Researcher ORCID Identifier

0000-0002-4230-5393

Document Type

Article

Program

Psychology (Pitzer)

Publication Date

2023

Keywords

Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, Natural Selection, Development, Self-organization, Darwinism

Abstract

Proponents of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) emphasize the critical role that organisms and their development play in the process of evolution. This framework explicitly rejects the genocentric focus that once dominated interpretations of the Modern Synthesis in evolutionary theory. In place of genocentrism, EES highlights processes like niche construction, developmental constraint, and extragenetic inheritance as central to any understanding of evolutionary process. However, much more is at stake in adopting the EES than simply moving beyond the gene-dominant viewpoint of the Modern Synthesis. The EES, in fact, represents a fundamental challenge to the core of classic Darwinism itself by actively repudiating Darwin’s key idea that natural selection acts as a creative force in the construction of phenotypes and phenotypic change. In this paper, we more fully explore the assumptive base of Darwinism’s population-oriented, selectional focus. We demonstrate how taking development seriously in evolutionary theory mandates a systematic overhaul of Darwinism’s assumptive base in favor of grounding all understanding of phenotypic construction in developmental processes of self-organization endemic to organisms’ active engagement with their worlds.

Comments

This article is a preprint of an article published by S. Karger AG. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1159/000535723.

Rights Information

© 2023 S. Karger AG, Basel

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