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Despite its grip on the scientific culture of affluent societies, the reign of the gene as the supposed "secret of life" is coming to an end. The more we learn about natural systems the clearer it becomes that genes are only one class of factors influencing phenotypic development and evolution.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Investigates why people reject an evolutionary account of complex biological systems to argue that Darwin's evolutionary mechanism does not explain the innovation of entirely new structures. Biological innovation is increasingly acknowledged by biologists working in the field of evolutionary developmental biology (EvoDevo). The phenotypic plasticity implied by EvoDevo that was suppressed by Cold War politics now emerges as an evolutionary developmental biology. The creationist challenge to neo-Darwinian incrementalist scenarios & credulous positing of a nano-engineer God creates more puzzles than it solves. The discourse around evolution must open to scientific perspectives beyond Darwinism that can discuss new scientific principles of self-organization on the nano-scale. J. Harwell