Emergent evolution
Evolutionary biology / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Emergent evolution?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
Emergent evolution is the hypothesis that, in the course of evolution, some entirely new properties, such as mind and consciousness, appear at certain critical points, usually because of an unpredictable rearrangement of the already existing entities. The term was originated by the psychologist C. Lloyd Morgan in 1922 in his Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews, which would later be published as the 1923 book Emergent Evolution.[1][2]
The hypothesis has been widely criticized for providing no mechanism to how entirely new properties emerge, and for its historical roots in teleology.[2][3][4] Historically, emergent evolution has been described as an alternative to materialism and vitalism.[5] Interest in emergent evolution was revived by biologist Robert G. B. Reid in 1985.[6][7][8]
Emergent evolution is distinct from the hypothesis of Emergent Evolutionary Potential (EEP) which was introduced in 2019 by Gene Levinson. In EEP, the scientific mechanism of Darwinian natural selection tends to preserve new, more complex entities that arise from interactions between previously existing entities, when those interactions prove useful, by trial-and error, in the struggle for existence. Biological organization arising via EEP is complementary to organization arising via gradual accumulation of incremental variation. [9]