IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB067118452

The Creativity of Natural Selection? Part II: The Synthesis and Since (2019)

Beatty, John H. (Author)

Journal of the History of Biology
Volume: 52
Issue: 4
Pages: 705-731

DOI: 10.1007/s10739-019-09583-4

URI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-019-09583-4

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Modern Synthesis (biology) Natural selection Evolution Darwinism Controversies and disputes 20th century, early 19th century

This is the second of a two-part essay on the history of debates concerning the creativity of natural selection, from Darwin through the evolutionary synthesis and up to the present. In the first part, I focussed on the mid-late nineteenth century to the early twentieth, with special emphasis on early Darwinism and its critics, the self-styled “mutationists.” The second part focuses on the evolutionary synthesis and some of its critics, especially the “neutralists” and “neo-mutationists.” Like Stephen Gould, I consider the creativity of natural selection to be a key component of what has traditionally counted as “Darwinism.” I argue that the creativity of natural selection is best understood in terms of (1) selection initiating evolutionary change, and (2) selection directing evolutionary change, for example by creating the variation that it subsequently acts upon. I consider the respects in which both of these claims sound non-Darwinian, even though they have long been understood by supporters and critics alike to be virtually constitutive of Darwinism.

...More

Included in

Article Philippe Huneman (2019) Special Issue Editor’s Introduction: “Revisiting the Modern Synthesis”. Journal of the History of Biology (pp. 509-518). unapi

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB067118452/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Bowler, Peter J.; (2014)
Francis Galton's Saltationism and the Ambiguities of Selection (/isis/citation/CBB001421642/)

Book Leeuwenburgh, Bart; (2009)
Darwin in Domineesland (/isis/citation/CBB001024341/)

Article Alan Grafen; (2019)
Should we ask for more than consistency of Darwinism with Mendelism? (/isis/citation/CBB453166142/)

Article Hall, Brian K.; (2006)
“Evolutionist and Missionary,” the Reverend John Thomas Gulick (1832--1923). Part I: Cumulative Segregation---Geographical Isolation (/isis/citation/CBB001230142/)

Book Jones, Jeannette Eileen; Sharp, Patrick B.; (2010)
Darwin in Atlantic Cultures: Evolutionary Visions of Race, Gender, and Sexuality (/isis/citation/CBB001033825/)

Article Hall, Brian K.; (2006)
“Evolutionist and Missionary,” the Reverend John Thomas Gulick (1832--1923). Part II. Coincident or Ontogenetic Selection---The Baldwin Effect (/isis/citation/CBB001230143/)

Article Nash, Richard; (2015)
William Keith Brooks and the Naturalist's Defense of Darwinism in the Late-Nineteenth Century (/isis/citation/CBB001510220/)

Thesis Pearce, Trevor Richard; (2010)
“A Perfect Chaos”: Organism-Environment Interaction and the Causal Factors of Evolution (/isis/citation/CBB001562740/)

Article Ulrich Krohs; (2022)
Darwin’s empirical claim and the janiform character of fitness proxies (/isis/citation/CBB424930844/)

Book Zarimis, Maria; (2015)
Darwin's Footprint: Cultural Perspectives on Evolution in Greece (1880--1930s) (/isis/citation/CBB001551568/)

Article Levit, Georgy S.; Hossfeld, Uwe; Olsson, Lennart; (2014)
The Darwinian Revolution in Germany: From Evolutionary Morphology to the Modern Synthesis (/isis/citation/CBB001500033/)

Book Charles H. Pence; (2021)
The Rise of Chance in Evolutionary Theory: A Pompous Parade of Arithmetic (/isis/citation/CBB843376661/)

Article Thomas Junker; (2008)
The Downfall of Civilised Nations in the Light of Biology: Erwin Baur’s Darwinian Doomsday Science (1922/32) (/isis/citation/CBB119512689/)

Chapter Martins, Lilian Al-Chueyr Pereira; (2010)
Regeneration as a Difficulty for the Theory of Natural Selection: Morgan's Changing Attitudes, 1897--1932 (/isis/citation/CBB001250587/)

Article John Beatty; (2016)
The Creativity of Natural Selection? Part I: Darwin, Darwinism, and the Mutationists (/isis/citation/CBB866481933/)

Book Roberta Visone; (2022)
Selezione naturale ed equilibrio mobile della natura. L'evoluzionismo di Alfred Russel Wallace tra Darwin e Spencer (/isis/citation/CBB061983453/)

Article Lucas, A. M.; (2010)
Ferdinand von Mueller's Interactions with Charles Darwin and His Response to Darwinism (/isis/citation/CBB000933012/)

Book Grosz, Elizabeth; (2011)
Becoming Undone: Darwinian Reflections on Life, Politics, and Art (/isis/citation/CBB001221153/)

Article Haufe, Chris; (2012)
Darwin's Laws (/isis/citation/CBB001221610/)

Chapter Engels, Eve-Marie; (2009)
Charles Darwins geheimnisvolle Revolution (/isis/citation/CBB001023713/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}