Expelling genomania from evolution, development, and evo-devo

Abstract

The central theme of Jason Scott Robert's book Embryology, Epigenesis, and Evolution: Taking Development Seriously, as you might guess from the title, is that ‘our understanding of biology depends on our understanding of development.’ As an evolutionary developmental biologist, I couldn't agree more with Robert's assessment and this has been a hot topic in the field of evo-devo for some time [ 1 Palopoli M.F. Patel N.H. Neo-Darwinian developmental evolution: can we bridge the gap between pattern and process?. Curr. Opin. Genet. Dev. 1996; 6: 502-508 Crossref PubMed Scopus (39) Google Scholar , 2 Haag E.S. True J.R. From mutants to mechanisms? Assessing the candidate gene paradigm in evolutionary biology. Evolution. 2001; 55: 1077-1084 PubMed Google Scholar , 3 Johnson N.A. Porter A.H. Toward a new synthesis: population genetics and evolutionary developmental biology. Genetica. 2001; 112-113: 45-48 Crossref PubMed Scopus (42) Google Scholar ]. According to the frontispiece, and the author, this is one of the first philosophical analyses of developmental biology and evolution. Robert's main argument is that the current, trendy and quite lucrative paradigm of the gene and the genome as primary agents in phenotypic evolution is incomplete, inappropriate and just plain wrong because this assumption of genetic primacy neglects the crucially important epigenetic factors that are necessary to get from the genotype to the phenotype. Robert is a well published philosopher of biology who has tackled what he sees as genomania in the disciplines of developmental and evolutionary biology. He warns evolutionary developmental biologists that they must be wary and not make this mistake and he even suggests how to avoid it. His style is informal and sententious: he lambasts many great biologists, criticizing them mainly for the simple idea that genes contain information that constructs phenotypes while ignoring the ‘cell-organism in its developmental context.’ My opinion from reading Robert's book is that philosophers of science are way behind the actual practitioners of evolutionary developmental biology in their thinking and theory about how genes interact with both genetic and non-genetic factors to produce phenotypes.