title: Conceptual Barriers to Progress Within Evolutionary Biology.
abstract: In spite of its success, Neo-Darwinism is faced with major conceptual barriers to further progress, deriving directly from its metaphysical foundations. Most importantly, neo-Darwinism fails to recognize a fundamental cause of evolutionary change, "niche construction". This failure restricts the generality of evolutionary theory, and introduces inaccuracies. It also hinders the integration of evolutionary biology with neighbouring disciplines, including ecosystem ecology, developmental biology, and the human sciences. Ecology is forced to become a divided discipline, developmental biology is stubbornly difficult to reconcile with evolutionary theory, and the majority of biologists and social scientists are still unhappy with evolutionary accounts of human behaviour. The incorporation of niche construction as both a cause and a product of evolution removes these disciplinary boundaries while greatly generalizing the explanatory power of evolutionary theory.
authors.affiliation: School of Biology, University of St Andrews, Bute Building, Queens Terrace, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9TS, U.K. Tel. +44 1334 463568. Fax. +44 1334 463600.  knl1@st-andrews.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Kevin N
authors.initials: KN
authors.lastname: Laland
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Odling-Smee
authors.forename: Marcus W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Feldman
authors.forename: Jeremy
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kendal