Evolutionary Theory in Germany: A Comment

Abstract

In Germany, in the twenties and thirties, the problem of adaptation was in the minds of most biologists much more than finer points of evolutionary theory. There was a widespread skepticism that straightforward selectionism could be the ultimate explanation of all complex phenomena of adaptation. Underlying the scientific discussion of these problems was also the inclination of the Germans for a metaphysical underpinning and the often subconscious need to combine their scientific thinking with a metaphysical Weltanschauung. Their metaphysics came, for the ones I knew, from Naturphilosophie of the early nineteenth century—Goethe, Carus—and from Kant and not, as in some cases in this country, from a religious, Christian background.