by Despite all the calls for an “extended evolutionary synthesis” (EES), ideas like niche construction, developmental plasticity that is not genetically conditioned, and epigenetic modification caused by the environment have not produced any substantive advances (niche construction is in fact an old idea that’s touted as new). Yet their proponents... continue to churn out papers saying that big advances are just around the corner....
The processes touted by EES-ers may operate in isolated instances, but, so far, they hardly seem sufficiently ubiquitous to warrant an $11 million grant. I’m not sure what Templeton was thinking when it funded this, except that it has a lot of money and was somehow convinced by the “we’re-gonna-reform-SET” palaver. One possibility that crossed my mind is that the new project directly attacks the “gene-centric” view of evolution. That could be seen as reductionist, and the “EES” as more inclusive and (if you squint hard) more numinous. Or, as a reader suggests below, perhaps the view of “organism as agent in its own evolution” is tantalizingly close to “intelligent designer as agent in evolution.”
and Larry Moran:
(M)y real beef is with the outdated view of evolution held by EES proponents. To a large extent they are fighting a strawman version of evolution. They think that the "Modern Synthesis" or "Neo-Darwinism" is the current view of evolutionary theory. They are attacking the old-fashioned view of evolutionary theory that was common in the 1960s but was greatly modified by the incorporation of Neutral Theory and increased emphasis on random genetic drift. The EES proponents all seem to have been asleep when the real revolution occurred.
When you listen to them, you get the distinct impression they have never read The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme. I have no confidence in biologists who want to overthrow a view of evolutionary theory that's already been dead for half a century. I have no confidence in biologists who aren't at ease talking about non-adaptive evolution. This is the 21st century....
The real revolution was the incorporation of nonadaptive mechanisms into evolutionary theory and the overthrow of adaptationism. That revolution is not complete. There are still thousands of biologists who remain strict Darwinists even as they try to promote different ways of achieving adaptation.
It's a lot of money to spend on an area not likely to produce significant results, all in interest of promoting a religious agenda that is only tangentially related to the subject in the first place.
