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What, if Anything, Is an Evolutionary Novelty?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Massimo Pigliucci
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Abstract

The idea of phenotypic novelty appears throughout the evolutionary literature. Novelties have been defined so broadly as to make the term meaningless and so narrowly as to apply only to a limited number of spectacular structures. Here I examine some of the available definitions of phenotypic novelty and argue that the modern synthesis is ill equipped at explaining novelties. I then discuss three frameworks that may help biologists get a better insight of how novelties arise during evolution but warn that these frameworks should be considered in addition to, and not as potential substitutes of, the modern synthesis.

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. 887 - 898
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Thanks to Jonathan Kaplan for organizing a PSA symposium on evolutionary novelties, as well as to Jonathan, Alan Love, and Alirio Rosales for critical readings of the manuscript. The National Science Foundation (grant IOB-0450240) supported the development of these ideas.

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