Extended Synthesis and Scientific Explanation: Challenges of Theoretical Expansion in Modern Biology

生物学的解释范式--种群遗传学、新达尔文现代综合论--建立于20世纪中叶，最近陷入了一场危机。目前，越来越多的生物学家呼吁通过一种更面向发展的描述来扩展进化理论，即所谓的“扩展合成”。这一理论的新颖性被生物学家、科学史学家以及公众广泛讨论。尽管对现代生物学目前的动态有广泛的兴趣，但科学哲学家们仍然忽视了最广泛地研究伴随着这种传统和进步解释方法的理论扩展和整合而来的挑战和问题。迎接这些挑战是拟议研究项目的中心目标。因此，首先，在那些据说推动当前进化理论革命性变化的新领域，即进化发展生物学(EVO-DEVO)、表观遗传学和生态位构建理论中，系统地评估了因果和机制解释的概念基础和标准。在这次调查的基础上，第二，将发现一些以前被忽视的学科间和学科内冲突，这些冲突目前阻碍了理论整合。随后，第三，将分析由于哪些标准和给定的解释语境，更面向发展的扩展综合比新达尔文的现代综合更好地解释。因此，拟议的生物哲学项目不仅有助于更好地理解当前生物学理论的变化。此外，它还提供了应对理论整合和解释多元化的挑战的解决方案。此外，它还通过侧重于个体发生过程和有机体-环境相互作用的解释，为明确当前进化理论扩展的人类学相关性提供了新的动力。

The explanatory paradigm of biology - the population-genetic, neo-Darwinian Modern Synthesis - which has been established in the middle of the 20th century, has recently been plunged into a crisis. Currently a growing number of biologists call for an expansion of evolutionary theory by a more developmentally orientated account, a so-called "Extended Synthesis." The novelty of this theory is widely discussed by biologists, historians of science as well as in public. Despite this broad interest in the current dynamics of modern biology, philosophers of science have yet neglected most widely investigating the challenges and problems going along with such a theoretical expansion and integration of conventional and progressive explanatory approaches. Meeting these challenges is the central aim of the proposed research project. Therefore, first, the conceptual foundations and the standards of causal and mechanistic explanation are systematically assessed in those novel fields that are said to drive the current revolutionary change in evolutionary theory, i.e. evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo), epigenetics, and niche construction theory. Based on this investigation, second, a number of previously neglected inter- and intradisciplinary conflicts will be identified, which currently counteract theoretical integration. Subsequently, third, it will be analyzed due to which criteria and given which explanatory contexts the more developmentally orientated Extended Synthesis explains better than the neo-Darwinian Modern Synthesis. Thus, the proposed biophilosophical project not only contributes to a better understanding of the current theoretical change in biology. Moreover, it offers solutions that meet the challenges of theoretical integration and explanatory pluralism. In addition, it gives a new impetus to specifying the anthropological relevance of the current expansion of evolutionary theory by explanations that focus on ontogenetic processes and organism-environment interactions.