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How niche construction theory extends evolutionary theory beyond natural selection to a more general theory about the coevolution of organisms with their environments.
In Niche Construction, John Odling-Smee, the leading authority on niche construction theory, extends evolutionary theory from an explanation of how populations of organisms respond to natural selection pressures in their environments to a more general theory about the coevolution of organisms with their environments. Organisms, he shows, cause changes in their local external environments by interacting with them, thereby contributing in fundamental ways to their own and one another's evolution. This book applies niche construction theory to current problems such as human-induced global warming and suggests how humans might contribute positively to the future evolution of life on Earth.
Odling-Smee explains how orthodox evolutionary theory falls short in two ways. First, it does not describe how organisms contribute to their own and one another's evolution through their environment-changing niche constructing activities. Second, it fails to explain how genetic evolution can give rise to supplementary knowledge-gaining processes in many species. These include certain developmental processes in individual organisms and socio-cultural processes in animals, including humans. Neo-Darwinism, the author writes, assesses the fitness of individual organisms in populations in terms of their capacity to survive and reproduce, but without attributing these capacities to the active, purposeful agency of organisms. He argues that the purposeful agency of individual organisms plays a central role in evolution. He also discusses the relationship of an organism's energy-consuming activities and the second law of thermodynamics.
John Odling-Smee is an Emeritus Fellow of Mansfield College, University of Oxford. He is a coauthor of Niche Construction: The Neglected Process in Evolution.
"This thought-provoking synthesis is both a scientist's meditation on the nature of life and an expansive contemporary framework for understanding the adaptive evolution of organisms as they respond to, shape, and coevolve with their environments."
– Sonia E. Sultan, Alan M. Dachs Professor of Science, Wesleyan University; author of Organism & Environment: Ecological Development, Niche Construction, and Adaptation
"In this well-written book, John Odling-Smee proposes nothing less than a major transition in evolutionary theory, a grand view of purposeful life, an 'eco-evo-devo synthesis' emerging from merging the extended evolutionary synthesis with thermodynamics and information theory."
– Scott F. Gilbert, Howard A. Schneiderman Professor Emeritus, Swarthmore College, and Finnish Distinguished Professor, University of Helsinki; author of Developmental Biology and Ecological Developmental Biology
"Readers will discover that niches are far more than just comfortable places to live. Odling-Smee describes niche construction as an essential feature of evolution and expands the concept to the origin of life on Earth."
– David Deamer, Professor Emeritus, UC Santa Cruz
"How do Maxwell's demon and von Neumann's natural automata relate to an organism's survival and reproduction? Odling-Smee ingeniously relates basic concepts from physics and chemistry to biological evolution, making it clear why we need the extended evolutionary synthesis he eloquently describes."
– Marcus Feldman, coauthor of Cultural Transmission and Evolution: A Quantitative Approach and Population Genetics
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