Evolution “On Purpose”: Teleonomy in Living Systems

EVOLUTION "ON PURPOSE": Teleonomy in Living Systems by Peter A. Corning, Stuart A. Kauffman, Denis Noble, James A. Shapiro, Richard I. Vane-Wright, and Addy Pross, eds. , Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology, Gerd B. Müller, Thomas Pradeu, and Katrin Schäfer, eds. The MIT Press, 2023. 390 pages including index. Paperback; 75. 00. ISBN: 9780262546409. *This revolutionary and transformative book heralds a major paradigm shift in the science of biology and opens the door to an entirely new approach to understanding the science of life. Its core message is that while life follows the laws of chemistry and physics, it cannot be defined, described, or understood solely in terms of those laws. Most of the book's editors are pioneers in the demolition of the gene-centric, deterministic evolutionary concepts that have dominated the ideology of neo-Darwinism for many decades. *Recently, a new movement in evolutionary biology, sometimes called "The Third Wave, " has emerged that questions some of the more basic tenets of the established theory. One of the milestones of this new movement was a meeting of the Royal Society in 2016, at which several leading biologists (including some of the editors and authors of Evolution "On Purpose") discussed a series of possible alterations to the established theory of evolution by natural selection. These included concepts of niche construction, whereby creatures modify their environments leading to altered evolutionary scenarios, non-random mutations, and natural genetic engineering by organisms--that is, evolution by choice. These and several other novel mechanisms outside of the standard model of random gene mutations, followed by natural selection, were part of the new "extended evolutionary synthesis" (EES). *Evolution "On Purpose, " however, goes much further than the EES in challenging neo-Darwinian dogmas by strongly emphasizing that living organisms are not passive recipients of random genetic mutations but active participants in their own evolution. This has long been, and to some extent still is, considered scientific heresy by many biologists, but the data supporting it is convincing. *The book contains eighteen chapters, including an Introduction by the editors, and an excellent summary (chap. 2) by senior editor Peter Corning. The history of how biology became fixated on denying teleology to conform to the sciences of chemistry and physics is told expertly by Denis Noble and his brother Raymond Noble in chapter 12. *The following sample of chapter titles gives an indication of the major themes of the book: "Teleonomy in Evolution"; "Cellular Basis of Cognition in Evolution"; "Niche Construction ‘On Purpose'"; "Relational Agency"; "Mentally Driven Goal-Directed Behavior"; "Morphogenesis as a Teleonomic Process"; and "Agency, Teleonomy, Purpose, and Evolutionary Change in Plant Systems. " *The subject of biological agency (a term that was traditionally banned from biology) has been shown to play a crucial role in evolutionary processes. The details are covered in several chapters, which describe how living creatures can influence their own evolution through their interactions with the environment. *Each chapter provides a richly profound look into fundamental ideas of how life really works, with very little overlap between different chapters. One can feel the excitement of the authors as they journey into what was once forbidden territory marked with the signs of final causes and willful agency. I will briefly discuss a select set of chapters to give a sense of the book. *Chapter 3 by Baluška, Miller, and Reber describes how all of life, including single-celled organisms, plants, and, of course, those with primitive or advanced brains, can perform cognitive functions such as perception of their environments. Even a bacterium can remember, learn, and make decisions based on its cognition. Cognition leading to purposeful action also includes cooperative interactions between organisms of the same or even different species, such as symbiosis. The authors emphasize that "evolutionary development is creative not only through either mutations, or natural selection but also--and mainly--through the linked cognitive activities and preferences of individual organisms" (p. 34). *James A. Shapiro, in chapter 15, discusses one important and critical mechanism by which organisms engineer themselves: the activity of transposons, or jumping genes. These mobile genetic elements, first discovered by Nobel laureate Barbara McClintock, are cellular tools for natural genetic engineering. To quote Shapiro: ". . . living organisms have the ability to rewrite and rewire their genomes when necessary. Rather than being the passive beneficiaries of random mutations and natural selection, all organisms play an active role in their own hereditary variation and evolution by activating transposable elements in response to ecological challenges" (p. 285). *Editor Stuart Kauffman is one of the most important pioneers in the emergent field of systems biology and the nature of complexity. Written with Andrea Roli, Kauffman's chapter 8 summarizes several of his contributions over the decades. These include the role of autocatalytic small molecule sets as possible precursors to the transition from chemistry to life, the statistical mechanics of evolution, and the uniqueness of life, which leads to a "third transition in science" beyond both the Newtonian paradigm and quantum mechanics, stemming from the impossibility of predicting and describing with equations the future evolution of a biosphere. *In chapter 10, Michael Levin, a rising star in many areas of new biological research, discusses the mounting evidence for teleonomy in the morphogenesis of many forms of life, from worms to frogs to mammals. He demonstrates that the way in which animals tend to build (or rebuild) their bodies (morphogenesis) is not based on a rigid program of stepwise, pre-set genetically based instructions requiring a fixed starting point to get to final shape. Instead, worms, frogs, newts, and other organisms build their bodies toward a known goal, and they use all kinds of innovative methods to get there. In other words, it is the final answer to what should be the shape of a frog face (for example) that drives the process, no matter the initial state of the tadpole face. Teleonomy drives morphogenesis. *How all this purpose-driven activity is controlled, monitored, and corrected is as yet unknown, but it is operative even in the development of mammalian (including human) fetuses, where large groups of cells self-organize into the correct organs and tissues. *A major feature of this book is its diversity in subject matter and approach. While several chapters do cover similar general topics (especially agency, cognition, and teleonomy), the number of specific applications of these and other aspects of biological complexity is very large. For example, chapter 7 by Eva Jablonka and Simona Ginsburg looks at the evolution of purposeful behavior from unconscious teleonomy in lower animals to conscious expression of goals and desires by human beings. It covers an enormous field of psychological and neurological research. *I am not aware that any of the editors or authors are professing Christians--to my knowledge, none of them are active in international associations devoted to science and Christian faith. Modern movements to reform the dogma of neo-Darwinism are not (as some atheists have claimed) part of a Christian plot to undermine settled science. Every participant in this project affirms the reality of Darwinian evolution. Their purpose is to bring the theory up to date. *Evolution "On Purpose" is a useful resource for Christians invested in describing the harmony of science (biology in particular) with our faith. Given the major impact that it is likely to have, I expect that more books and articles aimed at the general public will be making appearances shortly. *Reviewed by Sy Garte, editor-in-chief of God and Nature magazine, author of Beyond Evolution: How New Discoveries in the Science of Life Point to God, and visiting professor at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901.