Studying the phenotypic evolution of organisms in terms of populations of genes and genotypes, the Modern Synthesis (MS) conceptualizes biological evolution in terms of 'inter-organismal' interactions among genes sitting in the different individual organisms that constitute a population.
It 'black-boxes' the complex 'intra-organismic' molecular and developmental epigenetics that mediates between genotypes and phenotypes. To conceptually integrate epigenetics into evolutionary theory, advocates of an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) argue that the MS's reductive gene-centrism should be abandoned in favour of a more inclusive organism-centred
approach. To push the debate to a new level of understanding, I introduce the evolutionary biology of 'intra-genomic conflict' to the controversy. This field is both gene-centred and 'intraorganismic' and, as such, could build a bridge between the gene-centred MS and the intraorganismic field of epigenetics. I will build an evolutionary model based on intra-genomic conflict
and compromise - an intra-genomic gene's eye view - that thinks in terms of combinatorial behavioural-ecological interactions among genes within the genome, as such allowing to consider a combinatorial increase of genetic information compared to when genes are considered separately. This 'non-reductively gene-centred' model will be used to evolutionary-genetically
underpin both molecular and developmental epigenetics.