The Problem of the Palaeontological Evidence

  • T. S. Kemp
Chapter
Part of the Studies in Biology, Economy and Society book series (SBES)

Abstract

The story of how the neodarwinian, or synthetic theory of evolution arose, including the role played by Julian Huxley’s book The Syn-thetic Theory of Evolution, has been told many times. Moreover, practically every evolutionary biologist of the past two or three decades has at some stage offered a succinct statement of the synthetic theory reduced to its elemental minimum. Here is yet another variant:

The basic epistemological structure of the synthetic theory of evolution consists of: (i) the original Darwinian concept of natural selection, whereby the existence of heritable variation and of competition between organisms for resources are given as premises. It follows as a deduction that changes in gene frequencies within a population, and in the phenotypic characters caused by those genes, occur over time, generating increasing fitness. Only in the most trivial, short-term and often artificial of cases are there ever direct empirical observations of natural selection; (ii) Mendelian genetics, and ecological studies which perform the role of testing the two premises of Darwinism to show that they are essentially true of living organisms in general.

Keywords

Fossil Record Evolutionary Change Ancestral Species Heritable Variation Linnean Society 
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Copyright information

© The Eugenics Society 1989

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  • T. S. Kemp

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