Why was Darwin's view of species rejected by twentieth century biologists?

Biology and Philosophy

Volumn 25, Issue 4, 2010, Pages 497-527

  Mallet, James ^a,b,c  

^a WISSENSCHAFTSKOLLEG ZU BERLIN   (Germany)

^b HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^c UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Darwin; Essentialism; Group selection; Holism; Levels of selection; Species concept

Indexed keywords

EVOLUTIONARY THEORY; GENETIC MARKER; MORPHOLOGY; POPULATION GENETICS; SELECTION; TWENTIETH CENTURY;

EID: 77956012027     PISSN: 01693867     EISSN: 15728404     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s10539-010-9213-7     Document Type: Article

References (151)

1. Allee WC, Emerson AE, Park O, Park T, Schmidt KP (1949) Principles of animal ecology. W. B. Saunders, Philadelphia.
2. Andersson M (1994) Sexual selection. Princeton Univ Press, Princeton.
3. Andersson M, Simmons LW (2006) Sexual selection and mate choice. Trends Ecol Evol 21: 296-302.
4. Arnold ML (2006) Evolution through genetic exchange. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
5. Avise JC (2000) Phylogeography. Harvard University Press, Boston.
6. Bailey LH (1896) The philosophy of species-making. Bot Gaz 22: 454-462.
7. Bates HW (1862) Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon valley. Lepidoptera: Heliconidae. Trans Linn Soc Lond 23: 495-566.
8. Bateson W (1909) Heredity and variation in modern lights. In: Seward AC (ed) Darwin and modern science. Essays in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 85-101.
9. Bateson W (1913) Problems of genetics. Yale University Press, New Haven.
10. Bateson W (1922) Evolutionary faith and modern doubts. Science 55: 55-61.
11. Beatty J (1985) Speaking of species: Darwin's strategy. In: Kohn D (ed) The Darwinian heritage. Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp 265-281.
12. Berlocher SH, Feder JL (2002) Sympatric speciation in phytophagous insects: moving beyond controversy? Ann Rev Entomol 47: 773-815.
13. Berry A, Hoekstra HE (2009) Teaching the origin. Curr Biol 19: R9.
14. Bock WJ (1995) The species concept versus the species taxon: their roles in biodiversity analyses and conservation. In: Arai R, Kato M, Doi Y (eds) Biodiversity and evolution. National Science Museum Foundation, Tokyo, pp 47-72.
15. Bowler PJ (1989) The Mendelian revolution. The emergence of hereditarian concepts in modern science and society. Athlone Press, London.
16. Bowler PJ (1992) The eclipse of Darwinism, 2nd edn. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
17. Bowler PJ (2003) Evolution. The history of an idea, 3rd edn. University of California Press, Berkeley.
18. Bowler PJ (2009) Geographical distribution in the Origin of Species. In: Ruse M, Richards RJ (eds) The Cambridge companion to the "Origin of Species". Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 153-172.
19. Britton NL (1908) The taxonomic aspect of the species question. Am Nat 42: 225-242.
20. Browne J (1980) Darwin's botanical arithmetic and the "principle of divergence", 1854-1858. J Hist Biol 13: 53-89.
21. Butlin RK (1995) Reinforcement: an idea evolving. Trends Ecol Evol 10: 432-434.
22. Cain J (2000) Towards a 'greater degree of integration:' the society for the study of speciation, 1939-41. Br J Hist Sci 33: 85-108.
23. Conn HW (1888) The significance of 'variety' and 'species'. Science 11: 253-254.
24. Cook OF (1908) Evolution without isolation. Am Nat 42: 727-731.
25. Coyne J (2008) Which science book should the next US president read? The blind watchmaker by Richard Dawkins. Nature 455: 464-465.
26. Coyne JA (2009) (Re)reading The Origin. Curr Biol 19: R1.
27. Coyne JA, Orr HA (2004) Speciation. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland.
28. Darwin CR (1859) On the Origin of Species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. John Murray, London.
29. Darwin CR (1863) [Review of] Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon Valley. By Henry Walter Bates, Esq. Transact. Linnean Soc. Vol. XXIII. 1862, p. 495. Nat Hist Rev 3: 219-224.
30. Darwin CR (1871) The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. John Murray, London.
31. Darwin CR (1872) The Origin of Species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life, 6th edn. John Murray, London.
32. de Queiroz K (1998) The general lineage concept of species, species criteria, and the process of speciation. A conceptual unification and terminological recommendations. In: Howard DJ (ed) Endless forms. Species and speciation. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 57-75.
33. de Vries H (1909) Variation. In: Seward AC (ed) Darwin and modern science. Essays in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 66-84.
34. Dobzhansky T (1935) A critique of the species concept in biology. Philos Sci 2: 344-355.
35. Dobzhansky T (1937a) Genetic nature of species differences. Am Nat 71: 404-420.
36. Dobzhansky T (1937b) Genetics and the Origin of Species. Columbia University Press, New York.
37. Dobzhansky T (1940) Speciation as a stage in evolutionary divergence. Am Nat 74: 312-321.
38. Dobzhansky T (1951) Genetics and the Origin of Species, 3rd edn. Columbia University Press, New York.
39. Dobzhansky T (1970) Genetics of the evolutionary process. Columbia University Press, New York.
40. Drès M, Mallet J (2002) Host races in plant-feeding insects and their importance in sympatric speciation. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B 357: 471-492.
41. Dupré J (1981) Natural kinds and biological taxa. Philos Rev 90: 66-90.
42. Dupré J (1999) On the impossibility of a monistic account of species. In: Wilson RA (ed) Species: new interdisciplinary essays. MIT Press, Cambridge, pp 3-22.
43. Ehrlich PR, Raven PH (1969) Differentiation of populations. Science 165: 1228-1232.
44. Eldredge N, Gould SJ (1972) Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism. In: Schopf TJM (ed) Models in paleobiology. Freeman Cooper, San Francisco, pp 82-115.
45. Elton CS (1927) Animal ecology, new impression with additional notes, 1935 edn. Sidgwick & Jackson, London.
46. Emerson AE (1935) Termitophile distribution and quantitative characters of physiological speciation in British Guiana termites (Isoptera). Ann Entomol Soc Am 28: 369-395.
47. Endersby J (2008) Imperial nature: Joseph Hooker and the practices of Victorian science. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
48. Ereshefsky M (1991) Species, higher taxa, and the units of evolution. Philos Sci 58: 84-101.
49. Ereshefsky M (2009) Darwin's solution to the species problem. Synthese.
50. Feder JL (1998) The apple maggot fly, Rhagoletis pomonella: flies in the face of conventional wisdom. In: Howard DJ (ed) Endless forms. Species and speciation. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 130-144.
51. Fisher RA (1930) The genetical theory of natural selection. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
52. Futuyma DJ (1986) Evolutionary biology, 2nd edn. Sinauer, Sunderland.
53. Futuyma DJ (1998) Evolutionary biology, 3rd edn. Sinauer, Sunderland.
54. Gavrilets S, Losos JB (2009) Adaptive radiation: contrasting theory with data. Science 323: 732-737.
55. Ghiselin MT (1969) The triumph of the Darwinian method. University of California Press, Berkeley.
56. Ghiselin MT (1974) A radical solution to the species problem. Syst Zool 23: 536-544.
57. Ghiselin MT (2004a) Mayr on species concepts, categories and taxa. Ludus Vitalis 12: 109-114.
58. Ghiselin MT (2004b) Mayr and Bock versus Darwin on genealogical classification. J Zool Syst Evol Res 42: 165-169.
59. Goldschmidt RB (1940) The material basis of evolution. Yale University Press, New Haven.
60. Gourbière S, Mallet J (2010) Are species real? The shape of the species boundary with exponential failure, reinforcement, and the "missing snowball". Evolution 64: 1-24.
61. Gray A (1888) Darwiniana: essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. D. Appleton and Company, New York.
62. Gulick JT (1891) Divergent evolution through cumulative segregation. Smithsonian Rep 1891: 273.
63. Gulick JT (1908) Isolation and selection in the evolution of species. The need of clear definitions. Am Nat 42: 48-57.
64. Haffer J (2007) Ornithology, evolution, and philosophy. The life and science of Ernst Mayr 1904-2005. Springer, Berlin.
65. Haldane JBS (1932) The causes of evolution. Longmans, Green & Co., London.
66. Hamilton WD (1964) The genetical evolution of social behaviour. J Theor Biol 7: 1-52.
67. Hardy A (1965) The living stream. Collins, London.
68. Hendry AP, Vamosi SM, Latham SJ, Heilbuth JC, Day T (2000) Questioning species realities. Conserv Genet 1: 67-76.
69. Hey J (2006) On the failure of modern species concepts. Trends Ecol Evol 21: 447-450.
70. Hull DL (1967) The metaphysics of evolution. Br J Hist Sci 3: 309-337.
71. Hull DL (1968) The operational imperative: sense and nonsense in operationism. Syst Zool 17: 438-457.
72. Jordan DS (1905a) The origin of species through isolation. Science 22: 545-562.
73. Jordan DS (1905b) Ontogenetic species and other species. Science 22: 872-873.
74. Jordan K (1905c) Der Gegensatz zwischen geographischer und nichtgeographischer Variation. Z Wissensch Zool 83: 151-210.
75. Judson HF (1996) The eighth day of creation. Makers of the revolution in biology. Twenty-fifth anniversary edition. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Woodbury.
76. Kitcher P (1984) Species. Philos Sci 51: 308-333.
77. Knapp S (2008) Species concepts and floras: what are species for? Biol J Linn Soc 95: 17-25.
78. Kohn D (2009) Darwin's keystone: the principle of divergence. In: Richards RJ, Ruse M (eds) The Cambridge companion to the "Origin of Species". Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 87-108.
79. Kottler MJ (1978) Charles Darwin's biological species concept and the theory of geographical speciation. The transmutation notebooks. Ann Sci 35: 275-297.
80. Krementsov NL (1994) Dobzhansky and Russian entomology: the origin of his ideas on species and speciation. In: Adams MB (ed) The evolution of Theodosius Dobzhansky. Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp 31-48.
81. Lovejoy AO (1968a) The argument for organic evolution before The Origin of Species, 1830-1858. In: Glass B, Temkin O, Straus WL (eds) Forerunners of Darwin: 1745-1859. Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, pp 356-414.
82. Lovejoy AO (1968b) Buffon and the problem of species. In: Glass B, Temkin O, Straus WL (eds) Forerunners of Darwin: 1745-1859. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, pp 84-113.
83. Mallet J (1995) A species definition for the modern synthesis. Trends Ecol Evol 10: 294-299.
84. Mallet J (2001) The speciation revolution. J Evol Biol 14: 887-888.
85. Mallet J (2004) Poulton, Wallace and Jordan: how discoveries in Papilio butterflies initiated a new species concept 100 years ago. Syst Biodivers 1: 441-452.
86. Mallet J (2005) Speciation in the 21st century. Review of "Speciation", by Jerry A. Coyne & H. Allen Orr. Heredity 95: 105-109.
87. Mallet J (2006) What has Drosophila genetics revealed about speciation? Trends Ecol Evol 21: 386-393.
88. Mallet J (2008a) Hybridization, ecological races, and the nature of species: empirical evidence for the ease of speciation. Philos Trans R Soc B 363: 2971-2986.
89. Mallet J (2008b) Mayr's view of Darwin: was Darwin wrong about speciation? Biol J Linn Soc 95: 3-16.
90. Mallet J (2008c) Wallace and the species concept of the early Darwinians. In: Smith CH, Beccaloni G (eds) Natural selection and beyond: the intellectual legacy of Alfred Russell Wallace. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 102-113.
91. Mallet J (2009) Alfred Russel Wallace and the Darwinian species concept: his paper on the swallowtail butterflies (Papilionidae) of 1865. Gayana, Concepción, vol 73, No. 2, pp 42-54.
92. Mallet J (2010) Group selection and the development of the biological species concept. Philos Trans R Soc B. doi: 10. 1098/rstb. 2010. 0040.
93. Mallet J, Meyer A, Nosil P, Feder JL (2009) Space, sympatry, and speciation. J Evol Biol 22: 2332-2341.
94. Mayr E (1942) Systematics and the Origin of Species. Columbia University Press, New York.
95. Mayr E (1947) Ecological factors in speciation. Evolution 1: 263-288.
96. Mayr E (1954) Change of genetic environment and evolution. In: Huxley J, Hardy AC, Ford EB (eds) Evolution as a process. Allen and Unwin, London, pp 157-180.
97. Mayr E (1959) Isolation as an evolutionary factor. Proc Am Philos Soc 103: 221-230.
98. Mayr E (1963) Animal species and evolution. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
99. Mayr E (1964) Introduction. In: Mayr E (ed) On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin. A facsimile of the first edition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp vii-xxvii.
100. Mayr E (1970) Populations, species, and evolution. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
101. Mayr E (1981) How I became a Darwinian. In: Mayr E, Provine WB (eds) The evolutionary synthesis. Perspectives on the unification of biology. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp 413-423.
102. Mayr E (1982) The growth of biological thought. Diversity, evolution, and inheritance. Belknap, Cambridge.
103. Mayr E (1992a) Controversies in retrospect. Oxf Surv Evol Biol 8: 1-34.
104. Mayr E (1992b) Darwin's principle of divergence. J Hist Biol 25: 343-359.
105. Mayr E (1999) Systematics and the Origin of Species, reprinted ed. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
106. Mayr E (2002) Comments by Ernst Mayr. Theor Biosci 121: 99-100.
107. McOuat GR (1996) Species, rules and meaning: the politics of language and the ends of definitions in 19th century natural history. Stud Hist Philos Sci 27: 473-519.
108. Morgan TH (1919) A critique of the theory of evolution, 2nd edn. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
109. Orr HA (2009) Testing natural selection. Sci Am 44-51.
110. Orr HA, Masly JP, Presgraves DC (2004) Speciation genes. Curr Opin Genet Dev 14: 675-679.
111. Paterson HEH (1985) The recognition concept of species. In: Vrba ES (ed) Species and speciation. Transvaal Museum, Pretoria, pp 21-29.
112. Popper KR (1945) The open society and its enemies, 5th (1966) edn. Routledge, London.
113. Popper KR (1972) Objective knowledge. An evolutionary approach. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
114. Poulton EB (1904) What is a species? Proc Entomol Soc Lond 1903: lxxvii-cxvi.
115. Price T (2008) Speciation in birds. Roberts & Co., Greenwood Village.
116. Pritchard JK, Stephens M, Donnelly P (2000) Inference of population structure using multilocus genotype data. Genetics 155: 945-959.
117. Provine WB (2001) The origins of theoretical population genetics. With a new afterword, 2nd edn. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
118. Reydon TAC (2004) Why does the species problem still persist? Bioessays 26: 300-305.
119. Reznick DN, Ricklefs RE (2009) Darwin's bridge between microevolution and macroevolution. Nature 457: 837-842.
120. Rice WR (1998) Intergenomic conflict, interlocus antagonistic coevolution, and the evolution of reproductive isolation. In: Howard DJ (ed) Endless forms. Species and speciation. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 261-270.
121. Richards OW, Robson GC (1926) The species problem and evolution. Nature 117(345-347): 382-384.
122. Ritchie MG (2007) Sexual selection and speciation. Ann Rev Ecol Evol Syst 38: 79-102.
123. Robson GC (1928) The species problem. An introduction to the study of evolutionary divergence in natural populations. Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh.
124. Romanes GJ (1886) Physiological selection; an additional suggestion on the origin of species. J Linn Soc Lond (Zool) 19: 337-411.
125. Rothschild M (1983) Dear Lord Rothschild. Birds, butterflies and history. Hutchinson, London.
126. Rundle HD, Nosil P (2005) Ecological speciation. Ecol Lett 8: 336-352.
127. Ruse M (1975) Darwin's debt to philosophy: an examination of the influence of the philosophical ideas of John F. W. Herschel and William Whewell on the development of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Stud Hist Philos Sci 6: 159-181.
128. Ruse M (1987) Biological species: natural kinds, individuals, or what? Br J Philos Sci 38: 225-242.
129. Schindewolf OH (1936) Paläontologie, Entwicklungslehre und Genetik. Kritik und Synthese. Bornträger, Berlin.
130. Schluter D (2009) Evidence for ecological speciation and its alternative. Science 323: 737-741.
131. Seward AC (ed) (1909) Darwin and modern science. Essays in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
132. Sloan PR (2009) Originating species. Darwin on the species problem. In: Richards RJ, Ruse M (eds) The Cambridge companion to the "Origin of Species". Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 67-86.
133. Smith AB (1994) Systematics and the fossil record. Documenting evolutionary patterns. Blackwell, Oxford.
134. Smocovitis VB (1996) Unifying biology. The evolutionary synthesis and evolutionary biology. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
135. Sokal RR, Crovello TJ (1970) The biological species concept: a critical evaluation. Am Nat 104: 107-123.
136. Stamos DN (2006) Darwin and the nature of species. State University of New York Press, Albany.
137. Stauffer RC (ed) (1975) Charles Darwin's natural selection. Being the second part of his Big species book written from 1856 to 1858. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
138. Stresemann E (1975) Ornithology. From Aristotle to the present. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
139. Sulloway FJ (1979) Geographic isolation in Darwin's thinking: the vicissitudes of a crucial idea. Stud Hist Biol 3: 23-65.
140. Wagner M (1873) The Darwinian theory and the law of the migration of organisms. Translation by J. L. Laird of a paper published in 1868. Edward Stanford, London.
141. Wagner M (1889) Die Entstehung der Arten durch räumliche Sonderung. Gesammelte Aufsätze. Benno Schwabe, Basel.
142. Wallace AR (1865) On the phenomena of variation and geographical distribution as illustrated by the Papilionidae of the Malayan region. Trans Linn Soc Lond 25: 1-71.
143. Wallace AR (1886) Romanes versus Darwin. An episode in the history of the evolution theory. Fortnightly Rev 300-316.
144. Wallace AR (1889) Darwinism. An exposition of the theory of natural selection with some of its applications. Macmillan & Co., London.
145. Walsh BD (1864) On phytophagic varieties and phytophagic species. Proc Entomol Soc Philad 3: 403-430.
146. Williams GC (1966) Adaptation and natural selection: a critique of some current evolutionary thought, reissued with a new preface, 1996. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
147. Williams GC (1992) Natural selection. Domains, levels and challenges. Oxford University Press, New York.
148. Winsor MP (2006) The creation of the essentialism story: an exercise in metahistory. Hist Philos Life Sci 28: 149-174.
149. Wright S (1931) Evolution in Mendelian populations. Genetics 10: 97-159.
150. Wright S (1932) The roles of mutation, inbreeding, crossbreeding and selection in evolution. Proc XI Int Cong Genet Hague 1: 356-366.
151. Wright S (1978) Evolution and the genetics of populations. Volume 4. Variability between and among natural populations. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.