Suppose a gazelle lives in a savannah; we should expect the gazelles to digest savannah grass, flee from cheetahs, be sexy to other gazelles, etc., and become that way if not already so. I think Dawkins has a good explanation of this somewhere, but I was unable to find it quickly, that genes are in some sense records of the ancestral environment.
Similarly, internet memes are in some sense a record of the interests of internet users, and car designs a record of the interests of car buyers and designers, and so on. Is that a clearer presentation?
It seems clear what you mean (though not why you called it the complement of the environment). But I still don't see what's common to all kinds of evolutions, so maybe I'm still misunderstanding.
It's certainly true that any evolved object is a function of its environment and we can deduce features of the environment from looking at the object. But this is also true for any object that has a history of being influenced by its environment. A geologist looks at a stone and tells you how it was shaped by rain. An astronomer looks at a nebula and tells you how ...
Another month has passed and here is a new rationality quotes thread. The usual rules are: