Thomas S. Kuhn: key to a better understanding of the extended evolutionary synthesis.

In recent years, some scholars have explicitly questioned the desirability or utility of applying the classical and "old-fashioned" theories of scientific change by the likes of Karl Popper and Thomas S. Kuhn to the question of the precise nature and significance of the extended evolutionary synthesis (EES). Supposedly, these twentieth-century philosophers are completely irrelevant for a better understanding of this new theoretical framework for the study of evolution. Here, it will be argued that the EES can be fruitfully interpreted in terms of, as yet, insufficiently considered or even overlooked elements from Kuhn's theory. First, in his original, historical philosophy of science, Kuhn not only distinguished between small and big scientific revolutions, he also pointed out that paradigms can be extended and reformulated. In contrast with what its name suggests, the mainstream EES can be interpreted as a Kuhnian reformulation of modern evolutionary theory. Second, it has, as yet, also been overlooked that the EES can be interpreted in terms of Kuhn's later, tentative evolutionary philosophy of science. With the EES, an old dichotomy in evolutionary biology is maybe being formalized and institutionalized.

Did dawkins recant his selfish gene argument against group selection?

In 2007, David S. Wilson and Edward O. Wilson (27) pointed out that, Richard Dawkins had admitted that, contrary to what he had claimed in his book The Selfish Gene (1976) (7), the idea that only the gene is a fundamental unit of selection cannot be used as an argument against the notion of group selection. This elicited a sharp denial from Dawkins (30), which was followed by an explanatory reply by Wilson and Wilson (33) and another vehement denial by Dawkins (34). I analyse the prehistory of this surprisingly complex and convoluted dispute and subsequently disentangle it. My conclusion is that much of it is based on a series of misunderstandings. First, Wilson's and Wilson's (27) original interpretation of Dawkins' selfish gene argument was incorrect. Second, in their explanatory reply (33), they distinguished between two kinds of group selection: the idea that groups can be units of selection (theoretical group selection) and the idea that group selection plays a functional role in evolution (functional group selection). They clarified that their claim concerned theoretical group selection, not functional group selection. Third, that clarified claim was correct and not correct. It was incorrect because Dawkins has never explicitly acknowledged that he had erred by developing his selfish gene theory as an implicit argument against this kind of group selection. However, the distinction that he made, by 1978, between two kinds of unit of selection, replicators (genes) and vehicles (somas), does imply such an acknowledgment since it holds that groups can be units of selection (vehicles). In this important sense, Wilson's and Wilson's clarified claim (33) was correct. Fourth, Dawkins' second denial (34) concerned functional group selection, not theoretical group selection.

Leave Lamarck Alone! Why the Use of the Term "Lamarckism" and Its Cognates Must Be Shunned.

Many scholars avoid the use of the term "Darwinism." It is not ideal, even to refer to Darwin's own complex and fluid thinking about evolution, let alone to modern transformations of his ideas. The addition of the prefix neo- for those modern transformations does not solve the terminological problem. The same argument can be made for Lamarckism and its cognates: they are not ideal or meaningful labels to refer to Lamarck's heterogeneous ideas. Lamarck's name is even less appropriate as a label for modern developments in biology and, particularly, for the idea of the (presumed) inheritance of acquired characters. The dichotomous framing of modern thinking about evolution in terms of "Darwinian" and "Lamarckian" is especially confusing and un-helpful. Historians are obliged to use historical terms like "Lamarckism" or "Darwinism," but philosophers and biologists should try to avoid using these terms and their cognates and learn to use more precise and less ambiguous, confusing, misleading, and emotionally charged words and phrases.

The sociobiology of genes: the gene's eye view as a unifying behavioural-ecological framework for biological evolution.

Although classical evolutionary theory, i.e., population genetics and the Modern Synthesis, was already implicitly 'gene-centred', the organism was, in practice, still generally regarded as the individual unit of which a population is composed. The gene-centred approach to evolution only reached a logical conclusion with the advent of the gene-selectionist or gene's eye view in the 1960s and 1970s. Whereas classical evolutionary theory can only work with (genotypically represented) fitness differences between individual organisms, gene-selectionism is capable of working with fitness differences among genes within the same organism and genome. Here, we explore the explanatory potential of 'intra-organismic' and 'intra-genomic' gene-selectionism, i.e., of a behavioural-ecological 'gene's eye view' on genetic, genomic and organismal evolution. First, we give a general outline of the framework and how it complements the-to some extent-still 'organism-centred' approach of classical evolutionary theory. Secondly, we give a more in-depth assessment of its explanatory potential for biological evolution, i.e., for Darwin's 'common descent with modification' or, more specifically, for 'historical continuity or homology with modular evolutionary change' as it has been studied by evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) during the last few decades. In contrast with classical evolutionary theory, evo-devo focuses on 'within-organism' developmental processes. Given the capacity of gene-selectionism to adopt an intra-organismal gene's eye view, we outline the relevance of the latter model for evo-devo. Overall, we aim for the conceptual integration between the gene's eye view on the one hand, and more organism-centred evolutionary models (both classical evolutionary theory and evo-devo) on the other.

A Historical Taxonomy of Origin of Species Problems and Its Relevance to the Historiography of Evolutionary Thought.

Historians tend to speak of the problem of the origin of species or the species question, as if it were a monolithic problem. In reality, the phrase (or similar variants) refers to a, historically, surprisingly fluid and pluriform scientific issue. It has, in the course of the past five centuries, been used in no less than ten different ways or contexts. A clear taxonomy of these separate problems is useful or relevant in two ways. It certainly helps to disentangle confusions that have inevitably emerged in the literature in its absence. It may, secondly, also help us to gain a more thorough understanding, or sharper view, of the (pre)history of evolutionary thought. A consequent problem-centric look at that (pre)history through the lens of various origin of species problems certainly yields intriguing results, including and particularly for our understanding of the genesis of the Wallace-Darwin theory of evolution through natural selection.

Mendel at the sesquicentennial of 'Versuche über Pflanzen-Hybriden' (1865): The root of the biggest legend in the history of science.

In 1965, Mendel was still celebrated as the undisputed founder of genetics. In the ensuing 50 years, scholars questioned and undermined this traditional interpretation of his experiments with hybrid plants, without, however, managing to replace it: at the sesquicentennial of the presentation of his 'Versuche' (1865), the Moravian friar remains, to a vast majority, the heroic Father of genetics or at least some kind of geneticist. This exceptionally inert myth is nourished by ontological intuitions but can only continue to flourish, thanks to a long-standing conceptual void in the historiography of biology. It is merely a symptom of this more fundamental problem.