It is difficult to imagine that the blind play of the genes could produce man. Major difficulties also arise from the current absence of rigorous criteria for deciding whether a given character is adaptive, and, if so, to precisely what is it an adaptation. As I will argue at some length, adaptation is often recognized in purely fortuitous effects, and natural selection is invoked to resolve problems that do not exist. If natural selection is shown to be inadequate for the production of a given adaptation, it is a matter of basic importance to decide whether the adaptation is real. The effectiveness of such bias in producing adaptation is contingent on the maintenance of certain quantitative relationships among the operative factors.
Permanence implies reproduction with a potential geometric increase.