Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T09:13:43.518Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

But Not Wright Enough: Reply to Orzack

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2016

Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould*
Affiliation:
Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

As The Blob, of Steve McQueen's greatest triumph, so amply demonstrated, the more you encompass the more formless you become. Orzack accuses me of construing the modern synthesis too narrowly in describing a version championed only by Mayr and Fisher—a pair of unlikely bedfellows, I would have thought. Yet his version is so broad that he wins his own argument by internal definition, thus rendering it meaningless. As “the basis of the modern synthesis,” Orzack cites “the great evolutionary idea” — “all evolution can be explained in principle by an examination of the properties of individuals and of populations.” But what else is there, except perhaps Schindewolf's supernovae and Teilhard's ever-watchful Jesus, drawing organic activity towards Omega. If the synthesis only excludes some fringing finalists and unrepentant Lamarckians, then we are all inevitably in it, and we might as well recast the term as a synonym for evolution itself.

Type
Articles
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , Winter 1981 , pp. 131 - 134
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Literature Cited

Barrowclough, G. F. 1980. Gene flow, effective population size, and genetic variance in birds. Evolution. 34: 789–798.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dobzhansky, T. 1937. Genetics and the Origin of Species. 364 pp. Columbia Univ. Press; New York.Google Scholar
Dobzhansky, T. 1951. Genetics and the Origin of Species. Third Ed.364 pp. Columbia Univ. Press; New York.Google Scholar
Dobzhansky, T. 1956. What is an adaptive trait? Am. Nat. 90: 337–347.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dobzhansky, T. 1970. Genetics of the Evolutionary Process. 505 pp. Columbia Univ. Press; New York.Google Scholar
Dobzhansky, T. and Pavlovsky, O. 1957. An experimental study of interaction between genetic drift and natural selection. Evolution. 11: 311–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisher, R. A. 1930. The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. 272 pp. Oxford Univ. Press; Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisher, R. A. and Ford, E. B. 1950. The “Sewall Wright Effect.” Heredity. 4: 117–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, S. J. 1980a. Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging? Paleobiology. 6: 119–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, S. J. 1980b. G. G. Simpson, paleontology and the modern synthesis. pp. 153–172. In: Mayr, E. and Provine, W. B., eds. The Evolutionary Synthesis. Harvard Univ. Press; Cambridge, Massachusetts.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, S. J. in press. Dobzhansky and the modern synthesis, preface to reprint of first (1937) edition of Dobzhansky's Genetics and the Origin of Species. Columbia Univ. Press; New York.Google Scholar
Haldane, J. B. S. 1932. The Causes of Evolution. 235 pp. Longmans, Green, and Co.; London.Google Scholar
Huxley, J. 1942. Evolution, The Modern Synthesis. 645 pp. Harper & Brothers; New York.Google Scholar
Kimura, M. 1954. Process leading to quasi-fixation of genes in natural populations due to random fluctuations of selection intensities. Genetics. 39: 280–295.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lack, D. 1947. Darwin's Finches. 204 pp. Cambridge Univ. Press; Cambridge.Google Scholar
Lamotte, M. 1951. Recherches sur la Structure Génétique des Populations Naturelles de Cepaea nemoralis. Suppléments au Bulletin Biologique de France et de Belgique. Supplément XXXV. Laboratoire d'Evolution des Ětres organisés; Paris.Google Scholar
Lamotte, M. 1959. Polymorphism of Natural Populations of Cepaea nemoralis. pp. 65–86. In: Wooldridge, C., ed. Genetics and Twentieth Century Darwinism. Cold Spring Harbor Symp. Quant. Biol. The Biol. Lab.; Cold Spring Harbor.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamotte, M. and Coursol, J. 1974. Sélection Diversifiante et Fluctuations Fortuites comme Facteurs du Maintien du Polymorphisme. Mémoires de la Société Zoologique de France. Mémoire 37; Paris.Google Scholar
Mayr, E. 1942. Systematics and the Origin of Species. 334 pp. Columbia Univ. Press; New York.Google Scholar
Mayr, E. 1959. Where are We? Pp. 1–14. In: Wooldridge, C., ed. Genetics and Twentieth Century Darwinism. Cold Spring Harbor Symp. Quant. Biol. The Biol. Lab.; Cold Spring Harbor.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayr, E. 1963. Animal Species and Evolution. 797 pp. Harvard Univ. Press; Cambridge, Massachusetts.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayr, E. 1980. Some thoughts on the history of the evolutionary synthesis. Pp 1–48. In: Mayr, E. and Provine, W. B., eds. The Evolutionary Synthesis. Harvard Univ. Press; Cambridge, Massachusetts.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayr, E. and Provine, W. B., eds. 1980. The Evolutionary Synthesis. Harvard Univ. Press; Cambridge, Massachusetts.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merrell, D. J. 1953. Gene frequency changes in small laboratory populations of Drosophila melanogaster. Evolution. 7: 95–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, A. H. 1947. Panmixia and population size with reference to birds. Evolution. 1: 186–190.Google Scholar
Prout, T. 1954. Genetic drift in individual experimental populations of Drosophila melanogaster. Genetics. 39: 529–545.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robson, G. C. and Richards, O. W. 1936. The Variation of Animals in Nature. Longmans, Green, and Co.; London.Google Scholar
Simpson, G. G. 1944. Tempo and Mode in Evolution. 237 pp. Columbia Univ. Press; New York.Google Scholar
Simpson, G. G. 1953. The Major Features of Evolution. 434 pp. Columbia Univ. Press; New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solima Simmons, A. 1966. Experiments on random genetic drift and natural selection in Drosophila pseudoobscura. Evolution. 20: 100–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spencer, W. P. 1947. Genetic drift in a population of Drosophila immigrans. Evolution. 1: 103–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stebbins, G. L. Jr. 1950. Variation and Evolution in Plants. 643 pp. Columbia Univ. Press; New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Valen, L. 1960. Nonadaptive aspects of evolution. Am. Nat. 94: 305–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodson, R. E. Jr. 1964. The geography of flower color in butterflyweed. Evolution. 18: 143–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, S. 1931. Evolution in Mendelian populations. Genetics. 16: 97–159.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wright, S. 1932. The roles of mutation, inbreeding, crossbreeding selection in evolution. pp. 356–366. In: Proc. of the Sixth Int. Congress Gene. Vol. 1.Google Scholar
Wright, S. 1948. On the roles of directed and random changes in gene frequency in the genetics of populations. Evolution. 2: 279–294.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wright, S. 1960. The genetics of vital characters of the guinea pig. J. Cell Comp. Physiol. 56 (Suppl.) 1: 123–151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, S. 1967. Comments on the preliminary working papers of Eden and Waddington. pp. 117–120. In: Moorhead, P. S. and Kaplan, M. M., eds. Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution. Wistar Inst. Press; Philadelphia.Google Scholar