title: Evolution by epigenesis: farewell to Darwinism, neo- and otherwise.
abstract: In the last 25 years, criticism of most theories advanced by Darwin and the neo-Darwinians has increased considerably, and so did their defense. Darwinism has become an ideology, while the most significant theories of Darwin were proven unsupportable. The critics advanced other theories instead of 'natural selection' and the survival of the fittest'. 'Saltatory ontogeny' and 'epigenesis' are such new theories proposed to explain how variations in ontogeny and novelties in evolution are created. They are reviewed again in the present essay that also tries to explain how Darwinians, artificially kept dominant in academia and in granting agencies, are preventing their acceptance. Epigenesis, the mechanism of ontogenies, creates in every generation alternative variations in a saltatory way that enable the organisms to survive in the changing environments as either altricial or precocial forms. The constant production of two such forms and their survival in different environments makes it possible, over a sequence of generations, to introduce changes and establish novelties--the true phenomena of evolution. The saltatory units of evolution remain far-from-stable structures capable of self-organization and self-maintenance (autopoiesis).
authors.affiliation: Department of Organismal Biology, Ecology and Evolution, Institute of Ichthyology, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. ebalon@uoguelph.ca
authors.forename: Eugene K
authors.initials: EK
authors.lastname: Balon
mesh_terms: D005075:Biological Evolution; D044127:Epigenesis, Genetic