This volume not only offers an intellectual biography of one of the most important biologists and social thinkers of the twentieth century but also illuminates the development of evolutionary studies in Russia and in the West. Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900-1975), a creator of the "evolutionary synthesis" and the author of its first modern statement, Genetics and the Origin of Species (1937), founded modern Western population genetics and wrote many popular books on such topics as human evolution, race and racism, equality, and human destiny. In this, the first book devoted to an analysis of the historical, scientific, and cultural dimensions of Dobzhansky's life and thought, an international group of historians, biologists, and philosophers addresses the full span of his career in Russia and the United States. Beginning with the reminiscences of his daughter, Sophia Dobzhansky Coe, these essays cover Dobzhansky's Russian roots (Nikolai L. Krementsov, Daniel A. Alexandrov, Mikhail B. Konashev), the Morgan Lab (Garland E. Allen, William B. Provine, Robert E. Kohler, Richard M. Burian), his scientific legacy (Scott F. Gilbert, Bruce Wallace, Charles E. Taylor), and his social, political, philosophical, and religious thought (Costas B. Krimbas, John Beatty, Diane B. Paul, Michael Ruse). Originally published in 1994. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

A reproduction of the forty-three articles that make up "The Genetics of Natural Populations" series, perhaps the most important single corpus in modern evolutionary genetics.

Looks at the nature of evolution, the genetic structure of populations, hereditary variation, natural selection, and the relationship between populations, races, and species

1 On Some Fundamental Concepts of Darwinian Biology.- Vitalism, Mechanism, and Compositionism.- Adaptedness and Adaptation.- Adaptedness to Survive and to Reproduce.- Adaptability.- Evolutionary Plasticity.- The Problem of Quantification of Adaptedness.- Darwinian Fitness.- Varieties of Natural Selection.- Darwinian Fitness and Adaptedness.- Evolutionary Opportunism and Adaptive Radiation.- Progressive Evolution.- References.- 2 Cave Ecology and the Evolution of Troglobites.- Animal Life in Caves.- The Cave Ecosystem.- Regressive Evolution in Cave Animals.- Speciation and Adaptation in Troglob.

The nature of populations, races, subspecies, and species. Genetic basis of isolation. Origin of isolation - theoretical. Origin of isolation - experimental. The nature of the speciation process.

The world's foremost geneticist surveys the major developments in what is emerging as the most important single area of scientific inquiry in the twentieth century: biological theory of evolution.

The 'Adaptive Landscape' has been a central concept in population genetics and evolutionary biology since this powerful metaphor was first formulated in 1932. This volume brings together historians of science, philosophers, ecologists, and evolutionary biologists, to discuss the state of the art from several different perspectives.

Biology was forged into a single, coherent science only within living memory. In this volume the thinkers responsible for the "modern synthesis" of evolutionary biology and genetics come together to analyze that remarkable event. In a new Preface, Ernst Mayr calls attention to the fact that scientists in different biological disciplines varied considerably in their degree of acceptance of Darwin's theories. Mayr shows us that these differences were played out in four separate periods: 1859 to 1899, 1900 to 1915, 1916 to 1936, and 1937 to 1947. He thus enables us to understand fully why the synthesis was necessary and why Darwin's original theory--that evolutionary change is due to the combination of variation and selection--is as solid at the end of the twentieth century as it was in 1859.