As the environment becomes organism. About the Darwin-Wagner debate.

Abstract

The 'provisional hypothesis' of pangenesis seems to be associated with a reduction of the role of geographical isolation as a factor of speciation or novelty in Darwinian thinking. On the one hand, this fact draws the attention on the interacting processes concerning the internal dynamics of organisms' development together with their effects on evolution and, on the other, the defense of the gradual action of natural selection in changing living forms. Nevertheless, these ways reveal an intimate contrast which brings to a missed synthesis. Our purpose is to show how the pangenesis could be the compromise between environment's action and the constitution of specific adaptive traits, without resorting to the idea of environment as something which gives instructions or to the idea of the organism as a vehicle. To this purpose it seems interesting to start from the speciation's problem and the origin of adaptive traits at the heart of Wagner-Darwin debate.