Organisms can be proud to have been their own designers

Ab stract: Ac cord ing to H. F. Osborn, one of the three au thors of ‘Baldwin ef fect’, adap tive evo lu tion may not re quire nei ther nat u ral se lec tion nor the in her i tance of ac quired char ac ter is tics. An adap tive evo lu tion ary change in pop u la tion with out nat u ral se lec tion means that an iden ti cal adap tive change in ge net i cally dif fer ent or gan isms of a pop u la tion can take place with out a sys tem atic dif fer ence in the re pro duc tive value be tween them, and these changes can also be come ir re vers ible on the level of ge nome with out the dif fer ence in the re pro duc tive value in volved. The mech a nisms, which al low this are known and sketched in this pa per. Their de scrip tion re quires an ap proach on the level of whole ge nome and a look to the or gan ism as a self-organising and com mu ni cat ing sys tem. Con se quently, it is pos si ble to have a the ory of adap tive evo lu tion, for which the evo lu tion with nat u ral se lec tion is a spe cial case.