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ABSTRACT
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) developed an evolutionary worldview that was both spiritual and consistent with the scientific knowledge of his day. He has been largely forgotten by modern evolutionary scientists but remains widely read by those who are inspired by his vision of conscious evolution leading to a planetary superorganism. This article examines the major tenets of Teilhard’s vision from a modern evolutionary perspective in an effort to integrate “hard” evolutionary science with spirituality, the humanities, and conscious efforts to manage cultural change.
Acknowledgements
This article is part of a project funded by the Kacyra Family Foundation’s Human Energy Project (https://humanenergy.io/). I thank Ben Kacyra, Alan Honick, Terry Deacon, Francis Heylighen, and Boris Shoshitaishvili for insightful discussion.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
2 Teilhard also thought deeply about concepts such as complexity and consciousness, but in a way that was thoroughly integrated with his development of evolutionary theory.
3 A closer look at rates of genetic and cultural evolution reveals that they both vary and that their distributions overlap with each other. Genetic evolution is often very slow but it can also take place in a single generation. The idea that genetic evolution takes place at ecological time scales has become an important finding of modern evolutionary ecologists. And while cultural evolution is often very fast, it can require centuries and millennia. Most important, rates of cultural evolution are themselves subject to cultural evolution. Modern rates are almost unimaginably faster than earlier centuries, where every generation was much like the one that preceded it. The idea that rates of cultural evolution can be catalyzed, similar to the catalysis of chemical reactions, is an important possibility to keep in mind while evolving the noösphere.
4 A special issue of Prosocial World’s online magazine This View of Life is devoted to the question “Can Evolution Be Conscious?”
5 Whiten (Citation2021).
6 See also the Wikipedia entry on pellagra: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellagra#History.
7 Gleick aptly recounts how computer simulation modelers had to struggle against the hubris of formal mathematical modelers in their study of complex systems dynamics.