Race and the Evolutionary Synthesis
Race and the Evolutionary Synthesis
The combination of experimental genetics, theoretical population genetics, and natural history produces an evolutionary synthesis in biology. This chapter shows how this synthesis resolved various issues for biology; for instance, affirming that natural selection was the mechanism responsible for evolutionary change. Ernst Mayr, one of the proponents of the evolutionary synthesis, thought that prior to the synthesis geneticists were stuck in a mentality in which species and populations are seen as uniform types rather than highly variable collections of genetically unique individuals. The chapter also tackles the different modern interpretations of the race concept, such as Theodosius Dobzhansky's and L. C. Dunn's efforts to create a new race concept without racism, and Ashley Montagu's rejection of both the typological and genetical approach to race.
Keywords: evolutionary synthesis, natural selection, Ernst Mayr, race concept, Theodosius Dobzhansky, L. C. Dunn, Ashley Montagu
Columbia Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
