Teilhard de Chardin, Orthogenesis, and the Mechanism of Evolutionary Change
Video:
Thomas Glick
University of Boston
It is frequently said that Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) had no interest in, or understanding of, evolutionary mechanisms, beyond a generalized advocacy of orthogenesis, of straight-line evolution. For the rest, he offered only vague, even fanciful accounts of evolutionary mechanisms, such as tatônnement (groping) or hazard dirigé (directed chance). Here I will argue that Teilhard had adopted a well-known economic theory of the late nineteenth-century—Léon Walras’s version of equilibrium theory, which he called tatônnement, and that it makes perfect Darwinian sense.