Extending The Evolutionary Synthesis

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Evolution, the Extended Synthesis

Author : Massimo Pigliucci,Gerd B. Muller
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 505 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2010-03-26
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780262513678

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Evolution, the Extended Synthesis by Massimo Pigliucci,Gerd B. Muller Pdf

Prominent evolutionary biologists and philosophers of science survey recent work that expands the core theoretical framework underlying the biological sciences. In the six decades since the publication of Julian Huxley's Evolution: The Modern Synthesis, the 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. Contributors John Beatty, Werner Callebaut, Jeremy Draghi, Chrisantha Fernando, Sergey Gavrilets, John C. Gerhart, Eva Jablonka, David Jablonski, Marc W. Kirschner, Marion J. Lamb, Alan C. Love, Gerd B. Müller, Stuart A. Newman, John Odling-Smee, Massimo Pigliucci, Michael Purugganan, Eörs Szathmáry, Günter P. Wagner, David Sloan Wilson, Gregory A. Wray

The Modern Synthesis

Author : Thomas E. Dickins
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 250 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2021-11-12
Category : Science
ISBN : 9783030864224

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The Modern Synthesis by Thomas E. Dickins Pdf

This book is about evolutionary theory. It deals with aspects of its history to focus upon explanatory structures at work in the various forms of evolutionary theory - as such this is also a work of philosophy. Its focus lies on recent debates about the Modern Synthesis and what might be lacking in that synthesis. These claims have been most clearly made by those calling for an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. The author argues that the difference between these two positions is the consequence of two things. First, whether evolution is a considered as solely a population level phenomenon or also a theory of form. Second, the use of information concepts. In this book Darwinian evolution is positioned as a general theory of evolution, a theory that gave evolution a technical meaning as the statistical outcome of variation, competition, and inheritance. The Modern Synthesis (MS) within biology, has a particular focus, a particular architecture to its explanations that renders it a special theory of evolution. After providing a history of Darwinian theory and the MS, recent claims and exhortations for an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) are examined that see the need for the inclusion of non-genetic modes of inheritance and also developmental processes. Much of this argument is based around claims that the MS adopts a particular view of information that has privileged the gene as an instructional unit in the emergence of form. The author analyses the uses of information and claims that neither side of the debate explicitly and formally deals with this concept. A more formal view of information is provided which challenges the EES claims about the role of genes in MS explanations of form whilst being consilient with their own interests in developmental biology. It is concluded that the MS implicitly assumed this formal view of information whilst using information terms in a colloquial manner. In the final chapter the idea that the MS is an informational theory that acts to corral more specific phenomenal accounts, is mooted. As such the book argues for a constrained pluralism within biology, where the MS describes those constraints.

Extending the Evolutionary Synthesis

Author : Axel Lange
Publisher : CRC Press
Page : 379 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2023-06-06
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9781000869408

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Extending the Evolutionary Synthesis by Axel Lange Pdf

The theory of evolution is itself evolving with new findings and changes in the fundamental underlying concepts. It is true that today's synthetic theory, which goes back to Darwin, is persistently successful. However, it offers no convincing explanation to many questions, some examples of which are as follows: What forms of inheritance exist besides genetics; how complex variations, especially evolutionary innovations such as bird feathers and turtle shells, arise; how the environment affects the evolution of species and is changed by them simultaneously; and why the evolution of birds, corals, and human culture is not explainable by natural selection alone. Scientific findings of the last decades require continuous rethinking and integration of new data and concepts into the theory of evolution. This comprehensibly written and excellently researched book provides exciting new insights into the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis using fascinating new examples from evolutionary biology. Key Features Comprehensively explains the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis Understandably written for a broad audience Includes interviews with world-leading evolutionary biologists Reviews the historical development of evolutionary theory with explanations of open, unanswered questions Explains the new concepts with powerful illustrations Related Titles Bard, J. Evolution: The Origins and Mechanisms of Diversity (ISBN 9781032138480) Johnson, N. Darwin’s Reach: 21st Century Applications of Evolutionary Biology (ISBN 9781138587427)

Inheritance Systems and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis

Author : Eva Jablonka,Marion J. Lamb
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 87 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2020-06-04
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781108607384

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Inheritance Systems and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis by Eva Jablonka,Marion J. Lamb Pdf

Current knowledge of the genetic, epigenetic, behavioural and symbolic systems of inheritance requires a revision and extension of the mid-twentieth-century, gene-based, 'Modern Synthesis' version of Darwinian evolutionary theory. We present the case for this by first outlining the history that led to the neo-Darwinian view of evolution. In the second section we describe and compare different types of inheritance, and in the third discuss the implications of a broad view of heredity for various aspects of evolutionary theory. We end with an examination of the philosophical and conceptual ramifications of evolutionary thinking that incorporates multiple inheritance systems.

Evolutionary Causation

Author : Tobias Uller,Kevin N. Laland
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 361 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2019-09-03
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780262039925

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Evolutionary Causation by Tobias Uller,Kevin N. Laland Pdf

A comprehensive treatment of the concept of causation in evolutionary biology that makes clear its central role in both historical and contemporary debates. Most scientific explanations are causal. This is certainly the case in evolutionary biology, which seeks to explain the diversity of life and the adaptive fit between organisms and their surroundings. The nature of causation in evolutionary biology, however, is contentious. How causation is understood shapes the structure of evolutionary theory, and historical and contemporary debates in evolutionary biology have revolved around the nature of causation. Despite its centrality, and differing views on the subject, the major conceptual issues regarding the nature of causation in evolutionary biology are rarely addressed. This volume fills the gap, bringing together biologists and philosophers to offer a comprehensive, interdisciplinary treatment of evolutionary causation. Contributors first address biological motivations for rethinking evolutionary causation, considering the ways in which development, extra-genetic inheritance, and niche construction challenge notions of cause and process in evolution, and describing how alternative representations of evolutionary causation can shed light on a range of evolutionary problems. Contributors then analyze evolutionary causation from a philosophical perspective, considering such topics as causal entanglement, the commingling of organism and environment, and the relationship between causation and information. Contributors John A. Baker, Lynn Chiu, David I. Dayan, Renée A. Duckworth, Marcus W Feldman, Susan A. Foster, Melissa A. Graham, Heikki Helanterä, Kevin N. Laland, Armin P. Moczek, John Odling-Smee, Jun Otsuka, Massimo Pigliucci, Arnaud Pocheville, Arlin Stoltzfus, Karola Stotz, Sonia E. Sultan, Christoph Thies, Tobias Uller, Denis M. Walsh, Richard A. Watson

Extended Heredity

Author : Russell Bonduriansky,Troy Day
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2020-04-14
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780691204147

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Extended Heredity by Russell Bonduriansky,Troy Day Pdf

Bonduriansky and Day challenge the premise that genes alone mediate the transmission of biological information across generations and provide the raw material for natural selection. They explore the latest research showing that what happens during our lifetimes—and even our parents’ and grandparents’ lifetimes—can influence the features of our descendants. Based on this evidence, Bonduriansky and Day develop an extended concept of heredity that upends ideas about how traits can and cannot be transmitted across generations, opening the door to a new understanding of inheritance, evolution, and even human health. --Adapted from publisher description.

Challenging the Modern Synthesis

Author : Philippe Huneman,Denis M. Walsh
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2017
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780199377176

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Challenging the Modern Synthesis by Philippe Huneman,Denis M. Walsh Pdf

"This volume of original essays surveys recent challenges to the Modern Synthesis theory of evolution that arise from empirical advances in the understanding of evolution since the advent of the 21st century. It presents a spectrum of views by philosophers and biologists on the status and prospects of the Modern Synthesis"--Page 4 of cover.

The Evolutionary Synthesis

Author : Ernst Mayr,William B. Provine
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 524 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 1998
Category : Biology
ISBN : 0674272269

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The Evolutionary Synthesis by Ernst Mayr,William B. Provine Pdf

Biology was forged into a single, coherent science only within living memory. In this volume the thinkers responsible for the "modern synthesis" of evolutionary biology and genetics come together to analyze that remarkable event. In a new Preface, Ernst Mayr calls attention to the fact that scientists in different biological disciplines varied considerably in their degree of acceptance of Darwin's theories. Mayr shows us that these differences were played out in four separate periods: 1859 to 1899, 1900 to 1915, 1916 to 1936, and 1937 to 1947. He thus enables us to understand fully why the synthesis was necessary and why Darwin's original theory--that evolutionary change is due to the combination of variation and selection--is as solid at the end of the twentieth century as it was in 1859.

Extending the Evolutionary Synthesis

Author : Axel Lange
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2023
Category : Evolution (Biology)
ISBN : 1032376902

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Extending the Evolutionary Synthesis by Axel Lange Pdf

"The theories of evolution are themselves evolving with new findings and changes in the fundamental underlying concepts. It is true that today's theory, which goes back to Darwin, is persistently successful. But there remain many unanswered questions"--

Essays on the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis

Author : Rodrick Wallace
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 177 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2023
Category : Evolution (Biology)
ISBN : 9783031298790

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Essays on the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis by Rodrick Wallace Pdf

From the ‘punctuated equilibrium' of Eldrege and Gould, through Lewontin's ‘triple helix' and the various visions and revisions of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) of Laland and others, both data and theory have demanded an opening-up of the 1950's Evolutionary Synthesis that so firmly wedded evolutionary theory to the mathematics of gene frequency analysis. It can, however, be argued that a single deep and comprehensive mathematical theory may simply not be possible for the almost infinite varieties of evolutionary process active at and across the full range of scales of biological, social, institutional, and cultural phenomena. Indeed, the case history of 'meme theory' should have raised a red flag that narrow gene-centered models of evolutionary process may indeed have serious limitations. What is attempted here is less grand, but still broader than a gene-centered analysis. Following the instruction of Maturana and Varela that all living systems are cognitive, in a certain sense, and that living as a process is a process of cognition, the asymptotic limit theorems of information and control theories that bound all cognition provide a basis for constructing an only modestly deep but wider-ranging series of probability models that might be converted into useful statistical tools for the analysis of observational and experimental data related to evolutionary process. The line of argument in this series of interrelated essays proves to be surprisingly direct.

The Modern Synthesis

Author : Thomas E. Dickins
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2021
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 3030864235

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The Modern Synthesis by Thomas E. Dickins Pdf

This book is about evolutionary theory. It deals with aspects of its history to focus upon explanatory structures at work in the various forms of evolutionary theory - as such this is also a work of philosophy. Its focus lies on recent debates about the Modern Synthesis and what might be lacking in that synthesis. These claims have been most clearly made by those calling for an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. The author argues that the difference between these two positions is the consequence of two things. First, whether evolution is a considered as solely a population level phenomenon or also a theory of form. Second, the use of information concepts. In this book Darwinian evolution is positioned as a general theory of evolution, a theory that gave evolution a technical meaning as the statistical outcome of variation, competition, and inheritance. The Modern Synthesis (MS) within biology, has a particular focus, a particular architecture to its explanations that renders it a special theory of evolution. After providing a history of Darwinian theory and the MS, recent claims and exhortations for an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) are examined that see the need for the inclusion of non-genetic modes of inheritance and also developmental processes. Much of this argument is based around claims that the MS adopts a particular view of information that has privileged the gene as an instructional unit in the emergence of form. The author analyses the uses of information and claims that neither side of the debate explicitly and formally deals with this concept. A more formal view of information is provided which challenges the EES claims about the role of genes in MS explanations of form whilst being consilient with their own interests in developmental biology. It is concluded that the MS implicitly assumed this formal view of information whilst using information terms in a colloquial manner. In the final chapter the idea that the MS is an informational theory that acts to corral more specific phenomenal accounts, is mooted. As such the book argues for a constrained pluralism within biology, where the MS describes those constraints.

Evolutionary Biology: Contemporary and Historical Reflections Upon Core Theory

Author : Thomas E. Dickins,Benjamin J.A. Dickins
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 606 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2023-04-09
Category : Science
ISBN : 9783031220289

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Evolutionary Biology: Contemporary and Historical Reflections Upon Core Theory by Thomas E. Dickins,Benjamin J.A. Dickins Pdf

This book is reflecting upon core theories in evolutionary biology – in a historical as well as contemporary context. It exposes the main areas of interest for discussion, but more importantly draws together hypotheses and future research directions. The Modern Synthesis (MS), sometimes referred to as Standard Evolutionary Theory (SET), in evolutionary biology has been well documented and discussed, but was also critically scrutinized over the last decade. Researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds have claimed that there is a need for an extension to that theory, and have called for an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES). The book starts with an introductory chapter that summarizes the main points of the EES claim and indicates where those points receive treatment later in the book. This introduction to the subjects can either serve as an initiation for readers new to the debate, or as a guide for those looking to pursue particular lines of enquiry. The following chapters are organized around historical perspectives, theoretical and philosophical approaches and the use of specific biological models to inspect core ideas. Both empirical and theoretical contributions have been included. The majority of chapters are addressing various aspects of the EES position, and reflecting upon the MS. Some of the chapters take historical perspectives, analyzing various details of the MS and EES claims. Others offer theoretical and philosophical analyses of the debate, or take contemporary findings in biology and discuss those findings and their possible theoretical interpretations. All of the chapters draw upon actual biology to make their points. This book is written by practicing biologists and behavioral biologists, historians and philosophers - many of them working in interdisciplinary fields. It is a valuable resource for historians and philosophers of biology as well as for biologists. Chapters 8, 20, 22 and 33 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Evolution Driven by Organismal Behavior

Author : Rui Diogo
Publisher : Springer
Page : 252 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2017-03-08
Category : Science
ISBN : 9783319475813

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Evolution Driven by Organismal Behavior by Rui Diogo Pdf

This book proposes a new way to think about evolution. The author carefully brings together evidence from diverse fields of science. In the process, he bridges the gaps between many different--and usually seen as conflicting--ideas to present one integrative theory named ONCE, which stands for Organic Nonoptimal Constrained Evolution. The author argues that evolution is mainly driven by the behavioral choices and persistence of organisms themselves, in a process in which Darwinian natural selection is mainly a secondary--but still crucial--evolutionary player. Within ONCE, evolution is therefore generally made of mistakes and mismatches and trial-and-error situations, and is not a process where organisms engage in an incessant, suffocating struggle in which they can't thrive if they are not optimally adapted to their habitats and the external environment. Therefore, this unifying view incorporates a more comprehensive view of the diversity and complexity of life by stressing that organisms are not merely passive evolutionary players under the rule of external factors. This insightful and well-reasoned argument is based on numerous fascinating case studies from a wide range of organisms, including bacteria, plants, insects and diverse examples from the evolution of our own species. The book has an appeal to researchers, students, teachers, and those with an interest in the history and philosophy of science, as well as to the broader public, as it brings life back into biology by emphasizing that organisms, including humans, are the key active players in evolution and thus in the future of life on this wonderful planet.

Challenging the Modern Synthesis

Author : Philippe Huneman,Denis M. Walsh
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2017-08-17
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780190681456

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Challenging the Modern Synthesis by Philippe Huneman,Denis M. Walsh Pdf

Since its origin in the early 20th century, the Modern Synthesis theory of evolution has grown to become the orthodox view on the process of organic evolution. Its central defining feature is the prominence it accords to genes in the explanation of evolutionary dynamics. Since the advent of the 21st century, however, the Modern Synthesis has been subject to repeated and sustained challenges. These are largely empirically driven. In the last two decades, evolutionary biology has witnessed unprecedented growth in the understanding of those processes that underwrite the development of organisms and the inheritance of characters. The empirical advances usher in challenges to the conceptual foundations of evolutionary theory. The extent to which the new biology challenges the Modern Synthesis has been the subject of lively debate. Many current commentators charge that the new biology of the 21st century calls for a revision, extension, or wholesale rejection of the Modern Synthesis Theory of evolution. Defenders of the Modern Synthesis maintain that the theory can accommodate the exciting new advances in biology. The original essays collected in this volume survey the various challenges to the Modern Synthesis arising from the new biology of the 21st century. The authors are evolutionary biologists, philosophers of science, and historians of biology from Europe and North America. Each of the essays discusses a particular challenge to the Modern Synthesis treatment of inheritance, development, or adaptation. Taken together, the essays cover a spectrum of views, from those that contend that the Modern Synthesis can rise to the challenges of the new biology, with little or no revision required, to those that call for the abandonment of the Modern Synthesis. The collection will be of interest to researchers and students in evolutionary biology, and the philosophy and history of the biological sciences.

Dance to the Tune of Life

Author : Denis Noble
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 315 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2017
Category : Medical
ISBN : 9781107176249

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Dance to the Tune of Life by Denis Noble Pdf

This book formulates a relativistic theory of biology, challenging the common gene-centred view of organisms.