He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh:
the Lord shall have them in derision.
Psalm 2:4
"Our theory is messed up, contradictory, and incomplete, admits an evolutionary biologist. Ain’t it grand?
(The Conversation, 9 Nov 2022).
In this monologue (not really a “conversation”), Eric Svensson, an
evolutionary ecology professor at Lund University in Sweden freely
confesses that Neo-Darwinism, which has been taught as indisputable fact
for nearly a century—to the extent of censoring alternatives and
punishing skeptics—is currently a hopeless mess.
Evolutionary biology today is a messy patchwork of several loosely connected subfields. This reflects the enormous diversity of phenomena that we study and the many interests of biologists.We are united in accepting that natural selection on inheritance and random factors have jointly shaped organisms – but not by much more. Maintaining a coherent overview, either the modern synthesis or some extension to it, seems increasingly hopeless.
The fracturing today was baked in by the shortsightedness of its
inventors. Svensson tells how the “modern synthesis” (Neo-Darwinism) was
put together by a few specialists without considering the big picture.
The modern synthesis aimed to unify biology, but it was dominated by a few subfields, particularly genetics and paleontology, and focused on how populations change their genetic make-up over time. From this perspective, organisms are objects and the raw material for natural selection.Notably, the modern synthesis did not incorporate all fields. The study of how embryos develop and how organisms interact with each other and their environment (ecology) were largely left out.
Since important aspects of biological change were left out,
evolutionary theory has become the messy patchwork it is today. Some
call for revisions and additions, such as incorporating how organisms
construct their own environments (“niche construction”). Some are
looking for evolution in the embryo (“evo-devo”). Some are even calling
for a whole new theory, arguing that natural selection can’t do all the
work.
Some go so far as to say that evolutionary theory itself is in crisis and must be replaced with something new.
Svensson isn’t worried. Isn’t this a marvelous situation? Evolution is stronger with its fractures!
That evolutionary biology is increasingly fractured does not worry me either, as long as we recognise that a plurality of approaches is not a weakness, but a strength. If physicists cannot agree upon a grand unified theory of the universe, why should biologists expect to agree on one beyond what we have already achieved? After all, organisms are much more complex than physical particles and processes.
Physics Envy and Liberation from Logic
Svensson points to how physicists can’t agree whether light is a wave
or a particle. He says that cosmologists are giving up on a Grand
Unified Theory. Why can’t evolutionary biologists engage in a little
cognitive dissonance of their own?
Why can we not see organisms as either agents capable of modifying their environments or objects subject to natural selection, depending on the context? These are two valuable and complementary perspectives.
Important differences were not noted by Svensson: light is observable
in the present, and appears wave-like or particle-like depending on the
experiment performed. Light is also precisely measurable and
describable in mathematical terms. The wave-particle duality is
repeatable by other scientists. Evolution, contrariwise, is a narrative
about the past that is unrepeatable and unfalsifiable.
Giving up the search for a grand unified evolutionary theory will not hurt our field, but rather, liberate us.
But it will only liberate those inside the Darwin Castle. Svensson’s
only link to the need for a whole new theory because evolution is a
theory in crisis does NOT include a link to Michael Denton’s book, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis.
It points to a 2015 paper by Denis Noble, another evolutionist. He
wants to put naturalistic evolution into a “new conceptual framework”
that excludes mind, teleology or intelligent causes.
This means that outsiders who have been expelled must remain outside
where they cannot be heard protesting. Evolutionism may be a fractured
theory, but it must remain a fractured evolutionary theory. No intelligence allowed!
CEH