The Mystery of Similar Forms Bergson, "Creative Evolution" The Wall that Evolutionary Theories Could Not Overcome Late 19th Century Early 20th Century

The Mystery of Similar Forms Bergson, "Creative Evolution" The Wall that Evolutionary Theories Could Not Overcome Late 19th Century Early 20th Century

Bergson organized the evolutionary debates of the late 19th and early 20th centuries into two frameworks, mechanism and teleology, and criticized both as inadequate for explaining the creation of life. Mechanism breaks down change into elements and regards the same conditions as producing the same results. Objectivism, on the other hand, understands life as if it were moving toward a predetermined goal. Both, however, are said to miss the very movement of generation itself by fitting the completed form into a framework that is easy to explain.

This problem becomes clearer in phenomena in which similar structures and functions emerge under different conditions. Darwin's theory of natural selection explains adaptation by the accumulation of micro-mutations, but it tends to be an a posteriori explanation for why organisms of different lineages arrive at similar forms. The mutation theory assumes a dramatic change, but it is difficult to show how complex organs are established without failure. The acquired trait theory can also explain partial changes, but cannot explain the direction and unity of the entire organism.

The common limitation of these theories is that they view evolution as a correspondence between cause and effect. Actual evolution is irreversible, and the same conditions are never completely repeated. Convergent evolution in modern evolutionary science is confirmed as a phenomenon in which different lineages reach similar solutions under similar environmental conditions, but even there, the generative side is not fully narrated.

Bergson viewed evolution as a movement in which the whole of life unfolds from within, and he emphasized divergence and emergence that cannot be explained by causal theory alone. Criticisms of evolutionary theories indicate the need to question the very framework for understanding life and to focus on the time of generation rather than the result.