In evolutionary theory, we generally believe that the evolution of life is from simple to complex, from single to diverse, and from lower to higher. Thus, the idea of evolutionary progress appears obvious. However, in contemporary academic circles, some biologists and philosophers challenge this idea. Among them, Gould is the most influential. This paper first describes Gould’s seven arguments against evolutionary progress, i.e., the human arrogance argument, anthropocentric argument, no inner thrust argument, no biological base (...) argument, extreme contingency argument, statistical error argument, and bacteria (other than human beings) ruling the earth argument. Gould’s arguments against evolutionary progress have great influence in contemporary evolutionary theory. Thus, it is necessary to conduct a careful philosophical analysis of each of Gould’s arguments to reveal his philosophical mistakes. This research contends that Gould’s arguments against evolutionary progress are invalid. (shrink)

The dominant view today on evolutionary progress is that it has been thoroughly debunked. Even value-neutral progress concepts are seen to lack important theoretical underpinnings: natural selection provides no rationale for progress, and natural selection need not even be invoked to explain large-scale evolutionary trends. In this paper I challenge this view by analysing how natural selection acts in heterogeneous environments. This not only undermines key debunking arguments, but also provides a selectionist rationale for a (...) pattern of “evolutionary unfolding”, where life radiates across an increased range of exploitation of environmental heterogeneity. (shrink)

Natural selection explains how living forms are fitted to theirconditions of life. Darwin argued that selection also explains what hecalled the gradual advancement of the organisation, i.e.evolutionary progress. Present-day selectionists disagree. In theirview, it is happenstance that sustains conditions favorable to progress,and therefore happenstance, not selection, that explains progress. Iargue that the disagreement here turns not on whether there exists aselection-based condition bias – a belief now attributed to Darwin – but on whether there needs to (...) be such a bias for selection to count as explaining progress. In Darwin''s own view, selection explained progressso far as more complex organisms have the selective advantage whenselection operates unimpeded. I show that these two explanations ofevolutionary progress, selection and happenstance, answer for theirobjectivity to different standards, and for their truth or falsehood todifferent features of the world. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop a naturalistic conception of evolutionary progress. I argue that the Waddingtonian notion of adaptability can be embedded meaningfully into a framework which views living things as nonequilibrium structures. This thermodynamic interpretation places great emphasis on the dynamics of environmental change, whereas the classical conceptions are based on equilibrium conceptions of the evolutionary process. What improves in evolution is the ability of living things to stay alive in increasingly heterogeneous environments.

This article presents Schelling’s claim that nature has an evolutionary process and Hegel’s response that nature is the development of the concept. It then examines whether evolution is progressive. While many evolutionary biologists explicitly repudiate the suggestion that there is progress in evolution, they often implicitly presuppose this. Moreover, such a notion seems required insofar as the shape of life’s history consists in a directional trend. This article argues that, insofar as a notion of progress is (...) indeed conceptually ineliminatable from evolutionary biology or needed to articulate the shape of life’s history, progress should be viewed as constitutive. The section on “Why Schelling and .. (shrink)

Stephen Jay Gould argued that the shape of animal life as we know it is a radically contingent accident of history determined more by fortune than comparative functional merit. Acknowledging the formative role of contingency in macroevolution is crucial, Gould believed, to vanquishing the lingering vestiges of progressivism that continue to buttress anthropocentric views of life. Gould’s contingency thesis has come under fire in recent years by proponents of convergent evolution who argue that not only is replication ubiquitous in evolution, (...) but also that it indicates an evolutionary process charging inexorably toward ever more complex and human-like outcomes. We argue here that although convergentist approaches are widely seen as inimical to the Gouldian view of life, in fact the two are indispensable allies in the anti-progressivist crusade, particularly in relation to the evolution of mind. We illustrate this by examining the progressivist foundations of comparative cognition science and the ongoing resistance to attributions of convergent minds. (shrink)

Biologists Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould have recently extended their decades-old disagreements about evolution to the issue of the nature and reality of evolutionary progress. According to Gould, 'progress' is a noxious notion that deserves to be expunged from evolutionary biology. In Dawkins' view, on the other hand, progress is one of the most important, pervasive and inevitable aspects of evolution. Simple appeals to 'the evidence' are clearly insufficient to resolve this disagreement, since it (...) is precisely the interpretation of the evidence that is in dispute. Scientific controversies in general, and the Dawkins/Gould dispute over evolutionary progress in particular, are worth examining in some detail because doing so sheds light on the interconnected roles of methodological and contextual factors in the formation, articulation and defense of scientific claims. My aim in this paper is to clarify the structure of the Dawkins/Gould dispute by analyzing it in terms of a tri-level model of scientific controversies, involving 'top-level' substantive disagreements, 'middle-level' methodological differences, and 'bottom-level' differences in historical and social factors. This simple three-tiered model is sufficiently abstract to have more general applicability to other scientific controversies. (shrink)

Here I discuss the basic elements, major stages, and completion of progressive evolution. The cosmic world of self-realization is based on extensive self-development within a closed contour: temporal counter-transitions of spatial counter-elements (energy bonds and media and, basically, substance structures) form of local worlds within it through evolution of informational structures. The organic world of reproduction develops through the open informational path: the initial substance, through energy exchange and metabolism, reproduces similar substance; the latter interacts with the environment and, subsequently, (...) reproduces its like, and so on. The animal world of self-regulation builds up a closed informational contour in the environment through the informational input and command output. The human world of self-cognition forms the intensive type of development within the internal closed informational contour of cognition. Counter-transitions of ideal images and signs relate to their real prototypes. In the course of cognition, abstractive thinking develops and brings man to the possibility of reflection of the initial world in its integrity (thus, elevates man to the infinite, by Hegel). (shrink)

In this book, Weikart helps unlock the mystery of Hitler ’s evil by vividly demonstrating the surprising conclusion that Hitler ’s immorality flowed from a coherent ethic. Hitler was inspired by evolutionary ethics to pursue the utopian project of biologically improving the human race. This ethic underlay or influenced almost every major feature of Nazi policy: eugenics, euthanasia, racism, population expansion, offensive warfare, and racial extermination.

This paper develops an account of evolutionary progress for use in the field of evolutionary economics. Previous work is surveyed and a new account set out, based on the idea of evolvability as it has been used recently in evolutionary developmental biology. The biological underpinnings of this idea are explained using examples of a series of phenomena that influence the evolvability of biological systems. It is further argued that selection pressures and developmental processes are sufficiently similar (...) to make this biological concept useful in economics. The new account is defended against a number of common objections to the notion of progress in evolving systems, including the claim that all stipulated measures of evolutionary progress are essentially arbitrary. It is argued that progress, understood as an increase in evolvability over time, is both philosophically well-justified and provides useful predictive and explanatory resources to those seeking to understand and manipulate evolving economic systems. (shrink)

Modern biology is ambivalent about the notion of evolutionary progress. Although most evolutionists imply in their writings that they still understand large-scale macroevolution as a somewhat progressive process, the use of the term “progress” is increasingly criticized and avoided. The paper shows that this ambivalence has a long history and results mainly from three problems: (1) The term “progress” carries historical, theoretical and social implications which are not congruent with modern knowledge of the course of evolution; (...) (2) An incongruence exists between the notion of progress and Darwin’s theory of selection; (3) It is still not possible to give more than a rudimentary definition of the general patterns that were generated during the macroevolution of organisms. The paper consists of two parts: the first is a historical overview of the roots of the term “progress” in evolutionary biology, the second discusses epistemological, ontological and empirical problems. It is stated that the term has so far served as a metaphor for general patterns generated amongst organisms during evolution. It is proposed that a reformulation is needed to eliminate historically imported implications and that it is necessary to develop a concept for an appropriate empirical description of macroevolutionary patterns. This is the third way between, on the one hand, using the term indiscriminately and, on the other hand, ignoring the general patterns that evolution has produced. (shrink)

Traditional conservative arguments against the possibility of moral progress relied on underevidenced assumptions about the limitations of human nature. Contemporary thinkers have attempted to fill this empirical gap in the conservative argument by appealing to evolutionary science. Such “evoconservative” arguments fail because they overstate the explanatory reach of evolutionary theory. We maintain that no adequate evolutionary explanation has been given for important features of human morality, namely cosmopolitan and other “inclusivist” moral commitments. We attribute these evolutionarily (...) anomalous features to a capacity for open-ended normativity, which presents a serious obstacle to theorists who wish to draw substantive moral and political lessons from human evolutionary history. (shrink)

Buchanan and Powell develop a concept of moral progress, and build a middle-range theory of how moral progress comes about. They argue on the basis of their view of the evolutionary origins of normative thought that further moral progress towards more inclusive moral and political systems is possible. In doing so they rebut a conservative reading of the evolution of normative thought: a reading that regards the hope for inclusive moral systems as utopian. Buchanan and Powell (...) argue that this ‘evoconservative’ argument overlooks overwhelming evidence of the adaptive plasticity of normative thought. I agree with their rejection of that evoconservative position, but give an alternative account of the evolutionary foundations of normative cognition and its plasticity. But I also argue that there is a gap in their defence of their view of moral progress: it begs the question against exclusive, relational conceptions of the naturalistic foundations of normative obligations and rights. Their account is less fully naturalistic than they seem to suppose, for it lacks a developed account of the natural facts which make normative claims true, and it is not clear that there is an account to be given that would vindicate their inclusive liberal intuitions about the norms we should have. (shrink)

Mehr et al.'s hypothesis that the origins of music lie in credible signaling emerges here as a strong contender to explain early adaptive functions of music. Its integration with evolutionary biology and its specificity mark important contributions. However, much of the paper is dedicated to the exclusion of popular alternative hypotheses, which we argue is unjustified and premature.

(1993). Progress and pathology in managerial practice: An evolutionary perspective. World Futures: Vol. 37, The Evolution of Socio-Economic Systems, pp. 151-161.

Economic geographers increasingly consider the significance of history in shaping the contemporary socio-economic landscape and believe that experiences and competencies, acquired over time by individuals and entities in particular localities, to a large degree determine present configurations as well as future regional trajectories. Attempts to trace, understand, and investigate the pathways from past to present have given rise to the thriving and exciting sub-field of Evolutionary Economic Geography. EEG highlights the important factors that initiate, inhibit, or consolidate the contextual (...) settings and relationships in which regions and their respective agents, which comprise and shape economic activity and social reproduction, change over time. It has at its core the production and destruction of novelty in space, and the links between innovation and regional economic fortunes. The creation of knowledge, its movement and recombination within different regional ensembles of economic agents and institutions plays a critical role in the evolution of the space-economy. EEG provides a framework to disentangle the complexity of technological change and regional economic development based on a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches. In only a short time, EEG has established itself as a promising and rapidly evolving research framework with its focus on the driving forces of regional development across various scales and its attempt to translate findings into public policy. This book advances the theoretical foundations of EEG, and demonstrates how EEG utilises and operationalises conceptual frameworks, both established and new. Contributions also point to future research avenues and extensions of EEG, attempting to build stronger ties between theory, empirical evidence, and relevance to policy. This book was originally published as a special issue of _Regional Studies. _. (shrink)

In spite of its success, Neo-Darwinism is faced with major conceptual barriers to further progress, deriving directly from its metaphysical foundations. Most importantly, neo-Darwinism fails to recognize a fundamental cause of evolutionary change, “niche construction”. This failure restricts the generality of evolutionary theory, and introduces inaccuracies. It also hinders the integration of evolutionary biology with neighbouring disciplines, including ecosystem ecology, developmental biology, and the human sciences. Ecology is forced to become a divided discipline, developmental biology is (...) stubbornly difficult to reconcile with evolutionary theory, and the majority of biologists and social scientists are still unhappy with evolutionary accounts of human behaviour. The incorporation of niche construction as both a cause and a product of evolution removes these disciplinary boundaries while greatly generalizing the explanatory power of evolutionary theory. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to make a comparison and build up a dialogue between two different philosophical approaches to values in evolutionary biology. First, I present the approach proposed by Alexander Rosenberg and Daniel McShea in their contribution to the contemporary debate on organic progress. i.e. the idea that there has been some kind of improvement concerning organisms over the history of life. Discussing organic progress raises the question of what “better” exactly means. This requires (...) an explicit clarification on what legitimately means to speak about “good” in evolutionary biology, thus to speak about values. Second, I move on to present an approach to values that has been proposed by Georges Canguilhem in the context of a different philosophical tradition. Canguilhem’s original theses are conceived in a Darwinian framework and clearly relate to the question of values in evolutionary biology. I shall then propose a comparison between these two heterogeneous perspectives on values by critically evaluating their common points and main differences. I will argue that both perspectives agree that the question of values in evolutionary biology takes on its full meaning with respect to the relationship between the organism and the environment. However, the framework for conceptualizing values in evolutionary biology provided by Rosenberg and McShea neglects a significant point highlighted by Canguilhem, i.e. the active role that the organism can play in evaluating the environment. In line with recent developments of biology, this point can be easily integrated into Rosenberg and McShea’s framework. Finally, I will point out some main differences between the two perspectives relative to the specificity of Canguilhem’s biological philosophy. (shrink)

No other scientific theory has had as tremendous an impact on our understanding of the world as Darwin's theory as outlined in his Origin of Species, yet from the very beginning the theory has been subject to controversy. The Evolution of Darwinism focuses on three issues of debate - the nature of selection, the nature and scope of adaptation, and the question of evolutionary progress. It traces the varying interpretations to which these issues were subjected from the beginning (...) and the fierce contemporary debates that still rage on and explores their implications for the greatest questions of all: Where we come from, who we are and where we might be heading. Written in a clear and non-technical style, this book will be of use as a textbook for students in the philosophy of science who need to become familiar with the background to the debates about evolution. (shrink)

my comments focus on jane addams's methode of ethical deliberation, as understood through Dr. Fischer's detailed explication, especially as offered in chapter 2, "An Evolutionary Method of Ethical Deliberation." As Fischer points out, this explication is of one iteration of Jane Addams's method, a particularized response to how Jane Addams believed the settlement residents should respond to the many labor strikes in Chicago during the 1890s. I offer my comments from the perspective of both a scholar, seeking to better (...) apply Addams's insights to my own work, and an educator, seeking to better integrate Addams's work into my teaching. My hope is to flesh out more clearly my own understanding and, in so doing... (shrink)

Progress Unchained reinterprets the history of the idea of progress using parallels between evolutionary biology and changing views of human history. Early concepts of progress in both areas saw it as the ascent of a linear scale of development toward a final goal. The 'chain of being' defined a hierarchy of living things with humans at the head, while social thinkers interpreted history as a development toward a final paradise or utopia. Darwinism reconfigured biological progress (...) as a 'tree of life' with multiple lines of advance not necessarily leading to humans, each driven by the rare innovations that generate entirely new functions. Popular writers such as H. G. Wells used a similar model to depict human progress, with competing technological innovations producing ever-more rapid changes in society. Bowler shows that as the idea of progress has become open-ended and unpredictable, a variety of alternative futures have been imagined. (shrink)

This text addresses the profound human questions of love and work. Beginning with a historical introduction, the author progresses through adaptive problems that humans face, and concludes by showing how evolutionary psychology encompasses all branches of psychology.

"The overall aim of this book is to understand the character of moral progress, so that making moral progress may become more systematic and secure, less chancy and less bloody. Drawing on three historical examples - the abolition of chattel slavery, the expansion of opportunities for women, and the increasing acceptance of same-sex love - it asks how those changes were brought about, and seeks a methodology for streamlining the kinds of developments that occurred. Moral progress is (...) conceived as pragmatic progress, progress from rather than progress to, achieved by overcoming the problems and limits of the current situation. Two kinds of problems are distinguished: problems of exclusion, found when the complaints of some people are ignored; and problems of false consciousness, present when the oppressed adopt judgments from the ambient society and do not protest their condition. The proposed methodology advocates procedures for listening to voiced complaints and for systematically reviewing the way in which particular self-conceptions, ideals and identities are taken to be appropriate for various groups of people. Through outlining a picture of moral practice, at both the individual and the societal levels, the book seeks to orient moral philosophy away from metaethical questions of realism and towards moral methodology"--. (shrink)

Why are there so many controversies in evolutionary psychology? Using a couple of concepts from philosophy of science, this paper argues that evolutionary psychology has not reached the stage of mature, normal science, since it does not currently have a unifying research program that guides individual scientists working in the discipline. The argument goes against claims made by certain proponents and opponents of evolutionary psychology, and it is supported by discussion of several examples. The paper notes that (...) just because evolutionary psychology has not reached the stage of normal science, the discipline is nevertheless a source of many progressive theoretical developments and interesting empirical discoveries. (shrink)

In contrast to the traditional relational semiotics, biosemiotics decisively deviates towards dynamical aspects of signs at the evolutionary and developmental time scales. The analysis of sign dynamics requires constructivism to explain how new components such as subagents, sensors, effectors, and interpretation networks are produced by developing and evolving organisms. Semiotic networks that include signs, tools, and subagents are multilevel, and this feature supports the plasticity, robustness, and evolvability of organisms. The origin of life is described here as the emergence (...) of simple self-constructing semiotic networks that progressively increased the diversity of their components and relations. Primitive organisms have no capacity to classify and track objects; thus, we need to admit the existence of proto-signs that directly regulate activities of agents without being associated with objects. However, object recognition and handling became possible in eukaryotic species with the development of extensive rewritable epigenetic memory as well as sensorial and effector capacities. Semiotic networks are based on sequential and recursive construction, where each step produces components that are needed for the following steps of construction. Construction is not limited to repair and reproduction of what already exists or is unambiguously encoded, it also includes production of new components and behaviors via learning and evolution. A special case is the emergence of new levels of organization known as metasystem transition. Multilevel semiotic networks reshape the phenotype of organisms by combining a mosaic of features developed via learning and evolution of cooperating and/or conflicting subagents. (shrink)

It is usually maintained by biologists and philosophers alike that essentialism is incompatible with evolutionary biology, and that abandoning essentialism was a precondition of progress being made in the biological sciences. These claims pose a problem for anyone familiar with both evolutionary biology and current metaphysics. Very few current scientific theories enjoy the prestige of evolutionary biology. But essentialism – long in the bad books amongst both biologists and philosophers – has been enjoying a strong resurgence (...) of late amongst analytical philosophers with a taste for metaphysics. Indeed, to impartial observers it is likely to appear that both evolutionary biology and essentialism are as well supported in their respective domains as could reasonably be expected. There is thus at least a prima facie tension here between evolutionary biology, metaphysics and, as we shall see, pre-theoretical common sense. (shrink)

"Advocates of the evolutionary analogy claim that mechanisms governing scientific change are analogous to those at work in organic evolution - above all, natural selection. By referring to the works of the most influential proponents of evolutionary analogies (Toulmin, Campbell, Hull and, most notably, Kuhn) the authors discuss whether and to what extent their use of the analogy is appropriate. A careful and often illuminating perusal of the theoretical scope of the terms employed, as well as of the (...) varying contexts within which the analogy is appealed to in contemporary debates, leads to the conclusion that such general theories of selective processes are either too sketchy or eventually not persuasive, if not altogether based on flawed views of evolutionary biology. By clarifying what is at stake, the analysis carried out in the book sheds new light on one of the dominant theories of scientific progress. It also invites criticism, of course - but that is the very fuel of philosophical confrontation." - Stefano Gattei, IMT Institute for Advanced Studies, Lucca "This book presents a serious challenge to those, like David Hull, who seek to model scientific change as an evolutionary process. The authors point out that although there are similarities between the processes of scientific change and organic evolution, the dissimilarities present formidable difficulties to construing the relation as anything more than a weak analogy. Their argument employs what they call a 'type hierarchical' approach that promises to be a powerful tool for the classification of similarities between theories in all fields." - Michael Bradie, Department of Philosophy, Bowling Green State University "This is a most interesting discussion of the analogy between biological and scientific change. Particularly commendable is the close attention paid to the thinking of the late David Hull and his pathbreaking work on this issue." - Michael Ruse, History and Philosophy of Science, Florida State University. (shrink)

The evolutionary model of moral progress developed in A Better Ape is nuanced and illuminating. Kumar and Campbell use their view of the evolved moral mind to analyze clear cases of increased inclusivity and equality (at least in Western society). Their analyses elucidate the psychological and social mechanisms that can drive moral progress (or regress). In this commentary, I raise three main concerns about their model: that factors other than social integration are more central to progress; (...) that their model isn’t inherently progressive; and that inclusivity and equality conflict with other forms of progress. (shrink)

Steven Pinker has said that one of the most important questions humans can ask of themselves is whether moral progress has occurred or is likely to occur. Buchanan and Powell here address that question, in order to provide the first naturalistic, empirically-informed and analytically sophisticated theory of moral progress--explaining the capacities in the human brain that allow for it, the role of the environment, and how contingent and fragile moral progress can be.

In this chapter I zoom in on a topic in climate ethics that has not previously received academic scrutiny: the intersection between evolutionary ethics and climate change. I argue that in the context of climate discourse, an evolutionary perspective can be illuminating, but may also invite moral corruption and reasoning fallacies. Relating my discussion to the general theme of the book, I argue that academic philosophy is well-positioned to fulfil a specific societal role, which is particularly important in (...) the age of popular science: to raise awareness of the ethical predicaments to which scientific findings can give rise, and to highlight the normative assumptions implicit in the reasoning of science communicators. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary research is becoming more and more popular. Many funding bodies encourage interdisciplinarity, as a criterion that promises scientific progress. Traditionally this has been linked to the idea of integrating or unifying disciplines. Using evolutionary game theory as a case study, Till Grüne-Yanoff (2016) argued that there is no such necessary link between interdisciplinary success and integration. Contrary to this, this paper argues that evolutionary game theory is a genuine case of successful integration between economics and biology, (...) shedding lights on the many dimensions along which integration can take place. (shrink)

Classical, selectionist (adaptationist) evolutionary epistemology of science draws an analogy between development of science and natural selection. But natural selection immediately increases only the relative fitness of organisms with regard to specific and changing environment. Therefore evolutionary epistemology of science is exploited (by van Fraassen in particular) against scientific realism which presumes existence of absolute scientific progress as an approach to truth. In modern biology in order to explain absolute evolutionary progress nonadaptationist, nonselectionist models based (...) on a passive trend mechanism (a random walk limited by walls) were worked out, the ratchet model in particular. This paper suggests nonadaptationist extension of evolutionary epistemology of science, namely the ratchet model of scientific progress and illustrates it by history of thermodynamics. This model enables to combine realistic concept of scientific progress as an approach to truth with antirealistic concept of scientific development as an improvement of problem-solving ability: the former is ascribed to scientific dynamics on a global scale and the latter on a local. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 10, Issue 1, pp 29 - 50 This essay discusses progress and directionality, both in nature, in science and in society, treating as its starting-point the reflections, parallelisms and comparisons of Ruse’s essay, ‘A Threefold Parallelism for Our Time? Progressive Development in Society, Science and the Organic World’, but reaching substantially different conclusions. The essay thus ranges over progress and directionality in the world of natural evolution, in the sciences and the humanities, and in history (...) and society. It defends non-relative progress in science and the humanities, criticising here both the approach to these disciplines of the strongly evolutionary epistemology of Hull and the more moderate evolutionary epistemology of Ruse. It further defends the possibility of progress and directionality in history and society, and also, following Rolston, in the course of evolution within the world of nature, where the kind of directionality to be found has multiple directions rather than being unilinear. Subsequently it relates conclusions about these fields to theological reflections about the creation of nature and society by a value-loving intelligence. (shrink)

Much philosophical progress has been made in elucidating the idea of evolutionary contingency in a recent re-burgeoning of the debate. However, additional progress has been impaired on three fronts. The first relates to its characterisation: the under-specification of various contingency claims has made it difficult to conceptually pinpoint the scope to which ‘contingency’ allegedly extends, as well as which biological forms are in contention. That is—there appears to be no systematic means with which to fully specify contingency (...) claims which has led to a tendency for authors to talk past each other. Secondly, on the matter of evidence, recent research has focused on the evidential import of convergent evolution which is taken to disconfirm the evolutionary contingency thesis. However, there has been a neglect of convergent evolution’s converse: ‘evolutionary idiosyncrasies’ or the singular evolution of certain forms, which I argue is evidentially supportive of evolutionary contingency. Thirdly, evolutionary contingency has often been claimed to vary in degrees and that the debate, itself, is a matter of ‘relative significance’. However, there has been no formal method of evaluating the strength of contingency and its relative significance in a particular domain. In this paper, I address all three issues by proposing a systematic means of fully specifying contingency theses with the concept of the modal range. Secondly, I propose an account of evolutionary idiosyncrasies, investigate the explanations for their occurrences, and, subsequently, spell out their significance with respect to the evolutionary contingency thesis. Finally, having been equipped with the evidential counterpart to convergent evolution, I shall sketch a likelihood framework for evaluating, precisely on the basis of a sequence of opposing data, the strength and relative significance of evolutionary contingency in a particular domain. With this in hand, the relative observations of idiosyncrasies and convergences can be informative of the strength and relative significance of contingency in any particular domain. (shrink)