Natural selection requires no teleology in addition to heritable variation in fitness
Open access
Published: 07 August 2024
Volume 39, article number 18, (2024)
Nathan Cofnas
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Abstract
According to the standard formulation, natural selection requires variation, differential fitness, and heritability. I argue that this formulation is inadequate because it fails to distinguish natural selection from artificial selection, intelligent design, forward-looking orthogenetic selection, and adaptation via the selection of nonrandom variation. I suggest adding a no teleology condition. The no teleology condition says that the evolutionary process is not guided toward an endpoint represented in the mind of an agent, variation is produced randomly with respect to adaptation, and selection pressures are not forward looking.
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