Postdarwinism

The principles of post-Darwinism, in brief

The views described here are close or complementary to the views of Eva Jablonka, Richard C. Strohman (1993), and many others. Below, some principal differences between neo-Darwinism and post-Darwinism are shortly pointed out:

(1) the main process for post-Darwinism is symbiosis and coherence (from which, in some conditions, competition may follow), whereas for neo-Darwinism it is competition (from which sometimes symbiosis follows);

(2) the first evolutionary event for neo-Darwinism is the mutation of DNA and the distribution of the new mutant (allele) in population, whereas for post-Darwinism it is an ontogenetic change (a change in the usage of genetic memory), which is later followed by stochastic fixation in memory (mainly due to 'forgetting of un-used');

(3) the one, which makes the choice, is environment for neo-Darwinism, and organism itself for post-Darwinism;

(4) for neo-Darwinism, DNA (together with environment) is the determinant of all the structure and through that also of the behaviour of organism, whereas for post-Darwinism DNA is like a thesaurus, or vocabulary from which the organism uses the entries it needs.

(5) for neo-Darwinism, the main role of sexual reproduction is to provide new genetic variants, whereas for post-Darwinism the importance of sexual reproduction comprises (a) the creation of species, and (b) forgetting of the unnecessary, i.e., making of the genetic memory dynamic;

(6) generally, neo-Darwinism can be regarded as a restricted special case of post-Darwinism.