Chapitre 5 et 6

Gene, Organism and
Environment
By Richard C. Lewontin
Jean Lachapelle

Au-delà de la théorie
darwinienne?
• La théorie de l’évolution est la synthèse des
idées de:
a) Darwin
b) Mendel
•Cette théorie explique en partie le succès de
la biologie, mais certaines de ses
suppositions doivent être critiquées si l’on
veut que la biologie progresse de nouveau.

Dichotomies constitutives
•De façon plus spéficique, cette théorie
repose sur les dichotomies suivantes:
A) Forces internes et forces externes
B) Sujet (rôle actif) et objet (rôle
passif — “the objectification of the
organism”) de l’évolution
C) Organisme et environnement

Ontogénie et phylogénie
• “The essence of Darwin’s account of
evolution was the separation of causes
of ontogenic variation, as coming from
internal factors, and causes of
phylogenetic variation, as being
imposed from the external environment
by way of natural selection.” (59)

Méta-structure
• ”By making organisms the objects of forces
whose subjects were the internal heritable
factors and the external environment, by
seeing organisms as the effects whose
causes were internal and external
autonomous agents, Mendel and Darwin
brought biology at last into conformity with the
epistemological meta-structure that already
characterized physics since Newton and
chemistry since Lavoisier.” (60)