Everything about Orthogenesis totally explained
Orthogenesis,
orthogenetic evolution,
progressive evolution or
autogenesis, is the
hypothesis that
life has an innate tendency to move in a unilinear fashion due to some internal or external "driving force". The hypothesis is based on
essentialism and
cosmic teleology and proposes an intrinsic drive which slowly transforms
species.
George Gaylord Simpson (1953) in an attack on orthogenesis called this mechanism "the mysterious inner force". Classic proponents of orthogenesis have rejected the theory of
natural selection as the organising mechanism in
evolution, and theories of
speciation for a rectilinear model of guided evolution acting on discrete species with "
essences". The term
orthogenesis was popularised by
Theodor Eimer, though many of the ideas are much older (Bateson 1909).
Many sources mix this heterodox view of
evolution with another - that
evolution is proceeding to some long term or ultimate goal; the result are definitions that state "orthogenesis proposes that evolution moves in a unilinear fashion towards a perfect goal". While it's true that early and famous examples of orthogenesis often conflated these two ideas (for example
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's theory of evolution), and that these two ideas are buried just below the surface of
Intelligent design, it's important to recognize that these are in fact two separate ideas that are rejected by mainstream science: the latter idea of goal-oriented evolution is better understood as a form of
teleology. The distinction can be seen when we recognize that orthogenesis is inherent in the theories of
German biologist Ernst Haeckel and
American paleontologist Richard Swann Lull. Both scientists proposed mechanisms whereby evolution proceeded in unilinear fashion, but neither saw goals (instead they made pseudo-scientific appeals to unknown genetic driving processes). Noticing this is important, because similar flaws recurrently resurface at the fringes of science (typically taking the form of new, mysterious molecular drives that supposedly are pushing phenotypic evolution in certain directions or forcing the formation of new species).
The orthogenesis hypothesis had a significant following in the
19th century when a number of evolutionary mechanisms, such as
Lamarckism, were being proposed.
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck himself accepted the idea, and it had a central role in his theory of inheritance of acquired characteristics, the hypothesised mechanism of which resembled the "mysterious inner force" of orthogenesis. Other proponents of orthogenesis included
Leo Berg, philosopher
Henri Bergson and, for a time, the paleontologist
Henry Fairfield Osborn. Orthogenesis was particularly accepted by paleontologists who saw in their fossils a directional change, and in
invertebrate paleontology thought there was a gradual and constant directional change. Those who accepted orthogenesis in this way, however, didn't necessarily accept that the mechanism that drove orthogenesis was teleological. In fact,
Darwin himself rarely used the term "evolution" now so commonly used to describe his theory, because in Darwin's time, evolution usually was associated some sort of progressive process like orthogenesis, and this had been common usage since at least 1647.
Autogenesis is a specific version of orthogenesis which also incorporates
spontaneous generation, the refuted hypothesis that each species is created by its own
abiogenesis or
special creation event.
Collapse of the hypothesis
The orthogenesis hypothesis began to collapse when it became clear that it couldn't explain the patterns found by
paleontologists in the
fossil record, which was non-linear with many complications. The hypothesis was generally abandoned when no mechanism could be found that would account for the process, and the theory of evolution by natural selection became the prevailing theory of evolution. The
modern evolutionary synthesis, in which the
genetic mechanisms of evolution were discovered, refuted the hypothesis for good. As more was understood about these mechanisms it became obvious that there was no possible naturalistic way in which the newly discovered mechanism of
heredity could be far-sighted or have a memory of past trends.
The orthogenetic hypothesis, however, died hard. Even Darwin was at first not opposed to orthogenic thinking, as this quote from the
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica demonstrates:
Edward Drinker Cope put such a line of argument in the most cogent fashion; the course of evolution, both in the production of variations and their selection, seemed to him to imply the existence of an originative, conscious and directive force, for which he invented the term bathmism (Gr. βαθμ, a step or beginning). On the other hand, dislike of mystical interpretations of natural facts has driven many capable naturalists to another extreme and has led them to insist on the all-powerfulness of natural selection and on the complete indefiniteness of variation. The apparent opposition between the conflicting schools is more acute than the facts justify.... there's no connection between the appearance of the variation and the use to which it may be put... in one sense it's a mere coincidence if a particular variation turn out to be useful. But there are several directions in which the field of variation appears to be not only limited but defined in a certain direction. Obviously variations depend on the constitution of the varying organism; a modification, whether it be large or small, is a modification of an already definite and limited structure.... A continuous environment both from the point of view of production of variation and selection of variation would appear necessarily to result in a series with the appearance of orthogenesis. The past history of the organic world displays many successful series and these, as they've survived, must inevitably display orthogenesis to some extent; but it also displays many failures which indeed may be regarded as showing that the limitation of variation has been such that the organisms have lost the possibility of successful response to a new environment. |
A few hung on to the orthogenesis hypothesis as late as the
1950s by claiming that the processes of
macroevolution, the long term trends in evolution, were distinct from the processes of
microevolution (
genetic variation and
natural selection) which were by then well understood and it was known they couldn't behave in an orthogenetic manner.
Teilhard de Chardin, a
Jesuit paleontologist, in
The Phenomenon of Man (a book influential among non-scientists that was published four years after his death in
1959) argued for evolution aiming for the "
omega point", while putting man at the center of the
universe and accounting for
original sin (Dennett 1995, von Kitzing 1998). This form of orthogenesis has now also been abandoned as more about evolutionary processes has been discovered (Wilkins 1997).
The refutation of orthogenesis had some ramifications in the field of
philosophy, as it refuted the idea of teleology as first postulated by
Aristotle and accepted by
Immanuel Kant, who had greatly influenced many scientists. Before the scientific and philosophical revolution that began with
Charles Darwin's ideas, the prevailing philosophy was that the world was teleological and purposeful, and that science was the study of
God's
creation. The refutation of these concepts have led to a shift in what science and scientists are perceived to be.
Modern co-opted usage
Though teleological linear evolution has been refuted, it isn't true that evolution never proceeds in a linear way, reinforcing characteristics, in certain lineages at times, for example, during a period of slow, sustained environmental change, but such examples are entirely consistent with the modern neo-Darwinian theory of evolution. These examples have sometimes been referred to as orthogenetic (for example by Jacobs
et al 1995 & Woodley 2006) but are not strictly orthogenetic, and simply appear as linear and constant changes because of environmental and molecular constraints on the direction of change.
Further Information
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