Emergent evolution

Emergent evolution is the hypothesis that, in the course of evolution, some entirely new properties, such as mind and consciousness, appear at certain critical points, usually because of an unpredictable rearrangement of the already existing entities. The term was originated by the psychologist C. Lloyd Morgan in 1922 in his Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews, which would later be published as the 1923 book Emergent Evolution.[1][2]

The hypothesis has been widely criticized for providing no mechanism to how entirely new properties emerge, and for its historical roots in teleology.[2][3][4] Historically, emergent evolution has been described as an alternative to materialism and vitalism.[5] Interest in emergent evolution was revived by biologist Robert G. B. Reid in 1985.[6][7][8]

Emergent evolution is distinct from the hypothesis of Emergent Evolutionary Potential (EEP) which was introduced in 2019 by Gene Levinson. In EEP, the scientific mechanism of Darwinian natural selection tends to preserve new, more complex entities that arise from interactions between previously existing entities, when those interactions prove useful, by trial-and error, in the struggle for existence. Biological organization arising via EEP is complementary to organization arising via gradual accumulation of incremental variation.[9]

  1. ^ Morgan, Conway Lloyd (1923). Emergent evolution : the Gifford lectures, delivered in the University of St. Andrews in the year 1922. MIT Libraries. New York : Henry Holt and Company ; London : William and Norgate.
  2. ^ a b Bowler, Peter J. (2001). Reconciling Science and Religion: The Debate in Early-Twentieth-Century Britain. University of Chicago Press. pp. 140-142, pp. 376-384. ISBN 0-226-06858-7
  3. ^ McLaughlin, Brian P. (1992). The Rise and Fall of British Emergentism. In A. Beckerman, H. Flohr, and J. Kim, eds., Emergence or Reduction? Essays on the Prospects of Nonreductive Physicalism. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 49–93. ISBN 3-11-012880-2
  4. ^ Baylis, Charles A. (1929). The Philosophic Functions of Emergence. The Philosophical Review. Vol. 38, No. 4. pp. 372-384.
  5. ^ Nabours, Robert K. (1930). "A Third Alternative: Emergent Evolution". The Scientific Monthly. 31 (5): 453–456. Bibcode:1930SciMo..31..453N. JSTOR 15012.
  6. ^ Hoff, Charles (1986). "Evolutionary Theory: The Unfinished Synthesis by Robert G. B. Reid". Human Biology. 58 (5): 823–824. JSTOR 41463815.
  7. ^ William, Mary B. (1986). "Evolutionary Theory: The Unfinished Synthesis by Robert G. B. Reid". The Quarterly Review of Biology. 61 (2): 266. doi:10.1086/414957. JSTOR 2829141.
  8. ^ Cornell, John F. (1987). "Evolutionary Theory: The Unfinished Synthesis by Robert G. B. Reid". Journal of the History of Biology. 20 (3): 424–425. JSTOR 4331027.
  9. ^ Levinson, Gene (2019). Rethinking Evolution: The Revolution That's Hiding in Plain Sight. Chapter 2: Emergent Evolutionary Potential. Hackensack, New Jersey: World Scientific. ISBN 978-1-78634-726-8 LCCN 2019-13762 OCLC 1138095098