"What Teilhard seems to be trying to say is that evolution is often (he says always) accompanied by an increase of orderliness or internal coherence or degree of integration. In what sense is the fertilized egg that develops into an adult human being 'higher' than, say, a bacterial cell? In the sense that it contains richer and more complicated genetical instructions for the execution of those processes that together constitute development. Thus Teilhard's radial, spiritual or psychic energy may be equated to 'information'... in the sense... made... precise by modern communication engineers. To equate it to consciousness, or to regard degree of consciousness as a measure of information content, is one of the silly little metaphysical conceits... Teilhard's belief, enthusiastically shared by Sir Julian Huxley, that evolution flouts or foils the second law of thermodynamics is based on a confusion of thought; and the idea that evolution has a main track or privileged axis is unsupported by scientific evidence."
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Peter Medawar, "Review of Teilhard de Chardin’s The Phenomenon of Man", Mind Vol. 70 (1961)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin
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Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1 May 1881 – 10 April 1955) was a French Jesuit priest, philosopher, and a paleontologist present at the discovery of Peking Man.
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