Progress and development: two terms to be distinguished?

With the term progress it is generally meant an improvement, namely a change that brings some benefits: in fact we speak of economic, technological progress etc…
If we talk instead of evolution, it refers to a gradual change over time, not necessarily beneficial, for example the evolution of a disease, a storm, the phases of the moon.
Since the biological evolution is a gradual change that involves always some benefit for the survival of the species (or the offspring) such as a greater capacity to provide food, to protect the offspring, to escape predators, we may ask why it is defined evolution and not biological progress.
The main reason is that natural selection favors those changes that offer an immediate advantage in the environment in which the species lives, but often these changes are valid only in that environment, for example, it is good to develop a thick fur in a very cold climate, but if it warms, the same fur will become a problem. The biological progress is therefore related to a given environment, limited to this and is more precisely defined as adaptation, while the biological evolution never stops and is indeed stimulated by environmental changes.
To a continuous evolution does not match then a continuous progress, so it is good not to confuse the two concepts.

THE POINTS OF VIEW
 SOCIAL PROGRESS

ABSTRACTS
  n. 2 – PROGRESS AND EVOLUTION 

  HOW TO REGISTER?

 HIPERINDEX

 < previous                                          next >