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3 - Natural Selection, Teleology, and Chance in Evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 October 2023

Mariusz Tabaczek
Mariusz Tabaczek
Affiliation:
Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, Rome
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Summary

Chapter three engages in the investigation of the meaning and role of natural selection, teleology and chance in evolutionary processes. From Aristotle and Aquinas, through Darwin and the twentieth-century evolutionary synthesis, to the most current philosophy of evolutionary biology, the fate of the notion of goal-directedness is traced and it is defended as indispensable and intrinsically related to chance in processes that affect the fittingness of organisms, which is tested by natural selection.

Keywords

AquinasAristotleChanceDarwinDesignNatural SelectionNormativityTeleologyTeleonomyVitalism
Type
Chapter
Information
Theistic Evolution
A Contemporary Aristotelian-Thomistic Perspective
 , pp. 92 - 126
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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