Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
extending one's view beyond the individual to see the genealogical
line as the prime entity, and no longer the organism. It is possible,
indeed, to be interested in the first instance in the relationships
between beings that resemble each other. The idea that then
appears is that of the relationship which unites them, and is based
on the material continuity of living beings occurring through the
transmission of a germinal cell and its hereditary material. Earlier
we recalled Darwin's nominalism. He did not cling to this negative
position. Through this nominalism he rejected the essentialist defi-
nition of the species, but in its place he substituted an evolution-
ary definition. In his eyes, a species is a genealogical line for a group
of organisms that have the same common ancestor. In such a con-
cept, the genealogical link becomes the first principle and the
organism a secondary entity produced by the process creating that
link, i.e. the evolutionary process itself. The organism is an entity
which has no existence except as an instant in the continuous
process of reproducing organisms. This genealogical idea of the liv-
ing being is implicit in Darwin and explicitly stated by Bernard
(Bernard, 1878).
However, it has nowadays disappeared from contemporary phys-
iology, and biology must confront another contradiction. Since the
dawn of genetics, it has been dominated by the point of view which
considers the individual organism to be a first principle, whereas
living beings are historical productions, the explanation of which
requires a genealogical design. Neo-Darwinian synthesis has attempted
to resolve this problem but has not managed to do so, as it continues
to consider ontogenesis and phylogenesis as arising from two distinct
processes. Ontophylogenesis, on the other hand, removes this contra-
diction because it allows effective synthesis of the two points of view
by combining embryogenesis and evolution in a single process.
1.5
Man lost in the Amazonian forest
Another very widely held opinion consists in believing that the diffi-
culties encountered in biology arise from the complexity of the living
being. This complexity is supposed to be related to its hierarchical
