''Genetics and the Origin of Species'' is a 1937 book by the Ukrainian-American evolutionary biologist
Theodosius Dobzhansky
Theodosius Grigorievich Dobzhansky (russian: Феодо́сий Григо́рьевич Добржа́нский; uk, Теодо́сій Григо́рович Добржа́нський; January 25, 1900 – December 18, 1975) was a prominent ...
. It is regarded as one of the most important works of the
modern synthesis
Modern synthesis or modern evolutionary synthesis refers to several perspectives on evolutionary biology, namely:
* Modern synthesis (20th century), the term coined by Julian Huxley in 1942 to denote the synthesis between Mendelian genetics and s ...
, and was one of the earliest. The book popularized the work of
population genetics
Population genetics is a subfield of genetics that deals with genetic differences within and between populations, and is a part of evolutionary biology. Studies in this branch of biology examine such phenomena as adaptation, speciation, and pop ...
to other biologists, and influenced their appreciation for the
genetic basis of evolution. In his book, Dobzhansky applied the theoretical work of
Sewall Wright
Sewall Green Wright FRS(For) Honorary FRSE (December 21, 1889March 3, 1988) was an American geneticist known for his influential work on evolutionary theory and also for his work on path analysis. He was a founder of population genetics alongsi ...
(1889–1988) to the study of natural populations, allowing him to address evolutionary problems in a novel way during his time. Dobzhansky implements theories of mutation, natural selection, and speciation throughout his book to explain habits of populations and the resulting effects on their genetic behavior.
The book explains evolution in depth as a process over time that accounts for the diversity of all life on Earth. The study of evolution was present, but greatly neglected at the time. Dobzhansky illustrates that evolution regarding the origin and nature of species during this time in history was deemed mysterious, but had expanding potential for progress to be made in its field.
Background
In Darwin's theory of
natural selection
Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charle ...
, more organisms are produced than can survive. Some have variations that give them a competitive advantage, and they have the best chance of surviving and procreating. The main element lacking in the theory was any mechanism that would allow organisms to pass on these favorable variations. Lacking such a mechanism, the theory of evolution faced competition from theories such as
neo-Lamarckism
Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also calle ...
, in which the environment acted directly on organisms, changing their structures. Darwin did not know that the monk
Gregor Mendel
Gregor Johann Mendel, Augustinians, OSA (; cs, Řehoř Jan Mendel; 20 July 1822 – 6 January 1884) was a biologist, meteorologist, mathematician, Augustinians, Augustinian friar and abbot of St Thomas's Abbey, Brno, St. Thomas' Abbey in Br ...
was already working on experiments that would explain inheritance in terms of units of heredity that we now call genes.
When Mendelian genetics was rediscovered by several scientists, it initially increased the confusion. The Dutch botanist
Hugo de Vries
Hugo Marie de Vries () (16 February 1848 – 21 May 1935) was a Dutch botanist and one of the first geneticists. He is known chiefly for suggesting the concept of genes, rediscovering the laws of heredity in the 1890s while apparently unaware of ...
developed a theory called
mutationism
Mutationism is one of several alternatives to evolution by natural selection that have existed both before and after the publication of Charles Darwin's 1859 book ''On the Origin of Species''. In the theory, mutation was the source of novelty, cr ...
in which most variations were inconsequential and could not lead to species change. Instead, new species were formed by large
mutation
In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, mi ...
s.
[ At first, geneticists tended to support mutationism; but in the 1920s and 1930s a group of theoretical geneticists – particularly ]Ronald Fisher
Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher (17 February 1890 – 29 July 1962) was a British polymath who was active as a mathematician, statistician, biologist, geneticist, and academic. For his work in statistics, he has been described as "a genius who a ...
, J. B. S. Haldane
John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (; 5 November 18921 December 1964), nicknamed "Jack" or "JBS", was a British-Indian scientist who worked in physiology, genetics, evolutionary biology, and mathematics. With innovative use of statistics in biolog ...
and Sewall Wright
Sewall Green Wright FRS(For) Honorary FRSE (December 21, 1889March 3, 1988) was an American geneticist known for his influential work on evolutionary theory and also for his work on path analysis. He was a founder of population genetics alongsi ...
– showed that Mendel's laws could explain continuous variation in biological characteristics; and that natural selection could act cumulatively, giving rise to large changes. Their work provided a theoretical framework for incorporating genetics into the theory of evolution.[
Many biologists fell into two camps: the geneticists, who mostly worked in the laboratory; and naturalists, who studied natural populations in the field and museums, and put much of their effort into ]taxonomy
Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification.
A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...
. Each contributed concepts that were essential to the understanding of evolution. Naturalists introduced the biological species concept
The species problem is the set of questions that arises when biologists attempt to define what a species is. Such a definition is called a species concept; there are at least 26 recognized species concepts. A species concept that works well for se ...
, the definition of species as a community that is reproductively isolated and occupies a distinctive ecological niche
In ecology, a niche is the match of a species to a specific environmental condition.
Three variants of ecological niche are described by
It describes how an organism or population responds to the distribution of resources and competitors (for ...
.[ They also recognized that species are ''polytypic'', having variations in time and space; and that behavior and change of function can give rise to evolutionary change.][
The two groups used such different methods and terminology that it was difficult for them to communicate. They were often battling over the same scarce academic resources, and each was often scornful of the other. As the ]paleontologist
Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
George Gaylord Simpson
George Gaylord Simpson (June 16, 1902 – October 6, 1984) was an American paleontologist. Simpson was perhaps the most influential paleontologist of the twentieth century, and a major participant in the Modern synthesis (20th century), modern ...
put it, paleontologists believed that "a geneticist was a person who shut himself in a room, pulled down the shades, watched small flies disporting themselves in milk bottles, and thought that he was studying nature." Meanwhile, naturalists were "like a man who undertakes to study the principles of the internal combustion engine by standing on a street corner and watching the motor cars whiz by."
Publication
The book began as a series of lectures at Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
in October and November 1936. Dobzhansky decided to attend the summer 1936 meeting of the Genetics Society of America
The Genetics Society of America (GSA) is a scholarly membership society of more than 5,500 genetics researchers and educators, established in 1931. The Society was formed from the reorganization of the Joint Genetics Sections of the
American Soc ...
in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. When the geneticist Leslie Dunn
Leslie Clarence Dunn (November 2, 1893 in Buffalo, New York – March 19, 1974) was a developmental geneticist at Columbia University. His early work with the mouse T-locus and established ideas of gene interaction, fertility factors, and a ...
learned of this, he invited Dobzhansky to give a series of lectures at Columbia. He sent the invitation in April, and within a month he had suggested that the lectures be a springboard for writing a general treatise on evolutionary genetics. Dobzhansky was enthusiastic, and in May he wrote back, proposing the title "Genetics and the Origin of Species". He envisioned two parts – "part I containing data on the sources of evolutionary change, and part II containing a discussion of their interactions leading to race- and species formation." After the lectures (for which he received $500), Dobzhansky returned to Pasadena, and in December Columbia University Press
Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by Jennifer Crewe (2014–present) and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fiel ...
accepted his proposal for a book. The pace of writing was helped by a riding accident in February 1937 in which he crushed his knee, rendering him immobile; and by April he was able to send a manuscript to Dunn for his perusal.[
While reading the manuscript, Dunn persuaded the university to revive the Jesup lectures, a series that had involved some notable lecturers in the past. It was back-dated so that Dobzhansky's lectures became the first in the series. The Columbia University Biological Series was also revived, and when ''Genetics and the Origin of Species'' was published in October 1937 it became the 11th volume in that series.][
Three main editions were published, in 1937, 1941 and 1951, each with significant changes. Dobzhansky considered ''Genetics of the Evolutionary Process'' (1970) a fourth edition, but one so much changed that it needed a new title.
]
Contents of the first edition
''Genetics and the Origin of Species'' has two main points to make. The first is that speciation is a genuine problem that must be explained by the theory of evolution. In nature, there is not a single population of organisms separated from each other by small variations
Variation or Variations may refer to:
Science and mathematics
* Variation (astronomy), any perturbation of the mean motion or orbit of a planet or satellite, particularly of the moon
* Genetic variation, the difference in DNA among individuals ...
. Instead, the natural world is divided into species, each with its own limited range of variability. The second point is that all the variations can be explained by the principles of genetics.
The 1937 edition was divided into nine chapters, whose contents are described below.
Organic diversity
The first chapter is a short outline of the main points of the book: Evolutionary theory must account for variations on the level of the individual and also that of populations and species. It must explain how reproductive isolation can occur. And the goal is to explain all this using genetic principles that can be verified in the laboratory.[
]
Gene mutation
The second chapter argues that mutations occur frequently and are random in direction. Most are small in effect, but they affect all features of organisms and vary from beneficial to lethal. They are sufficient to provide the raw material for natural selection.[
]
Mutation as a basis for racial and specific differences
In the third chapter, Dobzhansky demonstrates that the mutations that are observed in the laboratory also occur in nature, where they are acted on by natural selection. Thus, there is nothing intrinsically different about the process by which new species evolve.[
]
Chromosomal changes
Dobzhansky continues the theme of continuity between the laboratory and nature in chapter 4, showing that variations in the structure, arrangement and number of chromosome
A chromosome is a long DNA molecule with part or all of the genetic material of an organism. In most chromosomes the very long thin DNA fibers are coated with packaging proteins; in eukaryotic cells the most important of these proteins are ...
s occur in both the laboratory and nature. He shows that chromosomal translocation
In genetics, chromosome translocation is a phenomenon that results in unusual rearrangement of chromosomes. This includes balanced and unbalanced translocation, with two main types: reciprocal-, and Robertsonian translocation. Reciprocal translo ...
, a rearrangement of parts in chromosomes, accounts for racial differences in ''Datura stramonium
''Datura stramonium'', known by the common names thorn apple, jimsonweed (jimson weed), devil's snare, or devil's trumpet, is a poisonous flowering plant of the nightshade family Solanaceae. It is a species belonging to the ''Datura'' genus a ...
'' (jimson-weed). Chromosomal inversion
An inversion is a chromosome rearrangement in which a segment of a chromosome becomes inverted within its original position. An inversion occurs when a chromosome undergoes a two breaks within the chromosomal arm, and the segment between the two br ...
, a reversal of a segment, is the basis for differentiation in ''Drosophila
''Drosophila'' () is a genus of flies, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "small fruit flies" or (less frequently) pomace flies, vinegar flies, or wine flies, a reference to the characteristic of many species ...
''. He also points out that these effects demonstrate that the chromosome parts are interdependent.[
]
Variation in natural populations
Having established that the sources of natural variation are mutations and chromosomal rearrangements, Dobzhansky considers what shapes and preserves this variation. In the first edition of this book, he considers genetic drift
Genetic drift, also known as allelic drift or the Wright effect, is the change in the frequency of an existing gene variant (allele) in a population due to random chance.
Genetic drift may cause gene variants to disappear completely and there ...
as important as natural selection. As an example, he argued that drift was the reason for racial variations that were observed in '' Partula'', a land snail
A land snail is any of the numerous species of snail that live on land, as opposed to the sea snails and freshwater snails. ''Land snail'' is the common name for terrestrial gastropod mollusks that have shells (those without shells are known as ...
, so these variations had no adaptive advantage. He argued that most such variations, which he called ''microgeographic race'', was nonadaptive. Because variation is not always controlled by selection, we need to know the size of a population before we can predict its evolutionary dynamics.[
]
Selection
The sixth chapter discusses the evidence for natural selection from experiments in the laboratory and observations of nature. He considered examples of camouflage
Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the ...
such as industrial melanism
Industrial melanism is an evolutionary effect prominent in several arthropods, where dark pigmentation (melanism) has evolved in an environment affected by industrial pollution, including sulphur dioxide gas and dark soot deposits. Sulphur diox ...
, in which moths and other arthropod
Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a Segmentation (biology), segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and Arth ...
s evolve darker pigmentation when exposed to an environment with a lot of soot in it. He refuted some Mendelian misconceptions about the effectiveness of natural selection, but he also rejected the strict selectionism of Fisher
Fisher is an archaic term for a fisherman, revived as gender-neutral.
Fisher, Fishers or The Fisher may also refer to:
Places
Australia
*Division of Fisher, an electoral district in the Australian House of Representatives, in Queensland
*Elect ...
.[
]
Polyploidy
In the seventh chapter, Dobzhansky discusses polyploid
Polyploidy is a condition in which the cells of an organism have more than one pair of ( homologous) chromosomes. Most species whose cells have nuclei ( eukaryotes) are diploid, meaning they have two sets of chromosomes, where each set contain ...
y, a condition (common in plants) where an organism has more than two complete sets of chromosomes. (Humans are diploid
Ploidy () is the number of complete sets of chromosomes in a cell, and hence the number of possible alleles for autosomal and pseudoautosomal genes. Sets of chromosomes refer to the number of maternal and paternal chromosome copies, respectively ...
, having one set each from the mother and father.) He discusses case histories such as that of Raphanobrassica, a hybrid between the radish and the cabbage. This is an example of "cataclysmic" speciation, an exception to his general rule that speciation is a slow process.
Isolating mechanisms
An '' isolating mechanism'' prevents members of two different species from successfully producing offspring. Dobzhansky invented the term,[ and in the eighth chapter he discusses their role in speciation. His views were sufficiently original for him to publish them in a journal article as well. Although previous authors had recognized the importance of isolation, their reasons were entirely different from his. ]George Romanes
George John Romanes FRS (20 May 1848 – 23 May 1894) was a Canadian-Scots evolutionary biologist and physiologist who laid the foundation of what he called comparative psychology, postulating a similarity of cognitive processes and mechanis ...
thought that isolation was a cause of change, whereas Dobzhansky sees two competing effects. Isolation reduces the rate of formation of harmful gene combinations, but it also restricts the scope of genetic variation. Thus, a species remains near a given peak in the fitness landscape
Fitness may refer to:
* Physical fitness, a state of health and well-being of the body
* Fitness (biology), an individual's ability to propagate its genes
* Fitness (cereal), a brand of breakfast cereals and granola bars
* ''Fitness'' (magazine), ...
and does not find new adaptive peaks.[
Dobzhansky presents a classification of isolating mechanisms. The main division is between ]hybrid
Hybrid may refer to:
Science
* Hybrid (biology), an offspring resulting from cross-breeding
** Hybrid grape, grape varieties produced by cross-breeding two ''Vitis'' species
** Hybridity, the property of a hybrid plant which is a union of two dif ...
sterility, which he discusses in the next chapter, and mechanisms that prevent organisms from mating. These include geographic and ecological isolation. After two populations are changed sufficiently, "physiological" isolating mechanisms prevent them from mating, so they will remain distinct even if they are no longer physically isolated. This isolation is the end of a continuous process that includes division into races, and involves multiple mutations.[
]
Hybrid sterility
In the chapter on isolating mechanisms, Dobzhansky deplores the "appallingly insufficient attention" that geneticists had devoted to isolation.[ The only isolating mechanism that they had studied was sterility in ]hybrid organisms
In biology, a hybrid is the offspring resulting from combining the qualities of two organisms of different breeds, varieties, species or genera through sexual reproduction. Hybrids are not always intermediates between their parents (such as in ...
, so he devotes the ninth chapter to a particularly detailed analysis of the literature on this subject.[
]
Experiments
Through his work on ''Drosophila pseudoobscura
''Drosophila'' () is a genus of flies, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "small fruit flies" or (less frequently) pomace flies, vinegar flies, or wine flies, a reference to the characteristic of many species ...
'', a species of fruitfly, Dobzhansky was able to identify that some populations of this species did not have identical sets of genes. Dobzhansky used experimental breeding in laboratories and gardens, and also surveys related to species in nature to help support aspects of organic evolution. The data in his book show the different genetic mutations and chromosomal changes that were observed. These experiments are vital to this book because they illustrate a transition from the laboratory to the greater field of genetics. ''Drosophila'' enabled researchers to gain a deeper understanding of how scientific knowledge about heredity has expanded and contributed to other areas of biology. By focusing on the opportunities and constraints of the research organism, persuasive accounts of the chromosomal genetics of ''Drosophila'' eventually evolved into the genetics of natural populations in the 1930s. All of the results from his experiments support the theory of modern evolutionary synthesis.
Mutations
Through his experiments, Dobzhansky discovers that mutation of genes leads to evolution within a specific species. Adaptations play a large role in genetic drift, and it is known that genes and mutations influence this genetic drift in a particular environment. Mutations can result from external influences within the surrounding environment, especially if an organism inhabits an area with harsh living conditions. An organism can adapt to its environment in order to better suit its own needs. When an organism successfully adapts, it has higher survival and reproduction rates. Therefore, there is a higher chance that its genes will be passed on to its offspring. Specific genes and alleles are then passed on to future generations to continue the trend of modern evolution that Dobzhansky presents in the book.
Dobzhansky said that natural mutation, aided by variation, can lead to change when acted upon by natural selection. Mutations were thought to be relatively rare and other variations were even considered to be harmful. Since an organism's overall genetic make-up was the result of natural selection, with damaging mutations weeded out, wild populations were assumed to have very few mutations. As a result, evolution was said to be a relatively slow process. One of Dobzhansky's major contributions in this book was to show that this view of slow-moving evolution was incorrect. While analyzing chromosome structure in wild populations of ''Drosophila pseudoobscura'', Dobzhansky discovered a surprising amount of undiscovered variability. These variations could not be observed in the outward appearance of the individual organisms. Dobzhansky suggested that the preservation of extensive variation would allow populations to evolve rapidly as environmental conditions change. This book was a landmark in the evolutionary synthesis, as it presented the union of Mendelian genetics and Darwinian theory.
In ''Genetics and the Origin of Species'', polyploidy is considered as a type of mutation. Polyploid cells have a chromosome number that is more than twice the haploid number. The effects of polyploidy between two different species causes hybridization and even greater evolution.[
]
Natural selection and speciation
Natural selection in an environment produces reproductive success, which benefits the species. Speciation is a process of evolution through which new biological species are formed. Dobzhansky studied the specifics of sexual, physiological, and behavioral isolating mechanisms in ''Drosophila pseudoobscura'' and ''Drosophila paulistrorum.'' Like many of his other studies, Dobzhansky's work on reproductive isolation was aimed at studying the process of evolution in action. Bringing samples from each population back into the laboratory, Dobzhansky showed that he could vary environmental conditions so as to produce the same changes in frequency of inversion patterns that were observed with changing seasons in the field. Dobzhansky concluded that such seasonal fluctuations were the result of natural selection at work, with temperature acting as the selecting agent. These masterful studies provided concrete support for the theory of natural selection, at the same time illustrating the fruitfulness of combining field and laboratory work in the study of evolution. Adaptive evolution occurs through the dominance and survival of competing genes within a species. This is caused by increasing the frequency of those alleles whose phenotypic effects selfishly promote their own reproduction. He also believed new species could not arise from single mutations and must be isolated from others of its species by time, geography, habitat, or breeding season.[
]
Historical impact
''Genetics and the Origin of Species'' provided the outline for a synthesis of genetics with evolution, and was enthusiastically received by both geneticists and naturalists. Dobzhansky laid out an advanced account of the evolutionary process in genetic terms, and he backed up his work with experimental evidence supporting the theoretical arguments. This led to the stimulation of the field of evolutionary genetics, and contributions to the theory soon began to follow. This had a powerful impact on naturalists and experimental biologists, who quickly embraced this new understanding of the evolutionary process as one of genetic change in populations. It was not long before the synthesis was broadened to include paleontology, systematics
Biological systematics is the study of the diversification of living forms, both past and present, and the relationships among living things through time. Relationships are visualized as evolutionary trees (synonyms: cladograms, phylogenetic tre ...
and botany
Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...
in a series of notable books: ''Systematics and the Origin of Species ''Systematics and the Origin of Species from the Viewpoint of a Zoologist'' is a book written by zoologist and evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr, first published in 1942 by Columbia University Press. The book became one of the canonical publications ...
'' (1942) by Ernst Mayr
Ernst Walter Mayr (; 5 July 1904 – 3 February 2005) was one of the 20th century's leading evolutionary biologists. He was also a renowned Taxonomy (biology), taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, Philosophy of biology, philosopher o ...
; ''Tempo and Mode in Evolution
''Tempo and Mode in Evolution'' (1944) was George Gaylord Simpson, George Gaylord Simpson's seminal contribution to the Modern synthesis (20th century), evolutionary synthesis, which integrated the facts of paleontology with those of genetics and ...
'' (1944) by George Gaylord Simpson; and '' Variation and Evolution in Plants'' (1950) by G. Ledyard Stebbins
George Ledyard Stebbins Jr. (January 6, 1906 – January 19, 2000) was an American botanist and geneticist who is widely regarded as one of the leading evolutionary biologists of the 20th century. Stebbins received his Ph.D. in botany from Har ...
. The emerging synthesis was called the evolutionary synthesis by Julian Huxley
Sir Julian Sorell Huxley (22 June 1887 – 14 February 1975) was an English evolutionary biologist, eugenicist, and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century modern synthesis. ...
in his book, '' Evolution: The Modern Synthesis''. In 1947, a diverse collection of biologists met at a symposium in Princeton and declared their acceptance of this synthesis. However, it was not yet complete. Developmental biologists
Development of the human body is the process of growth to maturity. The process begins with fertilization, where an egg released from the ovary of a female is penetrated by a sperm cell from a male. The resulting zygote develops through mitosi ...
did not accept that the theory explained their observations, and it was not until the 1970s and 1980s that molecular biology
Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and physi ...
bridged the gap. Also, for decades there was disagreement over whether the unit of selection was the gene or the individual as a whole.
In 1974 all the living founders of the modern synthesis (with the exception of Simpson and Bernhard Rensch
Bernhard Rensch (21 January 1900 – 4 April 1990) was a German evolutionary biologist and ornithologist who did field work in Indonesia and India. Starting his scientific career with pro-Lamarckian views, he shifted to selectionism and became on ...
) met with historians of biology in a conference to evaluate their work. All acknowledged ''Genetics and the Origin of Species'' as the direct instigator of all the work that followed.[ Ernst Mayr, in '' The Growth of Biological Thought'', said that it was "clearly the most decisive event in the history of evolutionary biology since the publication of the ''Origin of Species'' in 1859.'' ]
Awards
Dobzhansky was plagued by a form of leukemia
Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ' ...
in his later years, but he remained vigorously active until the day before his death on December 18, 1975.[ During his lifetime he was the recipient of many honors and awards. For ''Genetics and the Origin of Species'' Dobzhansky was awarded the ]Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal
The Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal is awarded by the U.S. United States National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences "for meritorious work in zoology or paleontology study published in a three- to five-year period." Named after Daniel Gir ...
from the National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
in 1941. Sixty years after its publication, the National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
commissioned a book entitled ''Genetics and the Origin of Species: From Darwin to Molecular Biology 60 Years After Dobzhansky''.
It was also included in the 1990 edition of ''Great Books of the Western World
''Great Books of the Western World'' is a series of books originally published in the United States in 1952, by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., to present the great books in a 54-volume set.
The original editors had three criteria for includi ...
'', placing it with Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
's two great works ''The Origin of Species
''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''),The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by Me ...
'' and ''The Descent of Man
''The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex'' is a book by English naturalist Charles Darwin, first published in 1871, which applies evolutionary theory to human evolution, and details his theory of sexual selection, a form of biolo ...
''. A third edition was published in 1951.
References
Further reading
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External links
* (book review)
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{{History of biology
1937 non-fiction books
1937 in biology
Books about evolution
History of evolutionary biology
History of genetics
Modern synthesis (20th century)