Agreed. But Isn’t There Still More?

What Darwin said is valid. But even he acknowledged there was more at work in biological evolution. For example, at the species level, Richard Dawkins has pointed out the effects of the “extended phenotype.” (Michael Pollan in, Botany of Desire, talks about this with plants in a provocative way.) There are also epigenetic effects and macro-effects associated with what Gould called, punctuated evolution.

My quibble is not with natural selection, per se. Rather, the generalizing of biological change in the form of natural selection as “evolution.” That is to say, biological evolution is a specialized subset of symmetrical evolutionary processes seen at all system scales throughout the cosmos. On my Medium publication, A Passion to Evolve, you might find an article of mine called, Macroscopic Evolutionary Paradigm, an interesting read on “maximizing evolvability.”

Doc Huston