“Natural Creationism”: Cognitive Foundations of Directed Evolutionary Processes

This article discusses the role of cognitive and teleonomic factors in evolution. The active role of living organisms in adaptation to the environment and transformation of their own environments is maintained. The work is based on research in the field of minimal cognition, which shows the presence of cognitive activities in organisms that do not have a nervous system (for example, bacteria and plants). Based on these data, the concept of “embodied cognition” is proposed as the basic form of cognitive activity in living systems. It is assumed that embodied cognition is carried out not in the form of mental representations, but in the form of practical (transformative) activities aimed at (1) the physiological restructuring of the body, (2) the creation of communities of organisms, or (3) the transformation of the environment to the needs of living systems (creation of ecological and cognitive developmental niches). This article emphasizes the need for elaboration of a special scientific and terminological apparatus for the description of minimal cognition. The article argues for certain goal-directedness and “intelligence” (“proto-intelligence”) of evolutionary development in nature and criticizes the neo-Darwinian reduction of the driving (“innovative”) forces of evolution exclusively to random gene mutation. It is shown that genetic inheritance is not the only channel of accumulation and transmission of hereditary information. The epigenetic and sociocultural mechanisms of heredity also take part in cumulative and directed development as well as in the transmission of acquired (phenotypic) traits. It is noted that at the system (environmental and social) level, such transfer is carried out through the creation of “developmental niches” and through the mechanisms of directed learning that exists not only in society, but also in nature.