The Evolutionary Nature of Knowledge

There is uncanny similarity between evolutionary biology and evolutionary knowledge. Darwin’s theory of evolution is the most comprehensive and successful theory of existence yet conceived. It is about adaptation for survival (goal-directed) and about establishing a relationship relative to some feature of environmental order (relational quality). The evolutionary aspect of knowledge is about learning to survive with a better understanding of Nature using intelligence and rational arguments to enable us to anticipate the future and adapt accordingly. In this we depend on a tenuous link between instinct and intelligence. Instinct appears to serve as an invisible hand of Nature that nudges us towards what we must know but what we know is what Nature permits. When we observe the world inquisitively, instinct provides subtle cues for further exploration. Intelligence embellishes those cues with one or more plausible conjectures and sifts them through a rigorous fitness trial on available observations by making strenuous refutations to find flaws in every selected conjecture. Surviving conjectures are then used to make predictions of unseen but in principle experimentally observable phenomena that may exist. Conjectures that excel in predictions gain currency and are lauded.