Clade selection is unpopular with philosophers who otherwise accept multilevel selection theory. Clades cannot reproduce, and reproduction is widely thought necessary for evolution by natural selection, especially of complex adaptations. Using microbial evolutionary processes as heuristics, I argue contrariwise, that (1) clade growth (proliferation of contained species) substitutes for clade reproduction in the evolution of complex adaptation, (2) clade-level properties favoring persistence – species richness, dispersal, divergence, and possibly intraclade cooperation – are not collapsible into species-level traits, (3) such properties (...) can be maintained by selection on clades, and (4) clade selection extends the explanatory power of the theory of evolution. (shrink)

Julian Huxley’s eclipse of Darwinism narrative has cast a long shadow over the historiography of evolutionary theory around the turn of the nineteenth century. It has done so by limiting who could be thought of as Darwinian. Peter Bowler used the eclipse to draw attention to previously understudied alternatives to Darwinism, but maintained the same flaw. In his research on the Non-Darwinian Revolution, he extended this problematic element even further back in time. This paper explores how late nineteenth-century neo-Darwinian conceptualizations (...) of Darwinism were later utilized by several advocates and detractors of the Modern Synthesis. John Beatty has shown how this continuity hinges at least partly on the perceived importance of the creativity of natural selection. The paper provides a more thorough look at Darwin’s two conflicting accounts of variation, ascribed to struggles in explaining quantitative versus qualitative characters. In doing so, it suggests that other forms of Darwinism persisted, in both the non-Darwinian revolution and eclipse periods, because of tension between contingency and creativity in Darwin’s own work. This tension is traced out from Darwin’s conceptions of variation into the work of Alfred Russel Wallace, Hugo de Vries, and Thomas Henry Huxley. Based on this, the eclipse narrative is criticized for not considering the meaning of Darwinism in different geographical locations. Britain and the United States showed few signs of an eclipse. Rather, the rise of German debates about Haeckel’s vision of Darwinism have been mistaken for a universal decline in support. (shrink)

After preliminarily pointing to the undeniable differences between Jonas’ philosophical biology and Schelling’s philosophy of nature, I contend that, besides their divergencies, the two philosophers agree on several important points. I then show to what extent, based on these elements of convergence, their two approaches could even be taken as complementary. In the core of my paper I lay emphasis on what I believe to be the main ground for the complementarity of the two philosophical inquiries, that is to say, (...) their common radicalization and superseding of Kant’s principle of self-organization. In this respect – all differences considered – they both can be said to delineate a philosophy of the organic that can fruitfully contribute, even better than Kant’s input, to the currently widely discussed topic of biological autonomy. (shrink)

This is the second of a two-part essay on the history of debates concerning the creativity of natural selection, from Darwin through the evolutionary synthesis and up to the present. In the first part, I focussed on the mid-late nineteenth century to the early twentieth, with special emphasis on early Darwinism and its critics, the self-styled “mutationists.” The second part focuses on the evolutionary synthesis and some of its critics, especially the “neutralists” and “neo-mutationists.” Like Stephen Gould, I consider the (...) creativity of natural selection to be a key component of what has traditionally counted as “Darwinism.” I argue that the creativity of natural selection is best understood in terms of selection initiating evolutionary change, and selection directing evolutionary change, for example by creating the variation that it subsequently acts upon. I consider the respects in which both of these claims sound non-Darwinian, even though they have long been understood by supporters and critics alike to be virtually constitutive of Darwinism. (shrink)

This editorial introduces a series of review articles concerning the ways in which recent work on microbial evolution has both deepened and challenged the modern synthesis. The authors develop a framework for thinking about theory change in biology.

Following the revival in the last decades of the concept of “organism”, scholarly literature in philosophy of science has shown growing historical interest in the theory of Immanuel Kant, one of the “fathers” of the concept of self-organisation. Yet some recent theoretical developments suggest that self-organisation alone cannot fully account for the all-important dimension of autonomy of the living. Autonomy appears to also have a genuine “interactive” dimension, which concerns the organism’s functional interactions with the environment and does not simply (...) derive from its internal organisation. Against this background, we focus on a family of natural philosophical approaches that historically have already strongly taken in account this aspect of autonomy, notably going beyond Kant’s perspective on self-organisation. We thus review Hegel, Plessner, and Jonas’ different perspectives on living beings, focussing in particular on four points: the distinction between organic and inorganic, the theory of biological organisation, the processuality of the living, and the “boundary” between inside and outside, through which the organism establishes its relationship to the environment. We, then, compare the three perspectives on these four points, and finally address the question of what advantages their contribution present—especially compared to Kant’s theory—with respect to the topic of organism’s autonomy. This could help—we hope—to better understand what is at the stake still today. (shrink)

I argue that Darwinian evolutionary theory has a rhetorical dimension and that rhetorical criticism plays a role in how evolutionary science acquires knowledge. I define what I mean by rhetoric by considering Darwin’s Origin. I use the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis to show how rhetoric conceived as situated and addressed argumentation enters into evolutionary theorizing. Finally, I argue that rhetorical criticism helps judge the success, limits, and failures of these theories.

According to the modern synthesis, evolution is the gradual change of gene frequencies in a population. The MS is closely allied to adaptationist explanations of phenotypes, where organismic form and behavior is treated as previously selected for and owes its genesis to some remote past. However, some new theories of evolution broadly aligned with the extended evolutionary synthesis, in particular developmental plasticity theory and niche construction theory, foreground the fact that evolution is sometimes much more rapid than previously imagined, and (...) occurs through the active engagement of organisms accommodating and modifying their environments. This article describes how these contemporary theories reveal two interconnected sides of being an adaptive subject, a situated agent that modifies itself and its environment as it lives, and contributes to evolution in turn. MS and adaptationism have a generic logical structure that can be taught anywhere, but because developmental plasticity theory and niche construction theory point to an ontology that foregrounds the agency of the organism, they benefit from in situ exploration. I argue biology as a subject needs to adapt, and call for the renewed importance of field studies, outlining some elements of how such studies might be conceived. I close by considering how understanding organisms as adaptive subjects of evolution has important implications for sustainability education. (shrink)

Speciation—the origin of new species—has been one of the most active areas of research in evolutionary biology, both during, and since the Modern Synthesis. While the Modern Synthesis certainly shaped research on speciation in significant ways, providing a core framework, and set of categories and methods to work with, the history of work on speciation since the mid-twentieth century is a history of divergence and diversification. This piece traces this divergence, through both theoretical advances, and empirical insights into how different (...) lineages, with different genetics and ecological conditions, are shaped by very different modes of diversification. (shrink)