The synthesis period in evolutionary studies (most people call this the “evolutionary synthesis”) of the 1930s and 1940 has had a standard narrative for many years, but pressure has increasing for a revision. Descended from Darwin: Insights into the History of Evolutionary Studies, 1900-1970, contributes to that revision. It began as a conference at the American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia (22–23 October 2004). The goal of the conference was to investigate how scholarship might move forward.
The main focus of the meeting was on before, during, and after the synthesis period in evolutionary studies (1930s-1940s) in America. This has been the focus of substantial new research and important new thinking. This volume brings together fifteen specialists to explore these developments and to press further.
Questions shaping these essays focus on the following broad themes:
- continuity and breaks across generations
- emerging narratives for the period
- new research opportunities at the APS
- new ideas from the research front
- placing evolutionists in the broader context of biology
- future directions
In addition to fifteen original essays, this volume includes a thoughtful introduction by Michael Ruse.
The conference was made possible by the generous support of the Barra Foundation and given in honour of the late Professor Frederick H. Burkhardt.
Read Descended from Darwin open access
Papers in this volume are freely available for download open access, through the generous support of the American Philosophical Society.
- Joe Cain and Michael Ruse, eds. 2009. Descended from Darwin: Insights into the History of Evolutionary Studies, 1900-1970. Edited by Joe Cain and Michael Ruse. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. ISBN: 978‐1‐60618‐991‐7. Download whole volume in one ZIP file.
| chapter | author | contribution (pdf) |
| preface | Martin Levitt | Preface |
| intro | Michael Ruse | Introduction |
| Part 1 | Continuity and Breaks Across Generations | |
| 01 | Mark Largent | The So-called ‘Eclipse of Darwinism’ |
| 02 | Juan Ilerbaig | ‘The View-Point of a Naturalist’: American Field Zoologists and the Evolutionary Synthesis, 1900-1945 |
| 03 | Andy Hammond | JBS Haldane, Holism, and Synthesis in Evolution |
| Part 2 | Emerging Narratives and Broader Themes | |
| 04 | Kim Kleinman | Biosystematics and the Origin of Species: Edgar Anderson, WH Camp and the Evolutionary Synthesis |
| 05 | Joel Hagen | Descended from Darwin? George Gaylord Simpson, Morris Goodman, and Primate Systematics |
| 06 | Joe Cain | Ernst Mayr and the ‘Biology of Birds’ |
| 07 | Gregory Davis, Michael Dietrich, and David Jacobs |
Homeotic Mutants and the Assimilation of Developmental Genetics into the Evolutionary Synthesis, 1915-1952 |
| Part 3 | New Ideas and New Directions | |
| 08 | Erika Milam | The Experimental Animal from the Naturalist’s Point of View: Behavior and Evolution at the AMNH, 1928-1954 |
| 09 | David Sepkoski | The Delayed Synthesis: Paleobiology in the 1970s |
| 10 | John Ceccatti | Natural Selection in the Field: Insecticide Resistance, Economic Entomology, and the Evolutionary Synthesis, 1914-1951 |
| Part 4 | Evolutionary Theory Meets Practice | |
| 11 | Frederick Davis | Papilio dardanus: The Natural Animal from the Experimentalist’s Point of View |
| 12 | David Wÿss Rudge | H.B.D. Kettlewell’s Research 1934-1961: The Influence of J.W. Heslop Harrison |
| 13 | Roberta Millstein | Concepts of Drift and Selection in “The Great Snail Debate” of the 1950s and early 1960s |
| 14 | Robert Skipper | Revisiting the RA Fisher-Sewall Wright Controversy |
| 15 | Mark Borrello | Shifting Balance and Balancing Selection: A Group Selectionist’s Interpretation of Wright and Dobzhansky |
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