Ripensare Darwin? Di ex‐aptations e neotenie. E di Topolino, Pippo e simpatiche salamandre messicane

Rethinking Darwin? About Ex‐aptations and Neotenies. Concerning Mickey Mouse, Goofy and likeable mexican Salamanders The theory of evolution by natural selection of Charles Darwin, whose first general exposure dates back to 1859, with the publication of the Origin of Species, is still a matter of intense debate among natural sciences’ scholars and philosophers. After the merger of Darwinian evolutionary research program with the theory of heredity of Gregor Mendel, the mathematical form of population genetics and the analysis of paleontological data (Modern Synthesis) and the the important contributions of post-Darwinian authors such as S.J. Gould and N. Eldredge we are entering a new era of great discoveries and news. On the one hand, new data from genetics and paleoanthropology, on the other hand the impetuous development of some fields of applied science such as nanobiotechnology, genetic engineering and synthetic biology put us into the need and the urgency to underline, once again, the relevance and the extraordinary heuristic power of Darwinian research program, an even greater urgency since some authors have announced that we would be at a time to access a post-Darwinian and post-evolutionary era in which man as we actually know it is about to disappear.