Structuralism
He was also a strong advocate of the view that genes cannot fully explain the complexity of biological systems. In that sense, he became one of the strongest defenders of the systems view against reductionism. Among other contributions, he suggested that nonlinear phenomena and the fundamental laws defining their behavior were essential in order to understand biology and its evolutionary paths. His position within evolutionary biology can be defined as a structuralist one. To Goodwin, many patterns that we observe in nature are a byproduct of constraints imposed by complexity. The limited repertoire of motifs observed in the spatial organization of plants and animals (at some scales) would be, in Goodwin's opinion, a fingerprint of the role played by such constraints. The role of selection would be secondary.
These opinions were highly controversial and Goodwin came into conflict with many prominent Darwinian evolutionists, whereas many physicists found some of his view natural. Physicist Murray Gell-Mann for example acknowledged that "when biological evolution — based on largely random variation in genetic material and on natural selection — operates on the structure of actual organisms, it does so subject to the laws of physical science, which place crucial limitations on how living things can be constructed.". Richard Dawkins, the former professor for public understanding of science at Oxford University and a well known Darwinian evolutionist, conceded: "I don't think there's much good evidence to support, but it's important that somebody like Brian Goodwin is saying that kind of thing, because it provides the other extreme, and the truth probably lies somewhere between." Dawkins also agreed that "It's a genuinely interesting possibility that the underlying laws of morphology allow only a certain limited range of shapes.". For his part, Goodwin did not reject basic Darwinism, only its excesses.
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