History and philosophy of panbiogeography

[Richard.Zander at MOBOT.ORG]

The Web dictionaries say:
n. (belief that) biological variation results in new species, always along
same path; belief that the development of civilization always proceeds in
same way.

Also Wikipedia says, more trenchantly:

Orthogenesis, orthogenetic evolution or autogenesis, is the hypothesis that
life has an innate tendency to move, in a unilinear fashion, to ever greater
perfection. The hypothesis is based on Essentialism, finalism 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". Proponents of orthogenesis 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).
The orthogenesis hypothesis had a significant following in the 19th century
when a number of evolutionary mechanisms, such as Lamarckism, were being
proposed. 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, did not necessarily accept that the
mechanism that drove orthogenesis was teleological.




______________________
Richard H. Zander
Bryology Group, Missouri Botanical Garden
PO Box 299, St. Louis, MO 63166-0299 USA
richard.zander at mobot.org <mailto:richard.zander at mobot.org>
Voice: 314-577-5180;  Fax: 314-577-9595
Websites
Bryophyte Volumes of Flora of North America:
http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm
Res Botanica:
http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/index.htm
Shipping address for UPS, etc.:
Missouri Botanical Garden
4344 Shaw Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63110 USA


-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Manning [mailto:sdmanning at ASUB.EDU]
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 3:49 PM
To: TAXACOM at LISTSERV.NHM.KU.EDU
Subject: Re: [TAXACOM] History and philosophy of panbiogeography
>7. Orthogenetic development (phylogenetic constraint by molecular drive)
>is of primary importance in evolution.

Can you be more specific as to what this really means (relatively
briefly)?  I have often thought that actually evolution is just one
energy-driven manifestation of the second law of thermodynamics.  This
sounds like a similar concept.