ABSTRACT
Dobzhansky, one of the major architects of the evolutionary synthesis of neo-Darwinian biology, finds the principle at work in the adaptation of organic forms to diverse environments under pressures of natural selection. Dobzhansky, for his part, explicitly rejects the Bergsonian conception of creative evolution, though in apparent agreement with Whitehead, he regards the essence of creativity as the production of patterned novelty. Monod's position, based on a postulate of absolute 'scientific' objectivity, is radically reductionist, utterly opposed to all holistic, subjectivist or vitalist views that claim to discern in evolution a purposive, creative movement. Ghiselin expresses his idea of organic bricolage perfectly when he likens the products of evolution to contraptions rather than contrivances, or still more vividly, to 'Rube Goldberg devices'. Whitehead ascribes the creativity of organic evolution to something other than adaptation under natural selection. Whitehead, influenced more by Bergson than by Darwin, locates creativity in the very movement of becoming that Darwinian biology, with its atomizing materialism.
