What is evolution? There are three main components to evolution: variation, heredity, and differential fitness. The best definition I have seen is in Robert Brandon’s Concepts and Methods in Evolutionary Biology:
The following three statements are crucial components of the Darwinian (or neo-Darwinian) theory of evolution:
- Variation: There is (significant) variation in morphological, physiological and behavioral traits among members of a species.
- Heredity: Some traits are heritable so that individuals resemble their relations more than they resemble unrelated individuals and, in particular, offspring resemble their parents.
- Differential Fitness: Different variants (or different types of organisms) leave different numbers of offspring in immediate or remote generations.
Of course life evolves, but evolution inevitably happens whenever we have these three things: variation, heredity, and differential fitness. Thus life is not the only thing that evolves.
Culture evolves:
- Cultural Evolution (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
- Memetics
- Cultural Selection Theory
- Dual Inheritance Theory
Science evolves:
- Evolutionary Epistemology
- The Heroic Theory of Scientific Development
- Without Miracles: Universal Selection Theory and the Second Darwinian Revolution
- Incremental Doubt
Technology evolves:
Language evolves:
Art evolves:
- The Evolution of Movies
- Does Beauty Build Adapted Minds?
- Literary Study and Evolutionary Theory: A Review Essay
- Literary Darwinism
- The Literary Animal
Ethics evolves:
- A Scientific Approach to Morals and Ethics
- The Evolution of Cooperation
- Genetic and Cultural Evolution of Cooperation
- The Complexity of Cooperation
Evolution evolves:
Universes evolve:
Filed under: Evolution, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Science | Tagged: language, art, culture, life
I think it’s important to note how Darwin changed the meaning of the term “evolution” (although there has been some amount of regression to prior meanings since Darwin.) The OED informs us that the prior (now rare, according to the OED) meaning of Evolution was “A progression of a series of events in orderly succession” and “The process by which living organisms or their parts develop from a rudimentary to a mature or complete state”. The operative (normative) words here being progression and mature.
The modern (biological) meaning due to Darwin is more descriptive of a process of change: “The transformation of animals, plants, and other living organisms into different forms by the accumulation of changes over successive generations”.
I agree with you, Peter, that this modern definition generalizes to all these other fields as well. What worries me about using “evolve” rather than something more neutral like “transform by a process of natural selection”, is the implication (by connotation) that the present state of these things [art, culture, technology, ethics, etc.] is an improvement over their past state (which they are sometimes, but not necessarily.)
note how Darwin changed the meaning of the term “evolution”
I know that evolution has many meanings; that’s why I started with my favourite definition. If you’re interested in the history of the idea of evolution, before, after, and including Darwin, I highly recommend Michael Ruse’s Monad to Man: The Concept of Progress in Evolutionary Biology.
improvement over their past state
I discuss the idea of progress in evolution in A simple model of unbounded evolutionary versatility as a largest-scale trend in organismal evolution. There are two components to the idea of progress: (1) there is a largest-scale trend and (2) the trend is a good thing. My paper argues for (1). Regarding (2), I am trying to keep an open mind.