1.5 A Developmental Perspective
Last modified 07/04/2008
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The debate has thus come full circle, and the cautiousness of Huxley
is vindicated, with respect to natural selection. Clearly, and the new
discoveries of evo-devo suggest this, there ought to be a developmental
perspective on evolution corresponding to the clear teleological behavior of
subunits of biochemical construction. It doesn't follow automatically, of
course, and the prospect of finding natural selection as the explanation for its
own self-transcendence into the teleological remains the last chance of the
Darwinists. In any case, it makes sense on its own terms to reconsider the point
that, somehow, despite the seeming indications otherwise in the confusing fossil
record, there is a developmental aspect to evolution as a whole. The confusion
here it would seem arises from the metaphysical pitfalls of teleological
thinking, and the inability of sciences descendant from physics of considering
the question, let alone making observations in practice that might confirm
it.
In fact, the question of teleology in biology has an precedent in precisely the warning indications of the philosopher Kant, who saw the whole dilemma quite before Darwin, but operated in a void of absent data with a brilliant methodology to deal with the quagmire of teleological issues. The basic point is to see that the issue of design might really be an issue of 'natural teleology' and that the 'natural designs' of organisms might well be an product of evolution, but not of natural selection. But an 'evolution' on two levels, macro and micro, resolves this problem, because it clearly indicates the two levels, smeared together with confuse us, but that if we can find the macro factor, the otherwise overwhelming evidence of random evolution will fall into place as taking up the majority of our observations, but still not the conclusive evidence of how evolution occurs in its dynamic phases.
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