ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines a comprehensive theory of Darwinian and neo-Darwinian evolution that deals with the basic principles of the evolution of genes, phenotypes, individuals, populations, and species, but also extends into universal Darwinism as a set of principles that apply not only to competitions and interactions between species, but also to the adaptive resources within species and individuals. There is a vast literature on the evolutionary issues pertinent to the union of psychoanalysis and evolution. Plotkin and others have made a strong argument for a hierarchy of evolutionary forces. Plotkin has argued that an organism’s survival and adaptive capabilities depend primarily on genes and givens (instincts) that account for adaptations to slowly changing, long-term environmental events conditions that change slowly enough to allow time for genetic alterations. Hierarchical layering is essential to Plotkin’s work with evolutionary epistemology in which adaptations are seen as an organism’s ways of knowing its environment and world.
