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Toward a Modern Revival of Darwin's Theory of Evolutionary Novelty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Mary Jane West-Eberhard
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Abstract

Darwin proposed that evolutionary novelties are environmentally induced in organisms “constitutionally” sensitive to environmental change, with selection effective owing to the inheritance of constitutional responses. A molecular theory of inheritance, pangenesis, explained the cross-generational transmission of environmentally induced traits, as required for evolution by natural selection. The twentieth-century evolutionary synthesis featured mutation as the source of novelty, neglecting the role of environmental induction. But current knowledge of environmentally sensitive gene expression, combined with the idea of genetic accommodation of mutationally and environmentally induced change, supports a revival of Darwin's original theory that is consistent with modern molecular and population genetics.

Type
Evolutionary Innovation and Novelties
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 75 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2006 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers. Edited by Cristina Bicchieri and Jason Alexander , December 2008 , pp. 899 - 908
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

This essay is based on “Darwin's Argument and Controversy regarding the Causes of Evolutionary Innovation,” a paper presented at the annual symposium of the Philosophy of Science Association, Vancouver, BC, November 2006. I thank Jonathan Kaplan and Massimo Pigliucci for the invitation to participate in that symposium, “Evolutionary Innovation and Novelties,” and William G. Eberhard for helpful suggestions.

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