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The Darwinian Tradition in Context pp 195–217Cite as

Alternatives to Darwinism in the Early Twentieth Century

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Abstract

Julian Huxley claimed that the period around 1900 experienced an ‘eclipse of Darwinism’ when natural selection was rejected in favour of alternative mechanisms of evolution. These included the Lamarckian theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics and the belief that variation was directed by forces internal to the organism. Mendelism undermined the credibility of these earlier ideas, but they survived in some areas of biology well into the twentieth century. Mendelism itself derived in part from the theory of evolution by sudden, discrete jumps or saltations.

This chapter describes these non-Darwinian theories and notes the relationships between them. It also identifies the motivations that encouraged biologists to prefer them and describes the evidence they presented. The role of the debate over ‘form’ and ‘function’ is stressed, along with the suggestion that much of the debate was driven by disputes over the nature of variation and its role in evolution. The bulk of the chapter consists of a detailed outline of the ways in which the non-Darwinian theories survived into the early twentieth century.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of History and Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics, Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK

    Peter J. Bowler

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  1. Peter J. Bowler
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Correspondence to Peter J. Bowler .

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  1. Departments of Liberal Education and Philosophy, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada

    Richard G. Delisle

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Bowler, P.J. (2017). Alternatives to Darwinism in the Early Twentieth Century. In: Delisle, R. (eds) The Darwinian Tradition in Context. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69123-7_9

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