Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology
Volume 189, July 2024, Pages 26-31
Cooperative genes in smart systems: Toward an inclusive new synthesis in evolution☆
Peter A, Corning
Institute for the Study of Complex Systems, 1390 158th Place NE #616, Bellevue, WA, 98008, USA
Received 28 February 2024, Revised 3 April 2024, Accepted 3 April 2024, Available online 7 April 2024, Version of Record 27 April 2024.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2024.04.001
Highlights
• The “Modern Synthesis” in evolution emphasizes a competitive “struggle for existence” among “selfish genes”.
• Over the years many other sources of evolutionary causation have been identified.
• This prompted the proposal for an “extended synthesis”.
• However, it is now evident that genes play only a minor role in evolution.
• It's time to abandon the Modern Synthesis and develop a more “inclusive” synthesis.
Abstract
For more than half a century, biologist Julian Huxley's term, the “Modern Synthesis”, has been used as a label for a model of biological evolution where genetic influences are viewed as a principal source of creativity and change. Over the years, as evidence has accumulated that there are many other, far more important factors at work in evolution, theoretical “compromises,” such as the so-called “Extended Synthesis”, have been proposed. This is no longer tenable. It is time to abandon the Modern Synthesis, and its doppelganger “The Selfish Gene”. Here is the case for a new, multi-faceted, open-ended, “inclusive” evolutionary synthesis, where living systems themselves are recognized as purposeful (teleonomic) “agents” and cooperative effects (synergies) of various kinds are seen as all-important influences.
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