Sober, Elliott - Philosophy of biology

We talk of stars evolving from red giants to white dwarfs. We speak of political systems evolving toward or away from democracy. In ordinary parlance, "evolution" means change.

If evolution is understood in this way, then the theory of evolution should provide a global account of cosmic change. Laws must be stated in which the trajectories of stars, of societies, and of everything else are encapsulated within a single framework. Indeed, this is what Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) attempted to do. Whereas Charles Darwin (1809-1882) proposed a theory about how life evolves, Spencer thought he could generalize Darwin's insights and state principles that govern how everything evolves.