Article ID: CBB001023986

What Was Really Synthesized during the Evolutionary Synthesis? A Historiographic Proposal (2011)

unapi

Delisle, Richard G. (Author)


Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Volume: 42
Pages: 50--59


Publication Date: 2011
Edition Details: Part of a special issue, “Defining Darwinism: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Debate”
Language: English

The 1920-1960 period saw the creation of the conditions for a unification of disciplines in the area of evolutionary biology under a limited number of theoretical prescriptions: the evolutionary synthesis. Whereas the sociological dimension of this synthesis was fairly successful, it was surprisingly loose when it came to the interpretation of the evolutionary mechanisms per se, and completely lacking at the level of the foundational epistemological and metaphysical commitments. Key figures such as Huxley, Simpson, Dobzhansky, and Rensch only paid lip service to the conceptual dimension of the evolutionary synthesis, as they eventually realized that a number of evolutionary phenomena could not be explained by its narrow theoretical corpus. Apparently, the evolutionary synthesis constituted a premature event in the development of evolutionary biology. Not only are the real achievements of the evolutionary synthesis in need of reevaluation, but this reassessment also has important implications for the historiography of Darwinism and the current debates about the darwinian movement.

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Article Hull, David L. (2011) Defining Darwinism. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (p. 2). unapi

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001023986/

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Authors & Contributors
Ruse, Michael
Cain, Joe
Ceccarelli, David
Pereira Martins, Lilian Al-Chueyr
Witteveen, Joeri
Witt, Ulrich
Concepts
Evolution
Genetics
Darwinism
Biology
Paleontology
Controversies and disputes
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
20th century, early
18th century
Places
United States
Great Britain
Ukraine
Germany
Soviet Union
Brazil
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