Description
Book SynopsisThis collection of twelve essays by biologists, historians, and philosophers examines the growth and conceptual structure of the modern evolutionary synthesis, or 'neo-Darwinism'. Taken as a whole, it provides a penetrating analysis of the development, meaning and problems of twentieth-century evolutionary theory.
Table of ContentsList of contributors; Acknowledgments; Introduction Marjorie Grene; Part I. The Developing Synthesis: 1. Fisher's entrance into evolutionary science: the role of eugenics Bernard Norton; 2. The abandonment of Lamarckian explanations: the case of climatic parallelism of animal characteristics Bernhard Rensch; 3. The development of Wright's theory of evolution: systematics, adaptation, and drift William B. Provine; 4. The hardening of the modern synthesis Stephen Jay Gould; Part II. Mimetic Theory: Its Relation to the History of Evolutionary Biology: 5. Mimicry: views of naturalists and ecologists before the modern synthesis William C. Kimler; 6. 'The hypothesis that explains mimetic resemblance explains evolution': the gradualist-saltationist schism John R. G. Turner; Part III. The German Paleontological and Morphological Tradition: 7. Evolutionary theory in German paleontology Wolf-Ernst Reif; 8. The role of morphology in the theory of evolution Rupert Riedl; Part IV. Some Contemporary Issues: The Synthesis Reconsidered: 9. Paleobiology at the crossroads: a critique of some modern paleobiological research programs Antoni Hoffman; 10. Current controversies in evolutionary biology John Maynard Smith; 11. 'Adaptation' Richard M. Burian; 12. Evolutionary theory and its consequences for the concept of adaptation D. S. Peters.
