Evolutionary theory and scientific thinking

In natural sciences, the advance of evolutionary thought and growth of empirical knowledge are not strictly correlated. The state of theory primarily tends to be controlled by a mode of collective thinking that historically dominates a given branch of science. This particularly holds true for the natural selection concept, which has two alternative interpretations known as the genetic and epigenetic theories of evolution. The final result of their competition, albeit predictable, will not be based upon any kind of “crucial evidence” giving advantage to either of them. The above result will be in fact attained as soon as the evolutionary biology can overcome the tradition of mosaic thinking which enables the incompatible concepts to be combined. In this respect, the key point to be realized is that the idea of corpuscular determination of the ontogeny is incompatible with understanding the development as a systemically controlled process.