Darwinist thought has been questioned many times, starting with the co-discoverer of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace, who disagreed with some aspects of Charles Darwin’s arguments, but was eventually proven wrong on most of them. The American botanist Liberty Hyde Bailey published an article in 1894 on whether the formulation of neo-Darwinism, the main version of evolutionary theory, should spread (it did not); In the 1980s, paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould followed a similar line.
Evolutionary biologist Kevin Lala also has doubts about what he calls traditional Darwinian thinking (see “Unique Ways Species Control Their Evolutionary Fate”). Some say it’s a straw man argument, challenging old ideas about evolutionary biology, while modern thinking is broad enough to encompass all the new aspects we’re learning, from developmental biology, cultural evolution, and symbiosis, two different species living in close proximity to each other.
Over the years, the theory of evolution by natural selection it has evolved itselfgenes, DNA, population genetics and absorbing new discoveries epigeneticsnot all of these were available in Darwin’s time. As we reported on page 11, the identification of evolutionary agents is essential, for example, if we want to do so prevent the bird flu pandemicas well as understanding how species will adapt to climate change. Whether we should add to the rulebook already available to evolutionary biologists is debatable. There is a danger of allowing a “god of the gaps” argument to creep in, where the apparent shortcomings of evolutionary theory are exploited by those who posit unscientific explanations.
The apparent shortcomings run the risk of introducing a “god of the gaps” argument
All theories must be challenged, and evaluating modern evolutionary biology brings up many aspects of life that may not be well appreciated. Darwin’s explanation has survived for more than 160 years because it is so correct and strong enough to absorb new discoveries. The impact of Lala’s approach is therefore not yet clear, but the exploration of neglected aspects of life should be welcomed.
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