Mother Nature's tolerant ways: why non-genetic inheritance has nothing to do with evolution

Dickins, Thomas E. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5788-0948 and Dickins, Benjamin J. A. (2008) Mother Nature's tolerant ways: why non-genetic inheritance has nothing to do with evolution. New Ideas in Psychology, 26 (1) . pp. 41-54. [Article] (doi:10.101/j.newideapsych.2007.03.004)

Preview

PDF (Full text) - Final accepted version (with author's formatting) Available under License Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0. Download (220kB) | Preview

Abstract

Recently a number of theorists have suggested that evolution can use non-genetic or environmental inheritance to pass on adaptations (e.g. Mameli, 2004). Furthermore, it has been suggested that non-genetic, or environmental factors, can play a central role in the process of evolution that is not captured by the neo-Darwinian view which places natural selection centre-stage (e.g. Odling-Smee, Laland & Feldman, 2003). In this paper we present and clarify neo-Darwinian theory and then take issue with the notions of contemporary gene-centred selection and inheritance that non-genetic inheritance theorists have used. We claim that they have misunderstood the distinction and relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic inheritance and we clarify this with a number of examples from the behavioural and biological sciences. According to this analysis there is no such thing as biologically independent non-genetic inheritance, all extrinsic inheritance is a consequence of traits and dispositions that are intrinsic to an organism and intrinsic design can only be explained through neo-Darwinism. We point to the implications this view has for current conceptions of cultural evolution.

Actions (login required)

View Item

Statistics

DownloadsShow export options

Export as CSVXMLJSON

Activity Overview

6 month trend

325Downloads

6 month trend

401Hits

Additional statistics are available via IRStats2.