World History 
And The Eonic Effect
Civilization, Darwinism, and Theories of Evolution
2nd. Edition
The Book
By  John Landon

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 3. Idea For A Universal History 
      3.1 A Short History of the World
             3.1.1 Stream and Sequence: A Frequency Hypothesis  
             3.1.2 Notes Toward an Eonic Model 
             3.1.3 A Certain Strangeness: Beyond Space and Time?
      3.2 Transition and Divide: A New Model of the Modern 
             3.2.1 The Discrete Freedom Sequence  
             3.2.2 The Old Testament as Eonic Data
             3.2.3 Religion, Transition and Oikoumene 
             3.2.4 The Economic Interpretation of History  
              3.2.5 The Curse of Empire
             3.2.6 Sequential Dependency and The Evolution of Theory   
      3.3 Kant’s Challenge  
            3.3.1 Kant’s Question  
            3.3.2 Intermezzo
Endnotes.  
      3.4 Critique of Historical Reason 
             3.4.1 Fisher’s Lament    
             3.4.2 A Science of History? The Third Antinomy             
             3.4.3 ‘Nature’s Secret Plan’ and Sociobiology   

As we proceed with our study we discover that the emergence of evolutionary thinking is itself part of our non-random pattern. In fact, the first known birth of the idea is among the Greeks, during our drumbeat period! But in general here are other grounds for demanding the distinction between history and evolution.[i]

Thus theories of evolution show historical embedding in the process they wish to explicate. Thus the idea of Darwin-style evolution appears in the Pre-Socratics, then dies out in the medieval period, then is reborn again in our third modern period. We see that it is a double emergent. Small wonder Darwin gets in trouble. Note that this idea of evolution is already therefore a selection from a greater whole.

Science, philosophy, as we will see are part of the eonic evolution of civilization. They themselves show clear eonic determination and first appear in our Axial Age. There is a trap therefore in assuming that we are external observers using theories to explain history. This fact is of historical importance since there is a self-reference factor that seems paradoxical. And any theory of ‘how evolution happened’ is apt to influence current behavior in the present. This self-interaction of theory and history complicates any simple theory that doesn’t distinguish passive organisms from free agents. If the theory evolves, changes, or is found wrong the previously misapplied theory action on history highlights the danger of theory acting as ideology. The phenomenon of so-called Social Darwinism arises in the wake, therefore, of claims made for natural selection.