What is Post-Neo-Darwinism?

Grok’s answer to this question:

Post-neo-Darwinism is not a single, formal scientific theory with a precise definition. It is a loose label used in different contexts for evolutionary ideas that extend, refine, or critique the neo-Darwinian modern synthesis.

Neo-Darwinism (the baseline)

Neo-Darwinism generally refers to the modern evolutionary synthesis (roughly 1918–1940s and its later refinements). It integrates Darwin’s natural selection with Mendelian genetics and population genetics. Key features include:

  • A strongly gene-centric view of evolution.
  • Random genetic mutation as the primary source of variation.
  • Natural selection as the main creative force shaping adaptations.
  • Gradual change via shifts in allele frequencies.
  • Rejection of the inheritance of acquired characteristics (Weismann barrier).

Later popularizations (e.g., Hamilton’s inclusive fitness and Dawkins’ “selfish gene”) further emphasized adaptationism and gene-level selection.

What “post-neo-Darwinism” points to

The term appears in a few overlapping senses:

  • In some usages (e.g., certain European discussions), it simply names the later 20th-century mainstream that combines the modern synthesis with gene-centrism and broad adaptationism. In this framing, newer approaches such as evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) are sometimes presented as potentially moving beyond it.
  • More commonly in critical or progressive literature, it labels efforts to go beyond a strict neo-Darwinian picture by incorporating additional mechanisms and a more pluralistic view of causation. Related ideas include the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES), calls for a “postmodern synthesis,” and the “Third Way of Evolution.” These emphasize:
    • Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance and other non-genetic forms of inheritance.
    • Niche construction (organisms actively modify their environments).
    • Developmental bias, phenotypic plasticity, and evo-devo processes.
    • Multilevel selection.
    • Horizontal gene transfer, endosymbiosis/symbiogenesis, and mobile genetic elements.
    • Complex regulatory networks rather than simple “one gene–one trait” mapping.
    • In some versions (e.g., work associated with James Shapiro or Denis Noble), greater organismal or cellular agency in generating variation (“natural genetic engineering”).

Genomic and systems-biology perspectives (e.g., Eugene Koonin) have also stressed that neutral processes, purifying selection, gene duplication, HGT, and other non-adaptive or non-gradual mechanisms play major roles, so natural selection of beneficial mutations is important but not all-embracing.

Historical note

In 1986, population geneticist Joseph Felsenstein published a skeptical review titled “Waiting for Post-Neo-Darwin.” He noted that popular claims of a revolutionary replacement for the modern synthesis often consisted of buzzwords (developmental constraints, punctuated equilibrium, epigenetics, etc.) that did not yet form a coherent alternative theory. Many of those themes have since been productively integrated into evolutionary biology without overturning its core framework.

Bottom line

Post-neo-Darwinism is best understood as a descriptive umbrella for more pluralistic, post-genomic, and systems-oriented views of evolution. These views retain natural selection and genetic inheritance as central while giving greater weight to development, non-genetic inheritance, horizontal processes, niche construction, and the complexity of genotype–phenotype mapping. Mainstream evolutionary biology has absorbed many of these insights; whether they require a formal “new synthesis” or simply an expanded modern synthesis remains debated.

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I also asked my browser’s AI. Here’s it’s answer:

Post-neo-darwinism refers to a set of modern evolutionary theories that challenge or extend the Modern Synthesis (traditional neo-Darwinism) by incorporating mechanisms beyond random genetic mutation and natural selection.  It encompasses frameworks such as the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES), post-darwinism, and integrative synthesis, which emphasize the roles of developmental plasticity, epigenetics, niche construction, and symbiosis in evolutionary change. 

Key distinctions from traditional neo-Darwinism include:

  • Mechanisms of Variation: Unlike neo-Darwinism, which views variation as primarily random and genetic, post-neo-darwinist theories suggest the environment can influence variation through epigenetic modifications and developmental plasticity, sometimes allowing for inheritable changes not solely dictated by DNA sequence alterations. 
  • Role of the Organism: These theories shift the view of the organism from a passive vehicle for gene replication to an active agent in evolution through niche construction and behavioral choices, arguing that symbiosis and coherence are as fundamental as competition.
  • Conceptual Frameworks: Proponents argue for a multilevel and systems-based understanding of biology, where gene function is context-dependent and cellular cognition plays a central role, rather than relying on a strict “gene-centric” or “selfish gene” narrative. 
  • Integration of New Data: The framework integrates findings from genomics, evo-devo, and prokaryotic biology, suggesting that the traditional “modern synthesis” is incomplete because it fails to account for complex gene networks, pleiotropy, and non-genetic inheritance. 

‘Why Feminized Institutions Stop Telling the Truth’

15-minute video by Liam Out Loud.

Here’s the Grok summary: 

The speaker claims that science once prioritized discovering objective truths about the universe through the scientific method, but “the great feminization” has inverted this. Many scientists (especially in psychology and related fields) now rank social equity and ideological goals above truth when the two conflict.

Key evidence cited:

  • A survey of U.S. psychology professors found 66.4% of male professors prioritized scientific truth over social equity goals, versus only 43% of female professors (a 23-point gap). Nearly all professors feared social sanctions for expressing empirical beliefs that challenge prevailing views. Younger, more left-leaning, and female faculty were especially opposed to controversial scholarship.
  • The 2015 Open Science Collaboration replication crisis in psychology is presented as a symptom of values other than truth (ideology, status, etc.) dominating the field.
  • Psychology faculty are already ~56% women; women earn 71–75% of new psychology doctorates. Projecting forward, once the field reaches ~73% women, fewer than half of professors would rank truth first.
  • Affirmative action / DEI policies that artificially increase women’s representation are said to accelerate this shift, with downstream effects on education, medicine, HR, therapy, media, policy, and culture.

The speaker further argues that women, on average, are less tolerant of controversial or opposing viewpoints than men (citing FIRE free-speech data showing the sex gap exceeds the left-right gap). This is linked to a greater emphasis on consensus, social cohesion, and reputation management. An example given is the Jason Arday plagiarism case at Cambridge and the subsequent treatment of critic Nathan Cofnas: institutions allegedly protected identity/equity signaling while punishing the person who exposed fraud.

Evolutionary and psychological framing is used to explain the pattern:

  • Frans de Waal’s observations of chimpanzee politics (female-initiated coalition aggression, preference for social harmony over pure outcomes).
  • Gustave Le Bon’s crowd psychology (loss of independent judgment in favor of group belonging).
  • Nietzsche on the “will to truth” versus herd morality, and Jung on masculine “perfection” (selective, ideal-striving) versus feminine “completeness” (inclusive).

Core thesis: Institutions that select primarily for social equity and consensus (a “feminine-coded” orientation) inevitably devalue truth, competence, and open inquiry. Science, law, and academia require discrimination on the basis of truth/justice/intelligence; treating them like families or communities that prioritize inclusion over standards is said to destroy their purpose. The speaker does not advocate blocking capable women, but opposes artificial engineering of equal representation via DEI because it changes institutional incentives and culture in ways he views as detrimental.

1694: The Year the World Changed

Longish, but hugely instructive article. 

Here are two quotes: 

“This is where the neuropsychiatrist Iain McGilchrist enters. He argues that Western civilization has suffered a catastrophic imbalance—a dominance of the left hemisphere’s mode of attention. The left brain fragments, abstracts, and re-presents the world as a static, manipulable system. It mistakes its own symbols for reality. The right brain perceives the whole—the living, the embodied, the sacred. But when the left brain dominates, it builds a machine that cannot see what it is destroying.”

“The irony was almost biblical. William III had taken the throne to preserve Protestant Christendom. But the financial architecture he signed into existence would eventually hollow out that Christendom from within. The king who fought to keep the old faith in power had inadvertently signed its death warrant. The system he built did not care whether its debtors were Catholic or Protestant—it cared only about yield, security, and return. In doing so, it replaced the cross with the balance sheet.”

In other words: When (not if) our current banking system collapses, the path will be open for a world-wide revival. 

Afterthought: 

William III’s relying on merchants who pressured him into doing something deeply dishonest – instead of relying on God, reminds me of the prophets’ warnings towards Israel (or Judah) against relying on support from Egypt against Assyria, instead of relying on God. Similar outcome, too, in the long term. 

Gnosticism: The Enduring Heresy and Menace to Western Civilization

Article by Charles Burris.

Excerpts:

When people discuss the core foundations of Western Civilization they usually point to two primary contributions which are labeled Athens (Greek philosophy and the idea of cognition and rationality) and Jerusalem (Judeo-Christianity and the monotheistic faith in a transcendent creator God as opposed to pagan pantheism).

With this Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian intellectual inheritance (in addition to the various elements offered by the barbarian Germanic tribes and the Muslim world) Western civilization has developed as “logocentric” or reasoned speech-centered.

From the time of the Protestant Reformation, particular emphasis has been placed upon the written word as a means of transmitting and recording knowledge, away from the earlier “art of memory” or oral tradition of classic Greek and Roman antiquity.

But there has been a third constant element, sometimes hidden or underground and considered “heretical” or unorthodox, that has existed as a component of Western Civilization which we may label as Egypt (in reference to the Nag Hammadi Gnostic manuscripts found there in 1945).

Leftists, ultimately can be traced back to ancient pagans, particularly the Gnostics, who did not believe the Universe was created by a transcendent Other (which we call God). They are in total revolt and total denial of the very facts of Creatology and Cosmology. Like their Gnostic forebears, they hate the material creation of the Universe by this false “God” (whom the Gnostics called the Demiurge.)

This is most profoundly found in the writing of Karl Marx, who was a militant atheist who hated and was envious of “God” for creating the Universe. Marx, in his unfathomable, maniacal megalomania, wanted to destroy “God” and the world in which he lived and recreate a new world in his image.

From the seductive serpent in the Biblical Garden of Eden to Marx and his delusional followers, the essential message of the Left to humanity is believe in and follow us in our path of destruction and “You shall be as gods,” and create an athesied paradise of a Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. This is the goal of the neopagan pantheist Left and its syncretistic, egalitarian vision of a Sophianic Millennium — the deification of humanity.

Murray Rothbard’s Karl Marx: Communist as Religious Eschatologist, recognizes all this and is therefore the most definitive analysis and destructive weapon against the ideas of Marx and the Left. Rothbard traces the malevolent historic legacy of the Left as no one before. Particular note his brilliant discussion of Reabsorption Theology.

Christianity and the West have been at war for hundreds of years with a succession of gnostic political religions and mass movements seeking to impose brutal elite rule and mastery of their subject peoples. These sinister efforts have been responsible for untold death, destruction, and misery. Over one hundred million persons alone perished in the 20th Century as a result of these murderous totalitarian gnostic regimes.

The study of the construction of pseudo-secular gnostic religions has been one of the principal obsessions of my life since I heard Gerhart Niemeyer of Notre Dame lecture on it in 1975 at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s Western Summer School at Thomas Aquinas College. Niemeyer was a keen student of Eric Voegelin on these matters, as was Murray Rothbard. Today the leading popularized scholar in this area is the great James Lindsey.

I believe understanding this 2000 year battle between orthodox Roman Catholic Christianity and Gnosticism is the ultimate key to unlocking the history of the previous two millennia.

This is the penultimate menace that Western Civilization, and especially the United States, faces today. This is what has motivated the destructive riotous mobs of thugs and looters in the streets, the craven willfully ignorant “cancel culture” corporatists, the seditious professoriat in court academia, and the prestitutes in the establishment regime media.