Abstract
The Modern Synthesis has dominated biology for 80 years. It was formulated in 1942, a decade before the major achievements of molecular biology, including the Double Helix and the Central Dogma. When first formulated in the 1950s these discoveries and concepts seemed initially to completely justify the central genetic assumptions of the Modern Synthesis. The Double Helix provided the basis for highly accurate DNA replication, while the Central Dogma was viewed as supporting the Weismann Barrier, so excluding the inheritance of acquired characteristics. This article examines the language of the Modern Synthesis and reveals that it is based on four important misinterpretations of what molecular biology had shown, so forming the basis of the four Illusions: 1. Natural Selection; 2. The Weismann Barrier; 3. The Rejection of Darwin’s Gemmules; 4. The Central Dogma. A multi-level organisation view of biology avoids these illusions through the principle of biological relativity. Molecular biology does not therefore confirm the assumptions of the Modern Synthesis.
Highlights
Biosemiotics is the study of signs that can be the basis of the production of meaning by living organisms
It is worth noting here that understanding the illusion of the Weismann Barrier is important to extensions/replacements of the Modern synthesis, the EES or EIS referred to in the Introduction
After we had explained why the Weismann Barrier could not be absolute, we encountered the argument from a referee that “The Weismann Barrier is embodied by the Central Dogma.”
Summary
Biosemiotics is the study of signs that can be the basis of the production of meaning by living organisms. It necessarily involves study of the communicative methods used – interpreting communication in the widest sense, including signs and their contexts used by non-human organisms. It may be hard to believe that science itself could be taken in by illusions and by its own use of language. That is precisely what I think happened in the development of the Modern Synthesis. This is not an accusation of intended illusion.
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