Definition of "organic evolution" [organic evolution]

• (biology) the sequence of events involved in the evolutionary development of a species or taxonomic group of organisms (noun)

WordNet. Princeton University. 2010.

• "The general acceptance of organic evolution on firmly scientific grounds strengthened the assumption that the first step in the ascent of life must have been, once geological conditions permitted it, the formation of some sort of primordial protoplasm from essentially physicochemical causes — causes which, moreover, might conceivably still be active, although much attenuated, in the current state of the globe."
• "The use of the same word — fitness — to designate the beneficial consequences of two sets of processes as different as the organic evolution of living things and the cosmic evolution of the earth may appear a seman - tic artifact and indeed misleading."