Progressive evolution

Orthogenesis also known as orthogenetic evolution, progressive evolution, evolutionary progress, or progressionism, is an obsolete biological hypothesis that organisms have an innate tendency to evolve in a definite direction towards some goal (teleology) due to some internal mechanism or "driving force". According to the theory, the largest-scale trends in evolution have an absolute goal such as increasing biological complexity. Prominent historical figures who have championed some form of evolutionary progress include Alfred Russel Wallace, Herbert Spencer, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and Henri Bergson, sometimes with an evident religious motivation. Modern supporters include E. O. Wilson and Simon Conway Morris.

The term orthogenesis was popularized by Theodor Eimer. Proponents of orthogenesis had rejected the theory of natural selection as the organizing mechanism in evolution for a rectilinear model of directed evolution. The American paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson (1953) attacked orthogenesis, linking it with vitalism by describing it as "the mysterious inner force".

With the emergence of the modern evolutionary synthesis, in which genetics was integrated with evolution, orthogenesis was largely abandoned by biologists, but the notion that evolution represents progress is still widely shared.

The term orthogenesis was first used by the biologist Wilhelm Haacke in 1893.Theodor Eimer was the first to give the word a definition; he defined orthogenesis as "the general law according to which evolutionary development takes place in a noticeable direction, above all in specialized groups."

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