Massimo Pigliucci: Evolution, the extended synthesis

PUBLISHER:

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Shaun Johnston:
In modern times we've made two revolutionary discoveries. One is, how changes in physical matter can be accounted for in terms of physical laws that can predict precisely what will happen next. Having given rise to science (how this can be studied) and industry (how it can be applied) this revolution is well under way.

The second revolution is, how emergence of species of living creatures can be accounted for in terms of them evolving from one another. This revolution, despite its promise of how much it could tell us about ourselves, remains stillborn through the mistaken application to it of principles coming out of the first revolution--reductive physicalism.

For this second revolution to advance it should be taken from under the wing of science and studied on its own terms. Tip: one recent product of evolution is creatures with minds. Minds are better studied through methods of the humanities than through those of science. Tell me, does this interest you?

Details: Written by Shaun Johnston Shaun Johnston; Published: June 18, 2011 June 18, 2011; Hits: 6055 6055

For me this collection of 17 articles was thrilling insight into insider thinking about evolution today. Taken back to front, it moves from an overview of dialectic within science itself, even of science's place within culture, through dialectic within evolutionary biology, through recognition of the disunity that's always marked the Modern Synthesis, through considerations of modern trends in biology that further amplify that disunity, to detailed analyses of specific current controversies through which discourse for framing evolutionary theory is being extended.

Challenges to the Modern Synthesis appearing in the book Massimo marshals into clusters in his introduction: Gradualism--"various kinds of mechanisms for discontinuous change are now known from the domains of genome evolution, phenotypic plasticity, epigenetic development and nongenetic inheritance." Externalism--"organisms themselves represent determinants of selectable variation and innovation. At the theoretical level this shifts a significant portion of the explanatory weight from the external conditions of selection to the internal generative properties of evolving phenotypes." Gene centrism--"several contributions to this volume converge on the view of 'genes as followers' in the evolutionary process, ensuring... the progressive fixation of phenotypic traits that were initially mobilized through plastic responses of adaptative development systems to changing environmental conditions. In this way, evolution progresses through the capture of emergent interactions which are passed on and elaborated on in subsequent generations." Full review.