Instruction vs. Selection

The theory prevailing before the present one was called the theory of instruction. Its basic assumption was that, in the immune system, a foreign molecule transferred information about its shape and structure to the combining site of the antibody molecule. It then removed itself (the way a cookie cutter would be removed from dough) leaving a crevice of complementary shape that could then bind to all foreign molecules with regions having the shape with which the impression was originally made. It is obvious why this is an instructive process: Information about the three-dimensional structure is posited to be necessary to instruct the immune system how to form an antibody protein whose polypeptide chain folds around that structure to give the complementary shape. 
(Edelman, Bright Air, Brilliant Fire)^2.7.1

In evolution, organisms are more or less adapted to events in the environment. This adaptation occurs even when environmental changes cannot be predicted (that is even when the changes represent novelties). The process of adaptation occurs by selection on those organismal variants that are on the average fittest, and what makes them fittest does not require prior explicit information ("instruction") about the nature of the novelties in the environment. The selective environmental changes are, in general, independent of variation in the population of organisms, although selection resulting from such changes may add to that variation. In sum, there is no explicit information transferred between the environment and organisms that cause the population to change and increase its fitness. Evolution works by selection, not by instruction. There is no final cause, no teleology, no purpose guiding the overall process, the responses of which occur ex post fact in each case. 
(Edelman, Bright Air, Brilliant Fire)^2.7.2