ANNOTATION:
The "modern synthesis" needs to be modified

The comment in this node:
"most studies focus on the regularities of change (what darwinians might term ' evolutionary trends', which for them are
extremely problematic and always require careful qualification so as to avoid "teleology")."

is right on target, but I think the modern synthesis works and includes
self-organization if one introduces variety (novelty) at the phenotypic level and 
recognizes how that can affect selective forces for future generations. This also allows for
various scientific treatments of teleology that the biologists tend to be afraid of (Including
the famous S.J. Gould).
Please see my paper which touches considerably on this subject:
Kineman, John J. 1991. "Gaia: Hypothesis or Worldview" Chapter 7 in: Schneider, S.H and P.J. Boston. Scientists
on Gaia. MIT Press (currently out of print). 

I am working on an html version of the paper to reprint on the web.

Continuing my comments -- I think the cybernetic view of evolution as possibly
ENTIRELY internally controlled is as bad (in an opposite way) as the stuffy and stagnant "modern synthesis"
restrictions. Internal selection is fine and relevant, but it cannot eliminate
or substitute for external selection, as long as the object of study exists in some
external context that supplies needed resources (a fact of life, so to speak). I would
argue that even the evolution of ideas exists within a social context, and thus cannot be
wholely dependent on internal selection.