Natural selection and self-organization: a deep dichotomy in the study of organic form.

Marta Linde Mewdina

Resumen


There are two approaches in the study of organic form: the externalist and the internalist perspective. The concept of the nature of matter, on which the logical structure of these two systems of thought has been constructed, is their crucial difference. From the externalist viewpoint, living matter is a passive and a non-intrinsically ordered entity that needs an external factor (natural selection) to acquire form. From the internalist perspective, living matter is an active entity capable of exhibiting order spontaneously. Internalist theories were definitively abandoned at the beginning of twentieth century due to the mystical halo, which has always accompanied the idea of an inner factor driving morphological change. Recent studies on the physics of complexity are revealing that matter is capable of self-organization, providing strong support to the internalist view. Now an important question arises: Do we need an extended evolutionary synthesis? This question will be analyzed here.

Key words: Natural selection, self-organization, preformationism, epigenesis, genetic programme, form, function, Modern Synthesis, Evolutionary Extended Synthesis.


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