11.01 Evolutionary Synthesis – Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems скачать в хорошем качестве

11.01 Evolutionary Synthesis – Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems

Module 11 of "Beyond Networks" considers the strange and quixotic quest for a unified "synthetic" theory of evolution, and looks at the interface between scientific argumentation and academic politics in evolutionary biology. The first lecture provides a brief introduction to the "Modern Synthesis," emphasising just how different it is from Darwin's original theory of evolution, and how this "synthesis" originated through the separation of heredity and development by classical and population genetics. Despite strong efforts at unification, the Modern Synthesis remained a loose collection of verbally formulated, qualitative models around a narrow core of formalised but abstract population theory. In addition, it can be argued that it narrowed, rather than synthesised what was accepted as evolutionary theory. Furthermore, the synthesis evolved rapidly, loosing its coherence as a research tradition from the 1960s onward, so that it is unclear in what relation different strands of contemporary research traditions stand to the original theory. In summary, the Modern Synthesis is no synthesis (although it at least tried), it is not a coherent theory, but rather a loose historical narrative or cultural tradition that strongly influenced the many ways in which we think about evolution today. I conclude, in the words of Arlin Stoltzfus, that "the historical narrative of the Grand Unifying Theory is false, and evolutionary biology does not need a master theory." Much of this lecture follows the historical narrative and outline of "synthesis historiography" outlined in Ron Amundson's excellent The Changing Role of the Embryo in Evolutionary Thought (2005). Read it! If you are not interested in 19th-century debates about functionalism and structuralism, you can skip right ahead to the second part of the book. I have also used Denis Walsh's analysis of statistical and population thinking for this lecture, summarised in his 2015 book Organisms, Agency, and Evolution. I highly recommend the concise and pithy paper "Why we don't want another 'synthesis'" by Arlin Stoltzfus, published in 2017 in Biology Direct (Vol. 12: p. 23). It expresses my sentiment exactly. The definitive repository for synthesis historiography, ideology, and science is The Evolutionary Synthesis (1980), edited by Ernst Mayr and Will Provine. Amundson vividly describes the backlash Viktor Hamburger got for his contribution about 'black-boxing' development in evolutionary theory. After the completion and publication of this lecture, it was pointed out to me that Amundson's account of the extended synthesis relies on an earlier book by Betty Smocovitis ("Unifying Biology: The Evolutonary Synthesis and Evolutionary Biology", 1996). Amundson acknowledges the relation of his argument with this work and discusses it in some detail. I have not yet been able to get a hold of Smocovitis' book, but want to acknowledge the author's contributions to the discussion (and hopefully read it soon and include it in a future version of this talk).