Natural evolution unfolds without will, intention or plan. This, at least, is the central significance of the work of Charles Darwin. Yet today, unfortunately, many, including among biologists, cling to a reinterpretation of the Darwinian notion of natural selection, viewing it not as the cause of evolution, but as the means employed by Nature to drive evolution.
This distorted acceptance of Darwinism is tantamount to a de facto rejection, which allows the idea of Nature as a creative force, endowed with a will and an ideal, to appear to have the authority of modern science. Since veneration for Nature comes in opposition to the real consideration that is due to sentient beings, it is important for the animalist movement to analyse and reject it.
There are four texts in this section:
- “Nature does not choose” (machine translation pending revision) – On the tenacious tendency to reinterpret the Darwinian process of evolution as a means at the service of Nature's ideals.
- “The myth of species” – the value still given to the concept of species remains essentialist and therefore unscientific.
- “The selfless selfishness of Richard Dawkins” – Dawkins' concept of the "selfish gene" is a step in the right direction, but remains marked by finalism.
- “On one particular fallacy regarding the concept of Darwinian adaptation” – Adaptation is, at best, that of the organism to its environment, not that of the environment to the organism.