In this paper I develop three conceptions of the relationship between evolutionary and developmental biology. I further argue that: (a) the choice between them largely turns on as yet unresolved empirical considerations; (b) none of these conceptions demand a fundamental conceptual reevaluation of evolutionary biology; and (c) while developmental systems theorists have constructed an important and innovative alternative to the standard view of the genotype/phenotype relations, in considering the general issue of the relationship between evolutionary and developmental biology, we can (...) remain neutral on this debate. (shrink)

An increasing number of biologists are expressing discontent with the prevailing theory of neo-Darwinism. In particular, the tendency of neo-Darwinians to adopt genetic determinism and atomistic notions of both genes and organisms is seen as grossly unfair to the body of developmental theory. One faction of dissenteers, the Process Structuralists, take their inspiration from the rational morphologists who preceded Darwin. These neo-rationalists argue that a mature biology must possess universal laws and that these generative laws should be sought within organismal (...) development. Such a rational biology will only be possible once the neo-Darwinian paradigm, with its reliance on inherently stochastic processes, is overthrown.To facilitate this revolution, process structuralism launches a broad attack on the theoritical adequacy of its opponent. It is charged that neo-Darwinism is untestable and therefore its hypotheses are nothing more than adaptive stories. Further, the lamentable tendencies toward genetic determinism and atomism by modern biologists is seen as the inescapable consequences of adopting the neo-Darwinian outlook. (shrink)

One current version of the internalism/externalism debate in evolutionary theory focuses on the relative importance of developmental constraints in evolutionary explanation. The received view of developmental constraints sees them as an internalist concept that tend to be shared across related species as opposed to selective pressures that are not. Thus, to the extent that constraints can explain anything, they can better explain similarity across species, while natural selection is better able to explain their differences. I challenge both of these aspects (...) of the received view and propose a hierarchical view of constraints. (shrink)

Evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) offers both an account of developmental processes and also new integrative frameworks for analyzing interactions between development and evolution. Biologists and philosophers are keen on evo-devo in part because it appears to offer a comfort zone between, on the one hand, what some take to be the relative inability of mainstream evolutionary biology to integrate a developmental perspective; and, on the other hand, what some take to be more intractable syntheses of development and evolution. In this (...) article, I outline core concerns of evo-devo, distinguish theoretical and practical variants, and counter Sterelny's recent argument that evo-devo's attention to development, while important, offers no significant challenge to evolutionary theory as we know it. (shrink)

In describing the flawless regularity of developmental processes and the correlation between changes at certain genetic loci and changes in morphology, biologists frequently employ two metaphors: that genes ‘control’ development, and that genomes embody ‘programs’ for development. Although these metaphors have an admirable sharpness and punch, they lead, when taken literally, to highly distorted pictures of developmental processes. A more balanced, and useful, view of the role of genes in development is that they act as suppliers of the material needs (...) of development and, in some instances, as context‐dependent catalysts of cellular changes, rather than as ‘controllers’ of developmental progress and direction. The consequences of adopting this alternative view of development are discussed. (shrink)

Problems and Paradigms is a feature series devoted to discussions of major problems in biology. Past contributions have dealt with the selector gene hypothesis, problems of pattern formation, the phenomenon of paramutation, theories of aging, and the origins of life. In this article, Brian C. Goodwin discusses the problem of morphogenesis, in terms of the idea of the genetic program and in the light of recent findings.

This article reviews the seven “visions” of evolution proposed by Depew and Weber , concluding that each posited relationship between natural selection and self-organization has suited different aims and approaches. In the second section of the article, we show that these seven viewpoints may be collapsed into three fundamentally different ones: natural selection drives evolution; self-organization drives evolution; and natural selection and self-organization are complementary aspects of the evolutionary process. We then argue that these three approaches are not mutually exclusive, (...) since each may apply to different stages of development of different systems. What emerges from our discussion is a more encompassing view: that self-organization proposes what natural selection disposes. (shrink)

At Home in the Universe presents and extends the intellectual core ofKauffman's earlier book The Origins of Order (OUP 1993) for any intelligentgeneral reader can understand and appreciate. The reader is very effectivelyinvited into Kauffman's vision and thought processes, in one of the moreexhilarating and important books of popular science.

Stuart Kauffman here presents a brilliant new paradigm for evolutionary biology, one that extends the basic concepts of Darwinian evolution to accommodate recent findings and perspectives from the fields of biology, physics, chemistry and mathematics. The book drives to the heart of the exciting debate on the origins of life and maintenance of order in complex biological systems. It focuses on the concept of self-organization: the spontaneous emergence of order widely observed throughout nature. Kauffman here argues that self-organization plays an (...) important role in the emergence of life itself and may play as fundamental a role in shaping life's subsequent evolution as does the Darwinian process of natural selection. Yet until now no systematic effort has been made to incorporate the concept of self-organization into evolutionary theory. The construction requirements which permit complex systems to adapt remain poorly understood, as is the extent to which selection itself can yield systems able to adapt more successfully. This book explores these themes. It shows how complex systems, contrary to expectations, can spontaneously exhibit stunning degrees of order, and how this order, in turn, is essential for understanding the emergence and development of life on Earth. Topics include the new biotechnology of applied molecular evolution, with its important implications for developing new drugs and vaccines; the balance between order and chaos observed in many naturally occurring systems; new insights concerning the predictive power of statistical mechanics in biology; and other major issues. Indeed, the approaches investigated here may prove to be the new center around which biologicalscience itself will evolve. The work is written for all those interested in the cutting edge of research in the life sciences. (shrink)

Historically, philosophers of biology have tended to sidestep the problem of development by focusing primarily on evolutionary biology and, more recently, on molecular biology and genetics. Quite often too, development has been misunderstood as simply, or even primarily, a matter of gene activation and regulation. Nowadays a growing number of philosophers of science are focusing their analyses on the complexities of development, and in Embryology, Epigenesis and Evolution Jason Scott Robert explores the nature of development against current trends in biological (...) theory and practice and looks at the interrelations between development and evolution, an area of resurgent biological interest. Clearly written, this book should be of interest to students and professionals in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of biology. (shrink)

In the six decades since the publication of Julian Huxley's Evolution: The Modern Synthesis, spectacular empirical advances in the biological sciences have been accompanied by equally significant developments within the core theoretical framework of the discipline. As a result, evolutionary theory today includes concepts and even entire new fields that were not part of the foundational structure of the Modern Synthesis. In this volume, sixteen leading evolutionary biologists and philosophers of science survey the conceptual changes that have emerged since Huxley's (...) landmark publication, not only in such traditional domains of evolutionary biology as quantitative genetics and paleontology but also in such new fields of research as genomics and EvoDevo. Most of the contributors to Evolution—The Extended Synthesis accept many of the tenets of the classical framework but want to relax some of its assumptions and introduce significant conceptual augmentations of the basic Modern Synthesis structure—just as the architects of the Modern Synthesis themselves expanded and modulated previous versions of Darwinism. This continuing revision of a theoretical edifice the foundations of which were laid in the middle of the nineteenth century—the reexamination of old ideas, proposals of new ones, and the synthesis of the most suitable—shows us how science works, and how scientists have painstakingly built a solid set of explanations for what Darwin called the "grandeur" of life. (shrink)

The Modern Synthesis (MS) is the current paradigm in evolutionary biology. It was actually built by expanding on the conceptual foundations laid out by its predecessors, Darwinism and neo-Darwinism. For sometime now there has been talk of a new Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES), and this article begins to outline why we may need such an extension, and how it may come about. As philosopher Karl Popper has noticed, the current evolutionary theory is a theory of genes, and we still lack (...) a theory of forms. The field began, in fact, as a theory of forms in Darwin’s days, and the major goal that an EES will aim for is a unification of our theories of genes and of forms. This may be achieved through an organic grafting of novel concepts onto the foundational structure of the MS, particularly evolvability, phenotypic plasticity, epigenetic inheritance, complexity theory, and the theory of evolution in highly dimensional adaptive landscapes. (shrink)