Chapter 8 - Evolution and Progress

Abstract

The process of evolution appears as obviously progressive. The earliest organisms on Earth were no more complex than today's bacteria. Three billion years later, their descendants include orchids, ants, fish, reptiles, birds, and, of course, humans. But some evolutionary lineages are not progressive at all. Today's bacteria are no more advanced than their ancestors of 2 or 3 billion years ago. More than 99% of all species that ever lived became extinct, which was, of course, not progressive for those species. Change, evolution, and direction are concepts related to progress. Progress implies that advance has occurred in some respect. General or universal progress is that which has occurred in all historical sequences of a particular domain of reality. Particular progress is that which occurs in some but not all historical sequences of a domain of reality. Writings about biological progress have involved much disputation concerning whether the notion of progress belongs in the realm of scientific discourse, what criterion of progress is best, and whether progress has indeed taken place in the evolution of life.