Talk:Modern evolutionary synthesis
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As Lexor has rightly observed, this article needed a lot of work. My main objection was that it asserted that most people faulted Darwin for not explaining the mechanics of inheritance -- I do not think that is why most people faulted Darwin, and in a limited sence Darwin does not need a principle of inheritance (that was part of the beauty of it, and a major reason why his thought has had tremendous influence outside of biology). I still consider this a stub, and hope Lexor and others will develop it, Slrubenstein
Good to add references, but it appears in reformatting you deleted the year of publications of the relevant books/articles which you had in earlier edit, also add publishers and ISBNs (if you can find them) as wikipedia will automatically translate them into links, e.g. ISBN 0-8424-932-1 (this is a randomly generated ISBN, btw). -- Lexor 23:53 22 May 2003 (UTC)
- What is the connection between Neo-Darwinism and the modern synthesis? Martin
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- Well spotted, they're the same thing. i.e. the Neo-Darwinian modern synthesis. Neo-Darwinism should be a redirect. Duncharris 10:25, May 10, 2004 (UTC)
I've added just a bit, because I felt like this article was misleading about the gist of the evolutionary synthesis. Neo-Darwinism and Modern Synthesis don't always mean the same thing. Generally Neo-Darwinism, as described, means just the combination of genetics and natural selection. But the evolutionary synthesis more often refers to not just that, but also the incorporation of various other disciplines (and, conspicuously, not some others, particularly biochemistry, embryology, and morphology). -ragesoss, July 4, 2005.
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[edit] Debate on Lamarckianism never settled?
"Wallace rejected the Lamarckian idea of inheritance of acquired characteristics, something that Darwin, Huxley et al wouldn't rule out. The mechanism of inheritance wasn't discovered in Darwin or Wallace's time, however, so the debate was never settled."
I think it's misleading to say that "the debate was never settled", since AFAIK no one knowledgeable in the field seriously advances Lamarckianism today. Instead we should say "the debate wasn't settled in their lifetimes" or, if possible, "wasn't settled until about year XXXX" -- 200.141.108.170 05:08, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
There are still a few supporters of things in the sense of "lamarckian inheritance" (which preceded Lamarck anyway, but that´s how it´s usually called), such as Jablonka. My suggestion would be something in the sense of
- Wallace rejected the Lamarckian idea of inheritance of acquired characteristics, something that Darwin, Huxley et al wouldn't rule out. Mendelian genetics were mostly unknown at that time, so lamarckian inheritance was not overwhelmingly rejected by the mainstream scientists.
I also would change "The mechanism of inheritance" to "Mendelian genetics", since there is in fact epigenetic inheritance, i.e., genetics are not the only one mechanism of inheritance, even though is the most important for evolution (while epigenetics have more to do with embryologic development, but can have some effect on progeny in certain organisms, but usually short lasting effects). And "moslty unknown" because Mendel himself had already discovered (also there are even more unknown Mendel´s precursors with similar ideas), and, I recall reading that somewhare, he even wrote a letter to Darwin to tell about it, but Darwin never opened. I´ve also read that had some of Mendel´s works on his private library.
--Extremophile 14:58, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Image
Why is the image not fair use in this context?--Nectar 03:33, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
- A fair use image of a person is only really fair in an article about that person, a picture of related scientist does not significantly add to the text, nor was the image used in any of the ways required for fair use to apply (parody, critical commentary etc).--nixie 01:13, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Neo-Darwinism and Modern Synthesis are not quite the same...
At least according with the site Talk Origins. According with the text "how to be an anti-darwinian", Neo-Darwinism was a earlier theory, that lasted only from rhe 1880s to the 1930s, and was almost solely focused on natural selection acting upon genes, but neglecting or even denying the importance of drift and other populational genetic events; even sexual selection was denied, according with the site. The modern synthesis, I guess that is referred as Synthetic Darwinism in the text, came in 1942, bringing the acceptance of population genetics, the role of random populational events in the genetic frequencies. --Extremophile 14:39, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
- Neo-Darwinism may have had a different meaning in the past, but it is certainly synonymous with Mod Synth today. Perhaps include a short sentence on the past use of the term, but its meaning has changed over time (no pun intended). --Switch 07:04, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
- I think that it would be fine. But I wonder if there would not be enough material to make an article about neo-darwinism in the first historical sense... however, while it does not happen, a paragraph mentioning that will work. If eventually a article about the other neo-darwinism is created, then it would link to that, and that could have also a introductory paragraph serving as a disambiguation, as many people may search for ND when actually looking for MS... I wonder if this change in the term meaning has something to do with outdated creationists asking or talking about neodarwinism, and "modern-synthesists" just answering without paying much attention for the term... --Extremophile 05:24, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Some objections
The part dealing with horizontal transfer, etc. is perhaps a bit irrelevant in this context, it should be placed in a separate article. The contribution of Haldane and Wright is not properly emphasized. In the section about further advances a mention to Kimura and the neutral theory should be considered.
192.84.212.96 10:50, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
As a side note, I was wondering why Clausen, Keck and Hiesey were not credited in this article for much of their material support for the modern synthesis as their work on the study of evolution in nature came about before the 1947 meeting held at Princeton that established the main tenets of the synthesis.
[edit] Dual inheritance theory
Would it be appropriate to include dual inheritance theory into the Further advances section? I only thought of it since there was a brief mention of memes. EPM 02:26, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
