Evolutionary change, we know, results from random mutation and natural selection, and any notion of purpose smacks of creationism and its close cousin, intelligent design. “That’s the third rail of evolutionary theory,” says Peter Corning – anyone who treads near it risks a severe shock to their reputation.
But Corning, director of the Institute for the Study of Complex Systems in Friday Harbor, Washington, is one of a handful of people who are tiptoeing, gingerly, into the danger zone by suggesting that organisms can guide their own evolution. And they are not talking … More.
Well, they aren’t talking but we bet we know who won’t be invited to the next “skepticfest.” From the Abstract:
It could be called ‘constrained purposiveness’, and one of the important themes in evolution, culminating in humankind, has been the ‘progressive’ evolution of self-determination (intelligence) and its ever-expanding potency. I call this agency ‘Teleonomic Selection’. In a very real sense, our species invented itself.
No, but keep talking.