BigBiology Podcasts
 
Episode 062: Situated Darwinism: Organism-centered evolution

Files

Download

Download Full Episode (63.4 MB)

Loading...

Media is loading
 

Interviewer(s)

Art Woods, Marty Martin

Interviewee(s)

Denis Walsh

Description

Are genes the prime movers in evolution, or is causality distributed across multiple levels of organization? What role do organisms play in evolution? Could organismal agency, the propensity to respond actively to selective forces, affect standard evolutionary theory?

On this episode, we talk with Denis Walsh, a professor and philosopher of biology at the University of Toronto, about his book Organisms, Agency, and Evolution. The Modern Synthesis, which combines Darwin’s theory of natural selection and Mendel’s theory of genetic inheritance, was a giant leap forward in our understanding of the evolution of populations. Denis argues, however, that the extreme abstraction required by the synthesis derails our understanding of evolution. What’s needed instead, he suggests, is renewed focus on organisms. Because organisms have agency—they in effect construct the environments they experience, which in turn affects how selection acts on them. This view reestablishes organisms – not genes – as the central unit of evolution, just as Darwin’s ‘struggle for existence’ emphasized.

Cover Photo: Blue Dragon nudibranch (Pteraeolidia ianthina) by Saspotato (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Date Published

4-2021

Language

eng

Length of Episode

1 hour, 15 minutes, 41 seconds

Digital File Format

audio/mp3

Document Type

Podcast

Episode 062: Situated Darwinism: Organism-centered evolution

Share

COinS