Editing James Mark Baldwin (section)

==Ideas==
Baldwin was prominent among early experimental psychologists and was voted by his peers as the fifth most important psychologist in America in a 1903 survey conducted by [[James McKeen Cattell]],<ref>{{cite book |last=Cattell |first=J. M. |year=1933 |title=American Men of Science |location=New York |publisher=Science Press |pages=1277–1278 }}</ref> but it was his contributions to [[developmental psychology]] that were the most important. His stepwise theory of cognitive development was a major influence on the later, and much more widely known, developmental theory of [[Jean Piaget]]. His ideas on the relationship of Ego and Alter were developed by [[Pierre Janet]];<ref>{{cite book |first=H. |last=Ellenberger |title=The Discovery of the Unconscious |location=New York |publisher=Basic Books |year=1970 |page=[https://archive.org/details/discoveryofuncon00ellerich/page/404 404] |isbn=0-465-01672-3 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/discoveryofuncon00ellerich/page/404 }}</ref> while his stress on how "My sense of self grows by imitation of you...an imitative creation"<ref>Quoted in {{harvtxt|Ellenberger| 1970|p=404}}</ref> contributed to the [[mirror stage]] of [[Jacques Lacan]].<ref>Lacan, J., ''Écrits'' (1997), p. 1</ref>

His contributions to the young discipline's early journals and institutions were highly significant as well. Baldwin was a co-founder (with [[James McKeen Cattell]]) of ''[[Psychological Review]]'' (which was founded explicitly to compete with [[G. Stanley Hall]]'s ''[[American Journal of Psychology]]''), ''[[Psychological Monographs]]'' and ''[[Psychological Index]].'' He was also the founding editor of ''[[Psychological Bulletin]]''.

In 1892 he was vice-president of the [[International Congress of Psychology]] held in [[London]], and in 1897–1898 president of the [[American Psychological Association]]; he received a gold medal from the [[Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences of Denmark]] (1897), and was honorary president of the [[International Congress of Criminal Anthropology]] held in [[Geneva]] in 1896.

===Organic selection===
The idea of organic selection came from the interpretation of the observable data in Baldwin's experimental study of infant reaching and its role in [[Developmental disorder|mental development]]. Every practice of the infant's movement intended to advance the integration of [[behavior]] favorable to development in the experimental framework appeared to be selected from an excess of movement in the trial of imitation.

In further stages of development&nbsp;– the ones most critical to an understanding of the evolution of mind&nbsp;– this was graphically illustrated in the child's efforts to draw and learning to write. (''Mental Development in the Child and the Race'')

In later editions of ''Mental Development'' Baldwin changed the term "''organic'' selection" into "''functional'' selection".

So, from the outset the idea was well linked to the [[philosophy of mind]] Baldwin was emancipating from the models inspired by divine pre-establishment. ([[Spinoza]]) (Wozniak, 2001)

It is the communication of this insight into the practice-related nature of dynamogenic development, above all its integration as a creative factor in the fabric of society, that helped the students of Baldwin to understand what was left of [[Jean-Baptiste Lamarck|Lamarck's]] signature. Singularly illustrated by [[Gregory Bateson]] in ''Mind and Nature'' (1979) and reintegrated in contemporary studies by [[Terrence Deacon]] (''[[The Symbolic Species]]: The [[co-evolution]] of [[language]] and the [[human brain]]'', 1997) and other scholars of [[biosemiotics]].

In the [[human species]] the faculty of niche building is favored by a practical intelligence able to design the circumstances that will put its vital acquirements out of harm's way in terms of (linearly predicted) [[natural selection]]. It is precisely in the fields of study relating to massive [[selection pressure]]s against which other species seem to be without defenses&nbsp;– biological development in the face of novel [[pandemic]]s ([[AIDS]], [[mad cow disease]])&nbsp;– that the arguments relative to the natural [[heredity]] of intelligent acquirements have resurfaced in a way most challenging to science.

===Baldwin effect===
{{Main|Baldwin effect}}
Baldwin's most important theoretical legacy is the concept of the [[Baldwin effect]] or "Baldwinian evolution". Baldwin proposed, against the [[Lamarckism|neo-Lamarckian]]s of his day (most notably [[Edward Drinker Cope]]), that there is a mechanism whereby [[epigenetic]] factors come to shape the congenital endowment as much as&nbsp;– or more than&nbsp;– [[natural selection]] pressures. In particular, human behavioral decisions made and sustained across generations as a set of [[culture|cultural]] practices ought to be considered among the factors shaping the human genome.

For example, the [[incest taboo]], if powerfully enforced, removes the natural [[natural selection|selection pressure]] against the possession of incest-favoring instincts. After a few generations without this natural selection pressure, unless such genetic material were profoundly fixed, it would tend to diversify and lose its function. Humans would no longer be innately averse to incest, but would rely on their capacity to internalize such rules from cultural practices.

The opposite case can also be true: cultural practice might [[Artificial selection|selectively breed]] humans to meet the fitness conditions of new environments, cultural and physical, which earlier hominids could not have survived. Baldwinian evolution might strengthen or weaken a genetic trait.