Theoretical Knowledge, Technical Knowledge, Evolution

Plainly, the development of the Human thumb has exponentially increased the Adaptation-Of of the species, i. e. its capacity to modify its Environment for its own purposes.  Thus, the relation between Technical Knowledge and Theoretical Knowledge transcends mere Epistemology, i. e. insofar as Theoretical Knowledge seeks only fidelity to its Object, it has less Evolutionist value than does Technical Knowledge, as the Human thumb exemplifies.  But, Adaptation, -To or -Of, is not the only relation between an Organism and an Environment.  The most notable example, at least hitherto, of an alternative is the departure of an Organism from an aquatic Environment, to a land Environment.  Such a transition is more than an origination of a new Species; it is the origination of a new Species in a new Environment.  Now, what Adaptive processes prepared that transition can only be speculated about.  But Adaptive processes are in immediate evidence in a more recent, more radical departure of a Species from its Environment--the Human Species venturing beyond its terrestrial Environment, an event that may have no precedent in the history of the Earth.  Those Adaptive processes are, clearly, exercises of Technical Knowledge.  But, while they have hitherto consisted in an Adaptation-Of natural resources, e. g. fuel, Technical Knowledge is now vital to new Adaptation-To processes, e. g. spacesuits that facilitate survival in the new Environment.  Likewise, Theoretical Knowledge is becoming paramount in the study of the new conditions, e. g. whether or not water exists on a planet. So, the relation between Theoretical Reason and Technical Reason, long considered to be fixed, even if inverted, is now proving, at the outset of a perhaps much longer period, to be mutable, and contingent on much more powerful factors than Epistemological theories.