Peter A. Corning

BioSystems
Volume 266, August 2026, 105845

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was seriously deficient. Although his concept of natural selection was an important contribution – highlighting the fundamental fact that life on Earth is a contingent, always at-risk enterprise – he failed to acknowledge the fact that all living systems – from the smallest single-celled bacteria to humankind – are also shaped by their evolved purposiveness (teleonomy). Their initiatives and activities – their “agency” – has exercised an important influence over the trajectory of life on Earth, as one of Darwin’s predecessors, Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck, appreciated. Lamarck proposed that changes in an animal’s “habits”, stimulated by environmental changes, have been a primary source of evolutionary change over time. Darwin also portrayed evolution as a fundamentally competitive process (the “struggle for existence” in Darwin’s term), as did many of his contemporaries. Today we know that life has also been a multi-faceted cooperative (synergistic) enterprise and that this has been of overriding importance in the evolution of complexity over time. Teleonomy and cooperative functional effects (synergy) have shaped natural selection in many different ways. Indeed, we now know that there have been many influences in evolution. My proposed Inclusive Synthesis is also open-ended, because it is expected that still more has yet to be learned about biological evolution; it is an ongoing work-in-progress rather than a completed theoretical edifice. “Teleonomic Selection” (after Corning) and “Synergistic Selection” (after John Maynard Smith) have played important parts in evolution. It’s time for a more inclusive theory.

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