title: [Individual development and lessons of evolutionism].
abstract: The present crisis of evolutionism was predictable initially, since the preformational model of development expressed in the idea of discrete heredity contradicts the systemic properties of ontogenesis. Correspondingly, the principle of selection of inherited factors cannot explain evolution. The synthetic theory based on this principle contains insoluble contradictions in its key notions. According to the alternative epigenetic theory based on the integrity of living organization, heredity is a product of selection and expresses teleonomic direction of development to a stable final state. Unification of the genetic concept of evolution with recognition of the integrity of development is principally impossible. The cause of dominance of genetic views on evolution consists in the correspondence of the mechanistic tradition of the 18-19th centuries, rather than in their logistic substantiation. For the same reason, the biology as a whole is characterized by identification of specific linear dependences with the laws of evolution. Following this path in search for "new evolutionary synthesis" invites a priori its failure. Evolutionary interpretation of genetic generalizations is only possible on the basis of their description in terms of development.
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Shishkin
mesh_terms: D005075:Biological Evolution; D044127:Epigenesis, Genetic; D040941:Heredity / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D013598:Systems Theory