Evolutionary Developmental Biology Offers a Significant Challenge to the Neo-Darwinian Paradigm

In this paper, I note that in evaluating present-day evo-devo the question for us is not only whether evo-devo is revolutionary in some sense, but also whether sometimes a "revolutionary" position in science can actually resemble more a "counter-revolution." I argue that the relationship between evo-devo and the neo-Darwinian paradigm can be interpreted exactly like that, and that the revolutionary nature of evo-devo lies precisely in its return to a more inclusive conception of phenotypic evolution, one that more closely resembles the conceptual framework of Darwin and the first few generations of evolutionists than the more narrowly focused interpretation of the Modern Synthesis. However, I also argue that evo-devo is by no means "reactionary" as it approaches these more traditional conceptual problems with all the methodological, technological, and empirical advances of the last six decades of biological research.