SELF-ORGANIZATION AND THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION

Abstract

The author distinguishes three types of evolutionary theories: 1) ahistorical theories, constructed according to the methodological patterns of classical physics (mechanics), 2) supra-historical theories, in which the historical nature of the evolutionary process is reflected in a more complete (than only in the sense of the chronology of events) and richer, but its mechanism remains unchanged—“taken out of history,” 3) fully historical theories, recognizing that the factors and mechanisms of evolution themselves are entangled in history: are subject to changes in the course of historical development. A prominent representative of the third type is the theory of Ivan I. Schmalhauzen. Some peculiarities of its methodological structure are analyzed. This analysis allowed to reveal the premises of the process of evolution understood as a process of self-organization and to determine the basis on which it can be concluded that the general theory of evolution is nothing else than a theory of biological organization.

Keywords

• synthetic theory of evolution
• driving (and other) factors of evolution
• theory of stabilizing selection
• historical variability of factors and mechanisms of evolution