User:Klaus Jaffe/sandbox

Klaus Jaffe (Caracas, 1951) is a Venezuelan chemist, university professor and researcher. Career He studied Chemistry at the Simón Bolívar University, graduated from the first promotion of this career (1974). He completed a master's degree in Biochemistry (1977) at the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research. He has a PhD in Animal Behavior from the University of Southampton (1979). He has been visiting professor at various international universities and is currently a professor in the Department of Organism Biology at the Simón Bolívar University. He has made more than 241 scientific publications in refereed journals and has more than 7,000 citations in indexed journals, in addition, he has published 12 books on various scientific topics.

From a view based on natural history, KJ participated in fashioning an ideology as powerful and transformative as any philosophy or religion before it: “Darwinism” and specifically “Sociobiology”. Using intricate mathematical detail these theories show how process of natural selection (i.e “red in tooth and claw” and advantage of sex-appeal results in sophisticated collaborative behavior. A bunch of ueber-rationalists had the crucial insight: that what matters in evolution are not organisms or groups of organisms, but individual genes. A gene that encourages creatures containing copies of itself to collaborate with each other will thus prosper, even if that collaboration is detrimental to some of the collaborators, as long as the others involved in the transaction benefit more. Since the best way to be sure you share genes with someone else is to be related to him or her. “Hamilton’s rule quantifies the degree of altruistic self-sacrifice that might be expected as being proportional to the degree of relatedness. KJ was immersed in these ideas and fascinated with thermodynamics, proposing Sociodynamics as the synthesis of them all. With tools borrowed from game theory and with computer simulations flavored with empirical data collected directly from mother nature, he showed that sex can evolve, if aided by assortative mating, as a tool to tame excess variance in the game of evolution. The same principle, applied to cultural evolution, allows cooperative behaviors to flourish in the presence of homophily allowing synergistic interactions to dominate successful societies. KJ saw these principles working in science itself, where diversity of ideas selected by empirical evidence produce evolution of knowledge. This led him to postulated an Extended Inclusive Fitness Theory that allowed to merge economic and biological thoughts on social synergies produced by cooperation and division of labor made possible by organized society using assortment among humans and other animals, including insects and unicellular organisms. His scientific exploration started with biochemical studies in enzyme kinetics, continued with explorations in neuroscience studying the biochemistry in memory formation. These studies let to the discovery in 1989 of a simple molecule containing nitrogen and oxygen, that was part of the metabolism of Arginine, that modulated memory formation. Lack of equipment and the loss of a crystal of the isolated compound in the post, hindered the chemical identification this “substance S” as NO (produced metabolically from Arginine). His publications in 1990 demonstrated the involvement of this compound in basics biochemical processes involved in memory formation in insects. Eric Kandel discovered the role of NO in memory formation in 1991 for which he was awarded the Nobel Price in 2000. This lack of financial support for the acquisition of sophisticated equipment led KJ to change his scientific inquiry and focus on social processes and its evolution in insects, especially ants. He became a dedicated myrmecologist working in ant behavior, ant ecology, taxonomy, biogeography, physiology, etc. for some 20 years. Age made youthful field explorations less frequent and lead him to focus on the evolution of social behavior in humans, getting him involved in behavioral and evolutionary economics. There he contributed to the understanding of how division of labor and knowledge produces synergy by pioneering quantitative studies on the dynamics of synergy in biological and economic systems. This lead to a precise quantitative thermodynamic definition of synergy. This experience catapulted him to complex system sciences, bioeconomics, and the interdisciplinary exploration of nature, leading to the creation of the Doctoral Program in Interdisciplinary Science. In order to broaden his audience, he founded EduCienciaVirtual to promote videos and IT technology to teach science to high school students; and put much effort in producing video games to help the general public to grasp complex phenomena in evolutionary biology and economics. Uber-rationalist sociobiologists managed the impressive trick of angering both Marxists (who wanted to believe in the perfectibility of mankind) and religious fundamentalists (who wanted to believe that the human psyche was divinely created). KJ suffered these rejection personally as an awkward, naive but deeply sincere individual with a scientist’s passion for arriving at the truth no matter what friendships might be upset, or egos (including, on occasion, his own) broken.

iii. Books, edited and written 1. El Marahuaka. Jaffé K. Armitano Editores, Caracas, 1989. 2. Applied Myrmecology: A World Perspective. Editors: Vander Meer RK, Jaffé K, Cedeno A. Westview Press, Bolder, USA, 1990, 741 pp. 3. Un Futuro para la Orinoquia-Amazonia. Wallis MC, Jaffe K., Editores. Caracas, 152 pp., 1991. ISBN 98-07-0672-0. 4. Tecnologías alternativas para el uso de bosques tropicales. Jaffe K, Sánchez P., Editores. Caracas, 202 pp., 1992. ISBN 980-237-054-1. - La ciencia como motor del desarrollo: perspectivas en América Latina Mundo Nuevo, 8: 13-17, 2012 PDF - Acta Terramaris 5. Guía al Mundo de las Hormigas. Jaffé K. Equinoccio editorial. Caracas, 1993. ISBN 980-237-058-4. 6. Formigas: Biologia e Anatomia. Caetano FH, Jaffé K, Zara FJ. Rio Claro, 2002, 131pp. 7. Guía al Mundo de las Hormigas. (2a edición). Jaffé K. Equinoccio editorial, Caracas, 2004. ISBN 980-237-207-2. 8. Monitoreo y Control Integrado del Picudo del Cocotero: Plaga de la Palma Aceitera. Sánchez PA, Jaffe K. Fonaiap, USB & Fundesol. , Fonaiap, Maracay, 1993. ISBN 980-318-052-5. 9. Mujer: Biodinamica de la trascendencia. Jaffé K. Caracas, 1996 ISBN 980-07-3401-5. 10. Evolutionary Bio-dynamics: The survival of the luckiest. Jaffé K. Caracas 2000. 11. La Riqueza de las Naciones: Una Perspectiva Interdisciplinaria. Equinoccio/Banco Central de Venezuela, 2008. 12. Que es la Ciencia (2007: Fundación Empresas Polar, Venezuela & 2008: Fondo Editorial Universidad Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Perú) 13. What is Science? An interdisciplinary perspective 2009: University Press of America 14. What is science? An evolutionary view (free pdf) 15. The Wealth of Nations: Complexity Science for an Interdisciplinary Approach in Economics. Amazon 16. The Roots of Synergy. Amazon

Reference


 * Thermodynamics, Infodynamics and Emergence. Jaffe K 2023. Qeios ID-S90ADN.4
 * The Invisible Hand of economic markets can be visualized through the synergy created by division of labor. Jaffe K. Complexity/ 2017/4753863.
 * Synergy from reproductive division of labour and genetic complexity drive the evolution of sex. Jaffe, K. Journal of Biological Physics 44: 317-329, 2018. Link (https://rdcu.be/LKaL). ArXiv 1702.02141.
 * Extended Inclusive Fitness Theory: Synergy and assortment drives the evolutionary dynamics in biology and economics. Jaffe K. SpringerPlus. 5(1) 1-19, 2016, 5:1092 doi:  10.1186/s40064-016-2750-z
 * Website: https://sites.google.com/view/kjaffe