s explicit disavowals of such interpretations. I then discuss Skinner’s evolutionary views in light of contemporary evolutionary theories of human psychology. I also compare the reception to evolutionary psychology and Skinner within the field more generally and conclude by discussing the proposal that evolutionary psychology should be considered a new paradigm for psychology, a claim that seems to follow from evolutionary psychologists’ caricature of Skinner.

Multiple Origins of Neurons From Secretory Cells.

The elusive diversity of neurons puzzled neuroscientists since discovering the first nerve cells in the 1830s. Quantitative information about neuronal diversity began to flow from the middle of the twentieth century. At that time, microelectrode and histochemical tools were applied to vertebrate and invertebrate preparations. Simpler nervous systems of some gastropod mollusks, annelids, and nematodes revealed identified neurons with defined transmitter specificity and functions. Early systematic studies pointed out that most of the neurons composing their nervous systems might be unique (Bullock and Horridge, 1965). That revelation provided tractable experimental preparations to decipher cellular bases of behaviors (Kandel, 1976, 2001; Kuffler and Nicholls, 1976). Today, with advances in single-cell (epi)genomics and transcriptomics, the astonishing diversity of neuronal cell types exceeds any imagination (Moroz, 2018). The most straightforward question is, how different are the neurons? But more fundamental questions are: Why are neurons different? Why are there so many neurotransmitters? Why are neurotransmitters different? These questions have been addressed by many (Kandel, 1979; Van Vallen, 1982; Bloom, 1984), aiming for functional aspects. In 1968–1974 these questions were asked from an evolutionary standpoint, and Dmitry Sakharov had proposed the hypothesis of neuronal polygeny (=multiple origins of neurons) (Sakharov, 1970a,b, 1972, 1974a,b). Using minimal comparative data available 50 years ago, Sakharov suggested that neurons evolved from genetically different secretory cells. The evolutionary view of neuronal evolution can be summarized as follows. Each of these populations of secretory cells could use chemically distinct transmitter(s) and different (distant) receptors for communications in early neural systems, where synapses are not required. Ancestral diversity of secretory cell types (=secretory phenotypes) has been preserved over 500+ million years of biological evolution, forming lineages of homologous neurons across phyla. Thus, neurons are different because they have different genealogies. Subsequent functional “demands” and specifications could further tune these different ancestral neurosecretory phenotypes. In other words, the traditional one-root genealogy of neurons was transformed into multiple genealogies or a net of phyletic cell/neuronal lineages, as schematically presented in Figure 1. Open in a separate window Figure 1 Multiple origins of neurons and secretory cells. Schematic illustration of the ancestral cell lineages (different color trajectories) that led to the exant neural systems in four basal metazoan clades with Placozoa as nerveless animals. Neural systems might consist of genetically diverged cell types with different ancestries, gene regulatory networks, and signal molecules. This diagram integrates both the hypothesis of independent origins of neurons (as in ctenophores, Moroz et al., 2014) and the sister-cell model (Arendt et al., 2016), which suggests that novel neuronal types arise in pairs, through sub-specialization of ancestral cell types. Thus, sister neuronal subtypes can share gene-regulatory networks, perhaps, evolutionary conserved developmental pathways, and are expected to have more similar expression profiles than each of them compared to other neuronal types. The key prediction of this model is that gene expression profiles from sister-cell types will form a hierarchical tree structure in phylogenetic reconstructions. A complementary model predicts that neurons and novel neuronal subtypes arise through “co-options” or “fusions” of regulatory modules and pathways “recruited” from genetically unrelated cell types. As a result, their expression profiles would be substantially different, leading to net-type rather than tree-type cellular genealogies in phylogenetic reconstructions. We expect that both scenarios can coexist in any given nervous system. But the tremendous diversity of neural systems across phyla suggests variable contributions of each historical scenario. Combining tools of (i) statistical geometry, artificial intelligence and (ii) modern phylogenomics with (iii) massive parallel single-neuron transcriptome profiling would allow us to unbiasedly reconstruct the genealogy of neurons by testing the treeness statistics as it was recently used for cancer and placental cells. The top illustrations are photos of Mnemiopsis, Trichoplax, Podocoryne, Priapulus, and Aplysia. Some cell lineages (different colors) might become eliminated in the course of evolution (loss) or be expanded or evolved in parallel from different secretory cell types.