Volume 49, Number 9 · May 23, 2002
A New Darwinism?
By Tim Flannery
The Structures of Evolutionary Theory
by Stephen Jay Gould
Belknap Press/Harvard University Press,1,433 pp., $39.95
I Have Landed: The End of a Beginning in Natural History
by Stephen Jay Gould
Harmony Books, 418 pp., $25.95
An astonishing fact about Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is that it was conceived in the absence of two major kinds of support that would have been helpful to it—evidence from the then meager fossil record and knowledge of the mechanism of inheritance. The endurance of a theory so conceived—almost from first principles—has excited the admiration of generations of biologists. It has also given them the opportunity, as discoveries in genetics and paleontology have been made, to determine if this new evidence merits a revision of Darwinism, as the theory is now known.
, 4318 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |