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Frank Visser, graduated as a psychologist of culture and religion, founded IntegralWorld in 1997. He worked as production manager for various publishing houses and as service manager for various internet companies and lives in Amsterdam. Books: Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion (SUNY, 2003), and The Corona Conspiracy: Combatting Disinformation about the Coronavirus (Kindle, 2020).

Is Neo-Darwinism Dead?

The Dawkins-Noble Debate in Perspective

Frank Visser / ChatGPT

For more than a decade, Richard Dawkins and Denis Noble have been circling one another across the intellectual battlefield of evolutionary biology. Dawkins, the world-famous popularizer of the gene-centered view of evolution, holds that natural selection acting on replicators remains the most powerful, unifying framework we have for understanding long-term evolutionary change. Noble, a distinguished systems biologist and physiologist, counters that this view is outdated—too reductionistic, too tied to 20th-century molecular dogmas, and blind to the complexities that characterize living systems. At times he has suggested that the Modern Synthesis—that is, neo-Darwinism—is effectively “dead.”

But what exactly is this debate about? And is evolutionary theory really awaiting a death certificate? The short answer is no. The longer answer is that the debate is not about whether evolution occurs but about what counts as the most fundamental level of explanation.

Two Visions of Evolution: The Gene vs. The Organism

Dawkins argues that evolution is best understood by examining genes as replicators and organisms as the temporary vehicles built by those replicators. In this view, genes—not organisms—are the entities that persist across deep evolutionary time, carrying the record of what natural selection has favored and what it has eliminated. This does not reduce biology to DNA determinism; it simply emphasizes that gene-level selection provides the clearest long-term causal account of adaptation.

Noble approaches the issue from physiology, where high-level organization, feedback loops, and dynamic networks are central. For him, genes are passive resources used by cells and organisms, not master controllers. He emphasizes the bidirectional flow of causation in biology: organisms regulate gene expression, developmental systems modulate outcomes, and phenotypes arise from the interplay of many interacting forces. From this perspective, the gene-centered view looks too narrow—more like a convenient metaphor than a faithful picture of the living world.

What the Debate Is Not About

Despite the public drama, the Dawkins-Noble disagreement is not about whether natural selection happens, whether mutation generates variation, whether genes influence traits, or whether epigenetic processes exist. Both recognize the importance of these realities. The divergence lies instead in their preferred explanatory levels. Dawkins asks what leaves heritable traces across generations; Noble asks how biological complexity is generated and regulated in real time. These questions are not inherently opposed, but they lead to different emphases and different scientific instincts.

Is Evolutionary Theory “Dead” in Light of Noble's Claims?

Noble's critique rests on several themes. He stresses that genes do not dictate biological outcomes in a simple top-down way; development and physiology play decisive roles. He points out that causation in biology flows in multiple directions and that epigenetic inheritance adds richness to our understanding of heredity. He also argues that organisms, through regulatory systems, impose constraints on gene behavior rather than the other way around.

All of this is true, but none of it demonstrates that the gene-centered logic of natural selection is obsolete. The fact that genes are regulated does not mean they are unimportant. The presence of multi-level causation does not eliminate the special evolutionary role of replicators. Epigenetic changes rarely persist across many generations, and when they do not, they cannot carry the long-term evolutionary signal. And the idea that organisms “use” genes is not at odds with Dawkins' framework, which already recognizes that genes alone do nothing without the cellular machinery that interprets them.

Thus Noble is right that biology is vastly more complex than the mid-20th-century Modern Synthesis assumed. But evolutionary theory has already absorbed much of this complexity. These insights enrich our understanding of development and physiology; they do not undermine the logic of selection.

Why Dawkins Stands on Firmer Ground for Long-Term Evolution

When we ask the heavyweight questions—why species adapt, why certain traits spread, why convergent solutions arise across distant lineages, or what drives long-term evolutionary trends—the gene-centered view retains unmatched explanatory power. This is not because genes “control” the organism, but because genes are the most stable information carriers across generations. Organismal physiology, regulatory networks, and epigenetic marks all matter enormously for development and short-term adaptation, yet they seldom persist long enough or faithfully enough to replace DNA as the medium of evolutionary inheritance.

Even proponents of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, often invoked by Noble, do not reject gene-centered logic. They broaden evolution's toolkit without discarding its core principles. Dawkins' framework survives not because it is simple, but because it offers a coherent, predictive, and empirically robust account of how adaptive complexity accumulates over geological time.

The Deeper Narrative Behind the Debate

There is also a sociological dimension that fuels the drama. Dawkins represents the tradition of analytical, mathematically inclined population genetics, while Noble represents the tradition of integrative physiology and systems biology. These communities speak different conceptual languages. One seeks clarity through abstraction and reduction; the other recoils from reduction as distortion and insists on embracing complexity. What the public hears as a clash of worldviews is often, more realistically, a mismatch of disciplinary priorities.

Conclusion: Neo-Darwinism Is Evolving, Not Extinct

Noble's critiques are valuable, especially for highlighting the limitations of a purely gene-centered focus when it comes to development, physiology, and the real-time causation of biological processes. His systems-level view brings depth and nuance to evolutionary thinking. Yet Dawkins remains on firmer ground when it comes to the fundamental mechanisms that shape long-term evolutionary change. Despite the increasing richness of epigenetics, niche construction, developmental bias, and systems biology, none has replaced the central role of heritable genetic variation filtered by natural selection.

Neo-Darwinism, far from being dead, is undergoing renovation. The foundations remain intact, but the structure has gained new wings, new corridors, and new complexity. What emerges is not a discarded paradigm, but a more comprehensive evolutionary theory—one in which Noble's insights broaden the picture while Dawkins' logic continues to anchor it.