Kull, Kalevi. “Adaptive evolution without natural selection.” Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 112, no. 2 (2014): 287-294.
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A mechanism of evolution that ensures adaptive changes without the obligatory role of natural selection is described. According to this mechanism, the first event is a plastic adaptive change (change of phenotype), followed by stochastic genetic change which makes the transformation irreversible. This mechanism is similar to the organic selection mechanism as proposed by Baldwin, Lloyd Morgan and Osborn in the 1890s and later developed by Waddington, but considerably updated according to contemporary knowledge to demonstrate its independence from natural selection. Conversely, in the neo-Darwinian mechanism, the first event is random genetic change, followed by a new phenotype and natural selection or differential reproduction of genotypes. Due to the role of semiosis in the decisive first step of the mechanism described here (the ontogenic adaptation, or rearrangement of gene expression patterns and profile), it could be called a semiotic mechanism of evolution. © 2013 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society , 2014, 112 , 287–294.