Stewart, John. “IS EVOLUTION DIRECTIONAL? EVOLUTIONARY PROGRESS.”
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This article identifies evolutionary processes which produce progressive change, outlines the sequences of events in the evolution of life on earth which have resulted from these processes, and predicts key future developments in the evolution of life. Progressive evolution is driven by the potential benefits of cooperation amongst living processes. These benefits are able to be exploited by the formation of hierarchical organisations in which managing entities with the ability to control other entities support cooperators and suppress cheats. Examples of hierarchical organisations of this type include early cells in which RNA manages molecular processes, and modern nation states in which governments manage human organisation. However, the formation of hierarchical organisations will not fully realise the potential benefits of cooperation and end the progressive evolution which is driven by this potential: it is only within these organisations that cooperation can be comprehensively exploited. The widely recognised impediments to the evolution of cooperation will continue to apply to interactions between organisations. The potential benefits of cooperation between organisations will therefore drive the formation of higher level organisations. The continued repetition of this process will progressively extend cooperative organisation across greater scales of space and time.