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Evolutionary Theory in the 1920s: The Nature of the “Synthesis”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Sahotra Sarkar
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Abstract

This paper analyzes the development of evolutionary theory in the period from 1918 to 1932. It argues that: (i) Fisher's work in 1918 constituted a not fully satisfactory reduction of biometry to Mendelism; (ii) there was a synthesis in the 1920s but that this synthesis was mainly one of classical genetics with population genetics, with Haldane's The Causes of Evolution being its founding document; (iii) the most important achievement of the models of theoretical population genetics was to show that natural selection sufficed as a mechanism for evolution; and (iv) Haldane formulated a prospective evolutionary theory in the 1920s whereas Fisher and Wright formulated retrospective theories of evolutionary history.

Type
The Making of the Genetical Theory of Evolution
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 71 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2002 Biennial Meeting of The Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers , December 2004 , pp. 1215 - 1226
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Support for the research for this paper came from the American Philosophical Society, the Dibner Institute for the History of Science, the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, and the Max-Planck-Insitut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte. Thanks are due to Trevon Fuller, Justin Garson, and Anya Plutynski for comments on an earlier draft.

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