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Is the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis Robust Enough to Withstand the Challenge of Recent Discoveries in Molecular Biology and Molecular Evolution?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

John R. Jungck
John R. Jungck*
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, Beloit College, Beloit, WI 53511
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Extract

As a biologist who has been looking to philosophers of biology for fifteen years for help with epistemological problems, it was a surprise to me to be asked by Marjorie Grene and Richard Burian to prescribe some philosophical problems which have arisen in molecular biology developments such as those described by Alan Maxam. I thoroughly enjoyed the NEH Summer Institute on the “Philosophy of Biology” which they organized at Cornell and feel that they have raised many challenges to my own thinking in my field of molecular evolution and the origins of life. I believe that an analysis of Professor Ayala's, Kauffman's, and Maxam's papers is relevant to developments in molecular evolutionary theory. First, just as the punctuated equilibria versus phylogenetic gradualism debate in macroevolutionary theory has been seen by some as a challenge to Neo-Darwinism, notably not Professor Ayala, debates about neutralism versus selectionism has been viewed by others as a similar challenge.

Type
Part VI. Recent Developments in Biology
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1982 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1982 , 1982 , pp. 322 - 328
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 Philosophy of Science Association

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