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2 - Organicism and Mechanism: Rival Root Metaphors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2022

Michael Ruse
Michael Ruse
Affiliation:
University of Guelph, Ontario
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Summary

Natural selection. I am an evolutionist, which means that, to understand the present, we must dig into the past. That holds for culture as much as for biology. So, taking my own advice, where do we end up? Or, more precisely, where do we start off? As always, when dealing with Western culture, we begin with the Greeks, Plato and Aristotle. Neither of them was an evolutionist. Indeed, rather like the Buddhists, they believed that the (physical) world is eternal: no beginning, no end. But they did have much to say of great interest to our inquiry.

Keywords

Charles Darwinnatural selectiontheory of evolutiontree of lifebiological progresshuman evolutionscientific metaphormechanismorganicismHerbert SpencerA N Whiteheadfinal causeteleologyadaptationSocial Darwinismatheism [possible alternative – God’s existence]non-Darwinian revolutionevolutionary synthesisvera causaevo-devopunctuated equilibriumStephen Jay GouldRichard Dawkins
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Chapter
Information
Understanding Natural Selection , pp. 19 - 35
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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