Unifying biology : the evolutionary synthesis and evolutionary biology / Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Smocovitis, Vassiliki Betty, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Evolution (Biology)--History.

Evolution (Biology).

Biology--History.

Biology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource : 2 halftones

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [1996]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Unifying Biology offers a historical reconstruction of one of the most important yet elusive episodes in the history of modern science: the evolutionary synthesis of the 1930s and 1940s. For more than seventy years after Darwin proposed his theory of evolution, it was hotly debated by biological scientists. It was not until the 1930s that opposing theories were finally refuted and a unified Darwinian evolutionary theory came to be widely accepted by biologists. Using methods gleaned from a variety of disciplines, Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis argues that the evolutionary synthesis was part of the larger process of unifying the biological sciences. At the same time that scientists were working toward a synthesis between Darwinian selection theory and modern genetics, they were, according to the author, also working together to establish an autonomous community of evolutionists. Smocovitis suggests that the drive to unify the sciences of evolution and biology was part of a global philosophical movement toward unifying knowledge. In developing her argument, she pays close attention to the problems inherent in writing the history of evolutionary science by offering historiographical reflections on the practice of history and the practice of science. Drawing from some of the most exciting recent approaches in science studies and cultural studies, she argues that science is a culture, complete with language, rituals, texts, and practices. Unifying Biology offers not only its own new synthesis of the history of modern evolution, but also a new way of "doing history."

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

CHAPTER ONE The Exegesis of Unifying Biology

PART ONE: History, Theory, and Practice

CHAPTER TWO A "Moving Target": Historical Background on the Evolutionary Synthesis

CHAPTER THREE Rethinking the Evolutionary Synthesis: Historiographic Questions and Perspectives Explored

CHAPTER FOUR The New Contextualism: Science as Discourse and Culture

PART TWO: The Narrative of Unifying Biology

CHAPTER FIVE The Narrative of Unifying Biology: The Evolutionary Synthesis and Evolutionary Biology

PART THREE: Persistent Problems

CHAPTER SIX Reproblematizing the Evolutionary Synthesis

CHAPTER SEVEN Epilogue

Select Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [217]-222) and index.

ISBN:

9780691221786

0691221782

OCLC:

1206241964