Biological Emergences: Evolution by Natural Experiment (Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology)

by Robert G. B. Reid (Author)

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ISBN-13: 978-0262182577

ISBN-10: 0262182572

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Natural selection is commonly interpreted as the fundamental mechanism of evolution. Questions about how selection theory can claim to be the all-sufficient explanation of evolution often go unanswered by today’s neo-Darwinists, perhaps for fear that any criticism of the evolutionary paradigm will encourage creationists and proponents of intelligent design.

In Biological Emergences, Robert Reid argues that natural selection is not the cause of evolution. He writes that the causes of variations, which he refers to as natural experiments, are independent of natural selection; indeed, he suggests, natural selection may get in the way of evolution. Reid proposes an alternative theory to explain how emergent novelties are generated and under what conditions they can overcome the resistance of natural selection. He suggests that what causes innovative variation causes evolution, and that these phenomena are environmental as well as organismal.

After an extended critique of selectionism, Reid constructs an emergence theory of evolution, first examining the evidence in three causal arenas of emergent evolution: symbiosis/association, evolutionary physiology/behavior, and developmental evolution. Based on this evidence of causation, he proposes some working hypotheses, examining mechanisms and processes common to all three arenas, and arrives at a theoretical framework that accounts for generative mechanisms and emergent qualities. Without selectionism, Reid argues, evolutionary innovation can more easily be integrated into a general thesis. Finally, Reid proposes a biological synthesis of rapid emergent evolutionary phases and the prolonged, dynamically stable, non-evolutionary phases imposed by natural selection.

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"This book is a grand synthesis of historical evolutionism and modern biology from an author with wide experience in teaching, research, reflection, and argument on the subject. Its stance is inclusive, its style candid and engaging. Biological Emergences is entirely successful in outlining an alternative to natural selectionism, a viable theory about the origin of things rather than their ultimate survival or extinction. This book may—nay, should—be profitably read by anyone interested in evolution and its meaning within human understanding."
—Gareth Nelson, School of Botany, University of Melbourne

About the Author

Robert G. B. Reid is Emeritus Professor of Biology at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. He is the author of Evolutionary Theory: The Unfinished Synthesis.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ The MIT Press (March 1, 2007)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 535 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0262182572
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0262182577
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7 x 1 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #5,840,923 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Jake Keenan

Emergence of a new synthesis

Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2008

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This book is a daring broadside at genetic reductionism in ways that most writers only glancingly critique. In fact, this book is at least two books in one - a fundamental criticism of neo-Darwinism and the outlines of a new umbrella theory for creativity in evolultion through the many strands of emergence in biology - symbiotic/associative, evo-devo, physiological, behavioral, etc. Although a little more long-winded that most of us want to read for pleasure, the book is not just a textbook format as the previous reviewer indicated. The author's language is surprisingly colorful just as his thinking and depth of familiarity with two centuries of biology is wide-ranging. The book combines the maverick thinking of many biologists in well-formed analysis with the variety of new research such as in modularity, in symbiosis, or in complexity theory to bring us to the edge of a new bio-paradigm framed under emergence and natural experimentation. A refreshing collection of thinking and reporting about what lies beyond the selfish gene and the intelligent designers. I wish I hadn't left it on my shelf so long before picking it up.

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Shaun Johnston

From dense text peeps hint of revolution

Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2008

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No one could accuse Robert Reid of pandering to the public. This is a large and forbidding textbook drawing on the author's lifetime of research in the field and laboratory and in the library studying the history of evolutionary theory. But under the surface seethes a deep discontent with the impotence of modern evolutionary theory to deal with the major problems involved in accounting for evolution. Read it patiently for an impressive catalog of issues left unresolved. And look forward to a future tome with the answers.

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Tony Smith

We are animals first, last and in-between

Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2016

I was fortunate to get to this now rather than when it first came out. In 2015 it provides an important complement to other critiques of long dominant misassumptions that have distracted the biological sciences from finding a comprehensive rebuttal to the nonsense of "intelligent design" and its ilk.

Reid strives to both present his deep challenge and situate it within the appropriate research traditions, an undertaking that guarantees reading will require some work, so don't look to it for a light read. As somebody who has been exploring Emergence for thirty years, I know better than to expect that anybody who comes to it as a framing concept will colour it with their own perspectives. Nothing more should be expected given the lack of any widely recognised formulation. It remains the elephant in the room and Reid doesn't indulge in anything that runs counter to the broad general understanding of it.

What really matters is that he mounts a strong case that the basic animal repertoire of feeding, breeding, kin recognition, territorial awareness, etc. is grounded very deep in the evolutionary tree, along with the molecular, developmental and physiological attributes which underpin in. That is it must date to at least the Ediacaran emergence of mobile animals in the fossil record. He proposes a few rare saltations which have introduced broad new capabilities in the major phyla, with selection acting against innovation to improve reproductive success within newly explored niches.

With comprehensive challenges only now being mounted to the use of the wrong null hypothesis which crippled much of 20th Century biology, the culturally imposed prejudice that humans are significantly different (other than in recent collective impact), it is important that new generations take equal account of behavioural evolution as in physical signs that have to date been easier to quantify. The other end of the story begins with the likes of Carl Safina's (2015) Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel but does not end there. The null hypothesis must now be that all animals are animals with a rich set of common heritage.

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Tyree

This book is terrible. DO NOT BUY

Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2009

Robery Reid is vastly educated in the history and philosophy of biology. But he is very, very isolated from how contemporary evolutionary research is being done. I don't particularly mind his critique of the modern synthesis, or of the tendency to selectionism in both the view of the public of many scientists (for an excellent critique of the latter, grounded in real evolutionary theory, read The Origin of Genome Architecture by Michael Lynch.)

The problem is that Reid offers a bogus, hand-waving "theoretical framework" replete with buzzwords like "emergence," or "evo-devo." Not to disparage the work of the evolutionary developmental biologists, who are doing interesting and significant work. Anybody who accepts Kuhn's idea of paradigm shifts knows that scientific theories change not when people (like Reid) write books about what they don't like in current theories, but when people offer credible alternatives that work better.

I found the book exasperating, but ploughed through in the hopes of finding an original idea. I didn't. Reid is very knowledgeable about the literature of dissent in evolutionary biology, which is certainly valuable in a historical context, but his ideas are nonexistent when it comes to doing real science. Reid gives no hypotheses, no new ideas, no nothing. Only a pile of half-digested ideas with no coherence.

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Lindosland

Heavy going and much too wordy, lacking a concise theory, though packed with facts. His objections to Darwin are surely valid,

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 25, 2017

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As other reviewers have commented, this book is a hard read, even for those well versed in evolutionary theory and genetics, and not to be recommended for the newcomer to evolutionary debate. In the early chapters I felt that Reid's fundamental criticism of Natural Selection as the fundamental mechanism of evolution was being laboured and repeated over and over in language that is not clear. But his criticism of accepted theory is, I think, fully justified, and I share his frustration with the experts and public who continue to ignore the 'elephant in the room' a century and a half after Darwin's famous book was published. As he himself notes, others have presented the case for emergence as the driving force in evolution, before Darwin and since, though they have often confused the issue by pushing pet ideas. A quote from Reid sums up his case (though not as clearly as it might have done):

"Since these (generative hypotheses) usually have the emergent property of universal advantage through more sustainable integrity or adaptability at their inception, they need no subsequent sponsorship by natural selection. Regardless of present and future circumstances, their persistence is assured, though not necessarily as the fittest types. Here the concept of selection verges on total redundancy. Indeed, if you look at the generation of any novelty, adaptable or adaptational, you can see that, barring accidents, it's future depends on its quality. To add the subsequent action of a directive selective process is logically superfluous - if you are dealt a handful of aces, the outcome of the game is certain from the start."

This quote also demonstrates a certain obscurity in his writing, every sentence requiring a lot of thought and prompting questions. A handful of aces surely does not make the outcome of a game certain; or in biological terms, if you happen to get eaten before you reproduce, what good were those aces? I am also left thinking that, since a significant factor in evolution is mate selection, natural selection would seem to have a role in clearing away the masses and perhaps by this means enabling novelty to proceed more quickly through effective mating; a point I'm not sure he makes. Nevertheless, Reid's basic objection is valid, and he does not deny a role to selection, though he sees it as secondary and indeed stresses that it is even a barrier to the production of useful novelty. What we need, as other reviewers have noted, is a convincing theory for emergence, and, as they say, he doesn't really seem to offer one.

He does though, review in incredible detail the history of opposition to Darwin's idea, with many famous names quoted. He also presents many recently discovered facts that give credence to the idea of emergence; covering epigenetics, introns, transposons, micro-RNAs, RNA interference, and much more. My criticism of the book is that it contains so many facts, and so much analysis, that any core principle that he might help us find is lost along the way. His chapter, 'An Emergence Theory', disappoints, giving us nothing we can call a theory, but just more detail about what a theory needs to consider. Any significant theory should sum up something new in a few words, and he can't do that. I sympathise; because thinking about evolution does tend to become mind boggling and full of traps for the unwary, and Reid's mind is certainly deeply engaged in the relevant matters - he just isn't the man to put any conclusion concisely enough for it to stand out from the mire.

It's a pity that the book gives little clue to who Robert Reid was, apart from a brief statement on the back cover that he was professor emeritus at the University of Victoria. Was? A little research reveals that he died in May 2016, leaves a daughter Clio, and is described in obituaries as a 'a quiet Scot with a dry sense of humour'. His students relate fond memories of times with him. I was amused by an anecdote he tells about his first book on it's release where he says, "my favourite literary critique comes from the little girl in James Thurber's 'The Darlings at the top of the Stairs'. 'This book tells me more about penguins than I wanted to know.' My daughter Clio, who learned words by typing the first draft of this book, has similar sentiments about the present work, and she suggests that my next effort should be quite short, maybe four pages." She has a point :-)

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MarkAntony

A fine antidote to the straight-jacket of the 'neo-Darwinian synthesis'

Reviewed in Canada on December 24, 2017

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For students of evolutionary theory, this is a must read. A fine antidote to the straight-jacket of the 'neo-Darwinian synthesis'. I would also, however, recommend reading in conjunction with this volume, i.e. they complement one another, Andreas Wagner's, "Arrival of the Fittest" and C. David Rollo's, "Phenotypes". Together they represent some of the best modern writing in evolutionary theory in 30 years.

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