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History of Biology 355
comfortable with the concept of natural selection and were not truly thinking in
terms of variable populations.
Darwin’s theses on evolution were received much more favorably in North
America and in Germany than in France and Britain. Naturphilosophie, early
evolutionary interpretations, and a wave of extreme materialism had prepared for
Darwin’s enthusiastic reception in Germany.
In 1978(f) and 1980(b) Mayr spoke for the first time of Darwin’s several evolutionary
theses listing separately (1) his thesis that life is constantly changing,
evolving, (2) the thesis of life’s common descent including Man and speciation,
and (3) the concept of natural selection. In another invited essay “Darwinistic misunderstandings”
of several continental European workers are clarified (1982m)
showing that their criticism deals with the beliefs of atomistic genetics and do not
target genuine Darwinian evolutionism. Occasionally, the “death of Darwin and
his evolutionary theses” or “Darwinism: this century’s mistake” have been pronounced.
Such publications immediately excited Mayr’s (1984h, 1984i) response
who patiently pointed out again the basic facts of Darwinism and the numerous
mistakes and misunderstandings of the respective authors.
InhisreviewofP.Bowler’sbook,The non-Darwinian Revolution, Mayr (1990a)
refuted the author’s thesis that because natural selection was generally rejected during
the 1860s–1870s (and until about 1900), therefore the evolutionary revolution
of those times was “non-Darwinian” (!?). This author and many other historians
ignored the complexity of Darwin’s theoretical framework and in particular his
five main evolutionary theses. The total victory of evolutionism (the “First Darwinian
Revolution”) during the late 19th century was transformational evolution.
Non-Darwinian elements of the developing proposals in those times were the teleological,
saltational and Lamarckian components of the anti-Darwinian reaction.
Mayr concluded that Bowler’s notion of a “non-Darwinian revolution” is a myth.
In Mayr’s reviews of two Darwin biographies, by G. Himmelfarb and J. Browne,
respectively, the accounts on Darwin’s life and personality, on his intellectual development,
working habits, his relations to his family, his interaction with friends
and opponents and other aspects of his life as well as the emergence of evolutionary
thought and the reception of the Origin (1859) are praised (1959g, 2002f).
On the other hand, Mayr (1959g) criticized severely the second part of Himmelfarb’s
biography dealing with Darwinian evolutionary theory which the author—as
a historian—has misunderstood in large part. Janet Browne is also a historian, not
an evolutionist, and therefore evidently felt that it was not her task to analyze Darwin’s
evolutionary paradigm, which is not discussed, even though her biography
comprises two large volumes. Short treatments of Darwin’s theoretical ideas are
included in Mayr’s books (1982d, 1991g) and articles, but a comprehensive modern
analysis is lacking.
The Evolutionary Synthesis. The“Fisheriansynthesis”ofmathematicalpopulation
genetics during the 1920s (R.A. Fisher 1930, S. Wright 1931, and J.B.S. Haldane
1932) had solved one of the two great problems of evolution, the interaction
between genetical changes and selective demands leading to phyletic evolution—
thatisevolutionasNaturalSelectionorevolutionassuch.Theothermainproblem