Salthe, Stanley N. “The role of natural selection theory in understanding evolutionary systems.” In Evolutionary systems , pp. 13-20. Springer, Dordrecht, 1998.
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The literature on evolutionary systems (e.g. Csanyi, 1989; Goonatilake, 1991; Laszlo, 1987, 1994) is unclear about the role of natural selection. Evolutionary systems is a much more complex discourse than is evolutionary biology. In evolutionary biology we consider the play of only two forces - the random generation of heritable variants, and the sifting of these variants by success. As a result, in neo-Darwinism we find represented the interaction of chance and necessity, but no real form of systematicity. Systemic or constitutive changes - reflected in biology, for example, in allometric relationships (e.g. Calder, 1984; Niklas, 1994; Peters, 1983; Schmidt-Nielsen, 1984) - signify the material embodiments of structures, and these have been quite generally ignored by neoDarwinians. As I hope to show, selection theory is unintelligible because one could never anticipate (as one could predict a metabolic rate from facts about size using allometric relationships) what adaptations will be marshaled to eliminate particular environmental challenges.