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The "Modern Synthesis," first
developed in the 1930s and 40s by Theodosius Dobzhansky,
Ernst Mayr and George Gaylord Simpson, is the cornerstone
of contemporary thinking about evolution. But the focus
of this approach is rigidly fixed on genes and organisms,
and excludes from consideration virtually all species-level
phenomena. Accurate as far as it goes, the "Modern
Synthesis" is nevertheless an incomplete model of evolution.
In Unfinished Synthesis, Niles Eldredge
advances a broader, more workable theory of evolution. Eldredge
analyzes four seminal works that lie at the core of the
"Modern Synthesis," traces how the theory has
changed in the last four decades, and points out the inherent
limitations of this approach. He proposes instead that evolution
is the interaction of two hierarchies: a hierarchy of genetic
information housed in genes, organisms, species and higher
taxa; and an ecological hierarchy, concerned with interactions
between biologic entities and the physical environment.
This double-hierarchy approach allows a more generous framework
for understanding the complexities that produce evolution
and for tackling the problems left unresolved by synthesis-inspired,
gene- and organism-centered evolutionary thought.
Highly provocative, Unfinished Synthesis
will be the focus of serious debate among evolutionary biologists,
systematists, paleontologists, and ecologists. It is a book
that everyone with an interest in evolution will want to
read.
Niles Eldredge is Chairman and Curator
of the Department of Invertebrates, American Museum of Natural
History, New York. An eminent evolutionary biologist, he
is the co-founder (with Stephen Jay Gould) of the theory
of punctuated equilibria, and has published numerous works
on evolution, including Phylogenetic Patterns and the
Evolutionary Process (1980), with Joel Cracraft; Myths
of Human Evolution (1982), with Ian Tattersall; and Time
Frames (1985).
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