Teilhard de Chardin's ideas about the mechanisms of biological evolution are revised and their connections with contemporary theories are reported. Teilhard de Chardin's main contribution is the proposal of a new scientific discipline, geobiology—the science of the biosphere evolving as a whole. The main fields of interest of geobiology are reported, and its relationships with contemporary hypotheses, such as Lovelock's Gaia, are discussed. The consequences of this kind of approach are the parallel evolution described as orthogenesis and the presence of (...) canalization phenomena. These Teilhardian hypotheses are discussed in relation to those of the process structuralists and to the novelties of the molecular evolution of the genome. Conclusions are that the mechanisms discussed by Teilhard are presently taken into consideration by contemporary evolutionists in order to construct a new theory of biological evolution. (shrink)

This paper introduces the thought of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin from a perspective neglected until now: a view that builds on the analysis of his scientific papers. His scientific work formed part of the “modern synthesis” which laid the foundation of contemporary Darwinism. His main contributions in the field were the definition of a new branch of evolutionary sciences, geobiology; the redefinition of the term orthogenesis; and the proposal of the “scale” phyletic tree. Using these new research concepts, Teilhard de (...) Chardin attempted to solve, within a scientific framework, a problem fundamental for his philosophical synthesis: that of evolutionary directionality. (shrink)

Aim of this article lo to make a reading of Teilhard de Chardon's work in order to suggest a new model for the relationship between Science and Theology. It deports from the fact that Teilhard de Chardin was a man of science, particularly engaged in the fields of palaeontology, geology and the paleo-antrhopology. It also takes into consideration the fact that his teleological perspective is basically grounded in the necessity of reconciling evolution, one of the novelties of the modern world, (...) and the Church. As a palaeontologist, Teilhard de Chardings put into evidence the fact of evolution as a movement in direction to an ever greater process of complexity and brain formation. Teilhard de Chardin's research explores not only the philetic lines of a great number of fossil mammals, but also places the problem raised by new methods in evolutionary biology, underlining his understanding of biology as a science of the infinitely complex and the Biosphere as the final object of study for evolutionary biology. The article shows in particular how Teilhard de Chardin recognizes as characteristic of evolution a gigantic movement in the direction of complexity and consciousness, in the term of which is the emergence of the thinking being. This movement however, does not stay with the human being, but evolves due to the action of humankind in direction to the Point Omega. Thus Earth acquires a new meaning, one that makes possible for humankind to progress la the direction of the Event of the Second Coming of Christ. Finally, the article also claims that in Teilhard de Chardin we have a perspective whose objective is the solution of some of the problems that Darwinian evolutionism confronts modern Theology with, as for example The problem of the suffering that so profoundly affects life from its very beginnings. (shrink)