Those who have discussed evolution on this list seem to be in
agreement that "teleology is out". I am somewhat surprised
by this. For one thing, it makes social evolution seem quite
"Darwinian" (in the Darwinian sense, not the social Darwinism
sense).
Teleology has to do with whether the selection mechanism is
nonmyopic, i.e. influenced by the results of selection in a way
that integrates information about the adaptive landscape (itself
changing under the action of selection) into the selection
process.
Biological evolution is myopic. Evolution occurs in the direction
of the instantaneous fitness gradient, but the gradient may decrease
with time as a result of growth of the 'fittest' driven in that
direction. Myopic evolution can produce a tragedy-of-commons
in which the *relatively* fittest systematically triumph at the
cost of shrinking total absolute fitness: a system which can evolve
its own extinction.
One might naively hope that humans have the power to do a bit
better than that: might incorporate information about our own impacts
on our 'adaptive landscape' of social institutions and the biosphere,
might learn from observation of anthropogenic global change and undesired
social change, and might alter the selection regime of social evolution
in response to that knowledge.
If we can do this, social evolution would arguably be 'teleological',
seeking a sustainable world system as its goal. If we can't do it,
then anthropogenic global changes will eventually cease as do other
myopic systems that evolve their own extinction...
Alan McGowen