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On the Legitimacy of the Darwinian Theory – August Weismann's First Creed

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2013

Charlotte Weissman
Charlotte Weissman*
Affiliation:
The Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University E-mail: [email protected]
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Argument

In his inaugural lecture, “On the Legitimacy of the Darwinian Theory,” August Weismann followed closely in Darwin's footsteps, but provided at the same time an outline of the essentials of his future theory of heredity, development, variation, and speciation. This was Weismann's first support of the evolutionary theory, and it shows his commitment to natural selection as the mechanism of evolution. For Weismann, “Darwin's Theory” meant natural selection. Natural selection, and more generally selectionism, became Weismann's major explanatory principle for evolutionary change and the most important element driving his thought.

Type
Historical Document in Translation
Information
Science in Context , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , March 2013 , pp. 173 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

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