Biological adaptation: dependence or independence from environment?

Forum Philosophicum: International Journal for Philosophy 2 (1):71-102 (1970)
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Abstract

Since more than hundred years the attempts to explain biological adaptations constitute the main current of evolutionary thinking. In 1901 C. LI. Morgan wrote: „The doctrine of evolution has rendered the study of adaptation of scientific importance. Before that doctrine was formulated, natural adaptations formed part of the mystery of special creation, and played a great role in natural theology through the use of the argument from 'design in nature’". The modem doctrine of biology stresses the importance of the environment in „shaping" the inner properties of every living being. This means an obvious although tacit refusal to assume or recognize any single, integrated agent in the origin of main functional biological traits and in the genesis of new kinds of life. The role ascribed to random mutations, and to „pressures of the environment" is just one aspect of the neodarwinian theory. Another aspect of this doctrine is the widespread conviction that all phenomena of life are a natural, both random and necessary result of interactions between constantly changing material objects.

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Animal Species and Evolution.Ernst Mayr - 1963 - Belknap of Harvard University Press.
Design for a Brain.W. Ross Ashby - 1953 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 4 (14):169-173.
Phenotype-genotype dichotomy: an essay in theoretical biology.Piotr Lenartowicz - 1975 - Roma: Typis Pontificiae Universitatis Gregorianae.

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