Talk:Orthogenesis

Couldn't Prigogine's Thermodynamics offer a mechanism for Orthogenesis? A subtle force pushing systems toward greater entropy production which has culminated in the massive energy flow rate of the human brain?

about the comparison

I think it have a few errors. I´ll make a different version here, the main differences are bold:

Comparison of different theories of evolution

	Darwinism	Orthogenesis	Lamarckism
Mechanism	Short-sighted Natural Selection sorting variation. Selected traits are adaptive, i.e. have some survival value. At first, inheritance of acquired characteristics was accepted as a source of variation, but that was later replaced by mendelian genetics.'	Intrinsic drive towards perfection; natural selection unimportant. Characters produced may be totally non-adaptive, i.e. have no survival value.	Intrinsic drive towards perfection and inheritance of acquired characteristics.
Common descent	Yes, new species coming into existence by speciation events.	No, speciation rejected or considered unimportant in long term trends; spontaneous generation of new species resulting in parallel evolution.	Depends upon source quoted. Signs that species shared a common ancestor were detected before Darwin, but in absence of a mechanism some still rejected the idea.
Status	Prevailing in modified form as modern evolutionary synthesis.	Nearly totally abandoned, in favour of natural selection.	Declined after the Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, though the inheritance mechanism was not replaced until the mendelian genetics. With the Modern Synthesis was established that epigenetic inheritance has no great importance on evolution.

Summarizing what I´ve changed here:

• As Darwin accepted the idea of pangenesis, ie, his own theory of inheritance of acquired traits, variation under natural selection was not necessarily random, as previously stated. I also think that the term "genetic" came later, or at least, the term now has much more association with the current meaning;
• removed that inheritance of acquired traits was a "Lamarckian principle", I think it was widelly accepted, but not first proposed by Lamarck, although generally associated with him nowadays
• What prevails today is not neo darwinism, but the modern synthesis. The latter acknowledges drift, natural selection and etc, while neo darwinism accepted only natural selection as relevant and denied everything else.

And maybe one or other thing that may not need a more exetense explanation... --Extremophile 06:37, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

[Resolved - I made the change to the relevant section on 6/25/11] I'm not an expert, but the 'Mechanism' box for orthogenesis appears to contain the conflated definition discussed in the second paragraph of the main article. --Panaceus 11:58, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I made the change to modern evolutionary synthesis since there is not doubt that the creator of the table should have used it.

Nick Beeson (talk) 19:01, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem Panaceus pointed out still exists in the table: the earlier text in the article makes it clear that orthogenesis does not imply a continuous drive toward perfection, only in a particular direction. Many citations of apparent orthogenesis are for changes that are seriously maladaptive and therefore contrary to the principles of natural selection. Gordon Rattray Taylor, in "The Great Evolution Mystery," gives examples on Pp. 27-29. Flagmichael (talk) 17:09, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Bad philosophy

"The refutation of orthogenesis had some ramifications in the field of philosophy, as it refuted the idea of teleology as first postulated by Aristotle "

No, it didn't. A lot of people believe it did, but this is simply due to the fact that practically nobody learns philosophy anymore. The question of teleology isn't really accessible by the natural sciences. What people really mean when they say 'evolution isn't teleological' is more like 'you can't derive humans' (or any other species) 'a priori from the principles of mutation, selection etc.' Which is true, but doesn't actually rule out teleology.

Simon Conway Morris, for example, holds something close to a teleological view of evolution (with an emphasis on convergent evolution, and he's done some good work in paleontology -- it's not incompatible with the current state of the science. [Special:Contributions/165.91.166.57|165.91.166.57]] (talk) 00:57, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Very Good.88.230.205.113 (talk) 16:52, 28 February 2012 (UTC)