Article ID: CBB603354866

The Unfinished Synthesis?: Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology in the 20th Century (2019)

unapi

In the received view of the history of the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis, paleontology was given a prominent role in evolutionary biology thanks to the significant influence of paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson on both the institutional and conceptual development of the Synthesis. Simpson's 1944 Tempo and Mode in Evolution is considered a classic of Synthesis-era biology, and Simpson often remarked on the influence of other major Synthesis figures – such as Ernst Mayr and Theodosius Dobzhansky – on his developing thought. Why, then, did paleontologists of the 1970s and 1980s – Stephen Jay Gould, Niles Eldredge, David M. Raup, Steven Stanley, and others – so frequently complain that paleontology remained marginalized within evolutionary biology? This essay considers three linked questions: first, were paleontologists genuinely welcomed into the Synthetic project during its initial stages? Second, was the initial promise of the role for paleontology realized during the decades between 1950 and 1980, when the Synthesis supposedly "hardened" to an "orthodoxy"? And third, did the period of organized dissent and opposition to this orthodoxy by paleontologists during the 1970s and 1980s bring about a long-delayed completion to the Modern Synthesis, or rather does it highlight the wider failure of any such unified Darwinian evolutionary consensus?

...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/CBB603354866/

Similar Citations

Article Smocovitis, Vassiliki Betty; (2014)
Disciplining and Popularizing: Evolution and Its Publics from the Modern Synthesis to the Present (/isis/citation/CBB001420093/)

Book Laporte, Léo F.; (2000)
George Gaylord Simpson. Paleontologist and Evolutionist (/isis/citation/CBB000100395/)

Article Laporte, Léo F.; (2013)
A Novice's Biography of George Gaylord Simpson (/isis/citation/CBB001212344/)

Book Sepkoski, David; (2012)
Rereading the Fossil Record: The Growth of Paleobiology as an Evolutionary Discipline (/isis/citation/CBB001210043/)

Article Anya Plutynski; (2019)
Speciation Post Synthesis: 1960–2000 (/isis/citation/CBB489906012/)

Thesis Paton, Miranda Vierra; (2008)
Vertebrate Paleontology and the Evolutionary Synthesis, 1894--1944 (/isis/citation/CBB001560692/)

Article Philippe Huneman; (2019)
How the Modern Synthesis Came to Ecology (/isis/citation/CBB692195212/)

Article Yoichi Ishida; (2017)
Sewall Wright, shifting balance theory, and the hardening of the modern synthesis (/isis/citation/CBB492038485/)

Article Ben Bradley; (2022)
Natural selection according to Darwin: Cause or effect? (/isis/citation/CBB830954057/)

Article Laporte, Léo F.; (1994)
Simpson on species (/isis/citation/CBB000036620/)

Chapter Hagen, Joel B.; (2009)
Descended from Darwin? George Gaylord Simpson, Morris Goodman, and Primate Systematics (/isis/citation/CBB001022521/)

Chapter Ruse, Michael; (1999)
Evolutionary ethics in the 20th century: Julian Sorell Huxley and George Gaylord Simpson (/isis/citation/CBB000083344/)

Authors & Contributors
Laporte, Léo F.
Ceccarelli, David
Emily Herrington
Tamborini, Marco
Ishida, Yoichi
Swetlitz, Marc
Concepts
Evolution
Paleontology
Modern Synthesis (biology)
Biology
Discipline formation
Scientific communities; interprofessional relations
Time Periods
20th century
21st century
20th century, early
19th century
20th century, late
Places
United States
Spain
Germany
Comments

Be the first to comment!

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

Log in or register to comment