extended evolutionary synthesis

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis is presented as a plural coalition emphasizing development, plasticity, broader inheritance, niche construction and reciprocal causation alongside natural selection. It widens attention to how organisms shape variation and evolutionary conditions rather than naming one replacement theory. The corpus expressly records dispute over whether these emphases require a new synthesis, and qualifies the persistence and evidential status of different inheritance mechanisms.

Explanation

The author’s inventory includes developmental bias, accommodation and assimilation, non-genetic inheritance, and ecological or cultural processes. The important change of emphasis concerns how variation and selection conditions are themselves organized. Natural selection remains present, with reciprocal rather than exclusively one-way causal descriptions; the proposal does not treat every listed mechanism as a newly discovered law.

The native references preserve Laland and colleagues and the later debate rather than supplying an anonymous consensus. The text explicitly allows disagreement over whether existing evolutionary theory can already accommodate the proposed emphases. Its coalition formulation therefore matters: agreement on a research emphasis does not imply one unified new explanatory mechanism.

Broader inheritance is also qualified. Epigenetic inheritance may be transient, is documented differently across organisms, and remains contested in mammals. RB2’s niche-construction discussion provides another route for reciprocal change without requiring inherited acquired memories. These distinctions prevent the expanded framework from becoming an unrestricted revival of any claim about acquired traits.

Scope and attribution

Preserve the contested coalition status and the organism-specific limits on inheritance evidence.

AB — The Actual Book

The native note points to the EES and Noble genealogy.

Occurrence locators: Notes: 239.

RB1 — The Real Book, Volume I: The Possible Is Real

The plural coalition, retained selection, live framework debate and inheritance qualifications are explicit.

Occurrence locators: 145, 146, 147, 148, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154.

Background used in the editorial explanation

Named theories and mechanisms are distinguished from neighboring background, homonyms and the author’s own synthesis. Reproduced AI passages retain their separate voice.