HOW DOES THE TEILHARDIAN VISION OF EVOLUTION COMPARE WITH CONTEMPORARY THEORIES

Teilhard de Chardin's ideas about the mechanisms of biological evoluti on are revised and their connections with contemporary theories are re ported. Teilhard de Chardin's main contribution is the proposal of a n ew scientific discipline, geobiology-the science of the biosphere evol ving as a whole. The main fields of interest of geobiology are reporte d, and its relationships with contemporary hypotheses, such as Loveloc k'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 o f the molecular evolution of the genome. Conclusions are that the mech anisms discussed by Teilhard are presently taken into consideration by contemporary evolutionists in order to construct a new theory of biol ogical evolution.