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What is Darwinism Today?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Erns Mayr
Erns Mayr*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

One of the dominant interests of the philosophers of science has always been the problem of theory construction. How is a new theory established? To what extent can a theory be changed? Do theories change gradually or are they replaced during revolutions?

Most of the theorizing on these questions has been done with theories of the physical sciences, but there are indications that, for several reasons, Darwin's theory of evolution does not fit in the traditional framework. For instance, the number of theories still competing with each other in the 80 year period from the Darwinian revolution (1859) to about 1940 is quite extraordinarily large, and it was not one of these competing theories that was ultimately victorious, but rather an eclectic theory in which the best components of several opposing theories were synthesized in the 1940s.

Type
Part III. What is Darwinism today?
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1984 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1984 , 1984 , pp. 145 - 156
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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