Adaptive Developmental Bias is Created By Natural Selection, Types of ‘Devbias’

Abstract

Andrzej Gecow

The term 'developmental bias' promoted in the Special Issue of ‘Evolution & Development’ was initially defined as the effect in evolution direction creating by correlation of changed developmental parameters. The understanding of the term is in the Special Issue much broader and very poorly defined. Promoting such a broad term related to observation makes difficult to explain specific mechanisms. It is now time for the task of explaining to become more important in biology than just collecting facts. The term requires quick organization and division into many different concepts. I suggest replacing this term with a shorter one (devbias) with an additional ending indicating a specific variant according to the proposed ordering system. Mainly the mechanisms giving variability clearly focused on greater fitness (devbiases4) have been emphasized. Devbias4 was treated in Special Issue as an independent source of adaptation supporting natural selection. Focusing on the time interval of current evolution, where collected devbiases4 indeed supports natural selection, it is usually forgotten to stress that they are also the result of previous natural selection and only mediate the transmission of its effects. This leads to a dangerous message beyond biology that scientific observations have shown that the Darwinian mechanism is not the only source of adaptation. By the way of ordering ‘devbias’ the understanding of ‘randomness’ is discussed to show differences between ‘flat or isotropic distribution’, ‘variation blind on needs’ and ‘real random variability’ which in Special Issue are typically mixed.

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