摘要
进化发育生物学或"Evo-Devo"是今日的进化生物学中最有前途的研究领域之一。它的许多实践者将这个领域中的发现视为解释如下现象的关键,它们包括遗传学与形态学高度受限的特征、以往与当前的自适应有机体的那组令人困惑的复杂性,乃至主要的进化过渡。Evo-Devo的更为激进的支持者更喜欢发育进化生物学("Devo-Evo")或发育系统理论("DST"),通过论证达尔文的自然选择与孟德尔的遗传学(与现在的分子遗传学)在原则上不足以解释前面提到的那些现象,他们让诸多问题向前迈进。在这么做的过程中,他们在我们对进化问题的理解以及我们用来解决这些问题的方法中倡导了"概念的革命"或"范式的转换"。我们不同意的正是Evo-Devo的后面那些更为激进的论断。我们在此考察了那些论断的历史、经验与哲学的基础,并最终发现它们是有所欠缺的。
Evolutionary developmental biology or ＂Evo-Devo＂ is one of the most promising areas of research in evolutionary biology today. Many of its practitioners see findings in this area as the key to explaining phenomena which range from highly constrained features of genetics and morphology to the bewildering array of adaptive organismal complexity in the past as well as the present and even the major evolutionary transitions. The more radical proponents of evo-devo, who prefer the monikers developmental evolutionary biology（＂Devo-Evo＂） or developmental systems theory（＂DST＂）, have taken matters a step further by arguing that the modern synthesis of Darwinian natural selection with Mendelian（and now molecular） genetics cannot in principle suffice as an explanation for the aforementioned phenomena. In so doing they advocate for ＂conceptual revolution＂ or ＂paradigm shift＂ in our understanding of evolutionary questions and the approaches used to resolve them. It is with regard to these latter, more extreme, claims of evo-devo that we take issue. We herein examine the historical, empirical, and philosophical underpinnings of these claims and ultimately find them wanting.
出处
《自然辩证法通讯》
CSSCI
北大核心
2016年第6期119-128,共10页
Journal of Dialectics of Nature
