Abstract
The neo-Darwinian theory of evolution and adaptation by natural selection has got us used to considering organisms’ features as solutions to problems set by the environment. However, no living system faces an outside reality independent of itself: organisms and groups of organisms, by their constitution and activity, specify the content, events and properties of the world in which they live. In this perspective—the theory of enaction—, the organism does not need to be optimal but simply viable, and it appears as a fundamental actor of the becoming of its lineage at the scale of phylogeny.
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Redrawn from Gerard et al. (2002)
Redrawn from Deneubourg et al. (1989)
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Acknowledgements
This paper is the English and extended version of a lecture given in French at the 38th conference ‘Médiations Sémiotiques’, which was held in Moissac, France, from 2 to 5 July 2018. We are grateful to Pascal Carlier and Marie Renoue for inviting us to the conference. Special thanks are also due to Audrey Dussutour, Michel Vancassel, Valérie Boudier and François Loiret for their encouragements and comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript, as well as to Stephen Dodd and Sheila Zangar for checking the English language. We dedicate this paper to Humberto Maturana (1928–2021) and John Stewart (1941–2021).
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Gerard, JF., Maublanc, ML. Nothing in the Environment Makes Sense Except in the Light of a Living System: Organisms, Their Relationships to the Environment, and Evolution. Evol Biol 50, 18–29 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11692-022-09594-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11692-022-09594-w