Conventional framing
Evolution is commonly defined as change in gene frequencies within populations over time, driven by processes such as natural selection, mutation, and genetic drift. This framework provides powerful tools for modelling change but focuses on statistical patterns of variation rather than the organisation that makes such change possible.
APS reframing
APS defines evolution as the historical transformation of persistence. Living systems do not merely change; they sustain and transform the organisation through which they persist. Evolution therefore describes how viability-oriented organisation is reorganised across generations while maintaining continuity.
Natural selection and other evolutionary processes presuppose the existence of systems capable of sustaining organised persistence and transmitting that organisation across time. These processes explain how particular organisational patterns are stabilised, diversified, or eliminated, but they do not constitute the organisational conditions under which evolution becomes possible.
Evolution transforms not only biological structures but the organisational capacities through which living systems regulate their own viability. It links present-time organisation with long-term transformation, completing the temporal articulation of persistence, adaptation, and evolution.
Key Point
Evolution is the historical transformation of persistence-sustaining, viability-oriented organisation across generations.