Is a Cognitive Revolution in Theoretical Biology Underway?

Abstract

The foundations of biology have been a topic of debate for the past few decades. The traditional perspective of the Modern Synthesis, which portrays organisms as passive entities with a limited explanatory role in evolutionary theory, is giving way to a new paradigm where organisms are recognized as active agents, actively shaping their own phenotypic traits for adaptive goals. Within this context, this article raises the question of whether contemporary biological theory is undergoing a cognitive revolution. This inquiry can be approached in two ways: from a theoretical standpoint, exploring the centrality of the cognitive sciences in current theoretical biology; and from a historical perspective, examining the resemblance between the current state of theoretical biology and the Cognitive Revolution of the mid-20th century. Both inquiries yield affirmative answers, though important nuances will be emphasized. The cognitive sciences' explanatory framework is employed to elucidate the agentic characteristics of organisms, establishing a clear parallelism between the Cognitive Revolution and the present state of theoretical biology.