Editing James Mark Baldwin (section)

===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.