Crítica de Gould ao Neodarwinismo: a ampliação do horizonte explicativo da Teoria Evolutiva Contemporânea

Abstract

The present dissertation has two main objectives; the first one is to explain the theoretical debate between the synthetic theory of evolution or neodarwinism, and one of its main opponents, the paleontologist and evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould. It consists of evaluating, on the basis of the gouldian critics, the real necessity of widening of explicative window of the theory of the evolution, and on witch where measure the widening in what the theory must consider it points in direction to a new evolutionary paradigm. The theoretical picture of the synthetic theory was elaboratedby authors of diverse fields throughout the XX century, and started to be contested in the 70's, based on scientific data which do not fit in the neodarwinist explanation, generating new speculations and hypothesis on the mechanisms of evolution. The synthetic theory says that evolution has a slow and gradual rhythm, with natural selection as the main agent of this process, with the species adapting to the environment. Amongst the criticisms carried out by Gould and his collaborators, there are three basic ones: the criticism to the slow rhythm of evolution or gradualism, contained in his theory of the punctuaded equilibria of 1972; the criticismto the adaptionist program, undertaken in 1979, which focuses on the claim that all the characteristics of the organisms result in the way they adapt themselves to survive and generate offsprings; the demonstration of the contingence of the process. Gould signals to the necessity of revision and expansion in the evolution theory, recognizing the relevance of the mechanisms that must be taken into account in the evolutionary explanations. These elements must be explained by a more complete theory of evolution, covering explanation gaps that the synthetic theory andits postulates can not resolve. There isn't any new theory of evolution, but the necessity to make sharper the danA/inism project, adapting theory to data demanding some explanation. It is not the scope of this dissertation to explain the details of the theory of evolution by natural selection as elaborated by Darwin, nor to go deeper in the quarrels of strict biology. From this debate, we will try to evaluate in which measure a reorganization of evolutionary theory is indeed necessary, and whetherGould's works offers a new frame or paradigm for evolutionary biology and, by extension, to biology as a whole.