There has been quite a controversy over the past few years over whether the extended evolutionary synthesis is a replacement of the modern synthesis or a refinement of it.
In this presentation from the AM-Nat Biology conference, I argue that the reason why the extended evolutionary synthesis (EES) has been struggling to find a foothold is because they don’t communicate a unifying principle like the modern synthesis (MS) did. The MS unifying principle was that evolution proceeds from a combination of random mutation and natural selection. In this presentation I show (a) a potential unifying principle for the EES, and (b) how this principle necessarily represents a replacement, not a refinement, of the MS.