Natural selection, creativity and causality

In this paper we defend a positive role of natural selection in the conformation of organismal form. Despite the currently widespread opinion that natural selection only has a negative role in the evolution of form, we argue, in contrast, that the Darwinian mechanism is a crucial (but not exclusive) factor in morphological organization. Analyzing some classic arguments, we propose to incorporate the notion of "downward causation" in the concept of "natural selection". In our opinion, that kind of causality is fundamental in the operation of selection as a creative evolutionary process.