Abstract
This paper argues that Haldane’s The causes of evolution was the most important founding document in the emergence of the received view of evolutionary theory which is typically referred to as the Modern Synthesis. Whether or not this historical development is characterized as a synthesis (which remains controversial), this paper argues the most important component of the emergence of the received view consisted of showing how the formal rules of Mendelian inheritance are based on (or emerge from) the material basis of heredity established by classical genetics primarily through the experimental work on Drosophila genetics of the Morgan school in the 1910s and 1920s. This is one of the most important achievements of Haldane’s book. Thus this paper rejects both (i) the view that the synthesis was a unification of biometry and Mendelism and (ii) the claim that it arose from work primarily done in the late 1930s and 1940s by naturalists rather than theoretical population and classical experimental geneticists.
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Acknowledgements
My interest in Haldane and in the history of evolutionary theory dates back to the late 1980s. Many people have contributed to the development of the ideas expressed here and in earlier work, and have provided help at various stages while a scientific biography of Haldane is very slowly being composed. Not all of them will be mentioned here because the list would be far too large. However, the following individuals have influenced and helped me most: among those since deceased are James F. Crow, Joshua Lederberg, John Maynard Smith, Ernst Mayr, and William B. Provine; the others remain Anthony W. F. Edwards, Warren Ewens, Raphael Falk, Vidyanand Nanjundiah, John Stachel, and William C. Wimsatt. Thanks are also due to Nanjundiah for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Finally thanks are due to the ever-patient archivists at the John Innes Institute, the National Library of Scotland, and University College London.
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Sarkar, S. Haldane’s The causes of evolution and the Modern Synthesis in evolutionary biology. J Genet 96, 753–763 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12041-017-0840-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12041-017-0840-5