It's not all about Darwin

There's going to be a lot of talk about Darwin in the coming year. It's practically impossible to talk about evolution without tipping our hat to him in some way, but as Carl Zimmer recently pointed out during a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution (which he was kind enough to post) what we know about evolution does not begin and end with Darwin. The point is familiar but it still deserves reiteration, particularly since many efforts to communicate evolutionary science to the public fixate on Darwin and Darwin alone. As Carl himself said;

Darwin deserves celebrating, but that doesn't mean we should fall prey to a cult of personality. Darwin did not invent biology. Darwin did not even find most of the evidence that he used to back up his theory of evolution. And he certainly did not discover all there was to know about evolution. Biologists have discovered many new things about evolution since his time. In some cases, they've challenged some of his most important arguments. And that's fine. That's the great strength of science.

There are plenty of reasons why we give most of our attention to Darwin (from admiration for his synthesis On the Origin of Species to the fact that it is easier to promulgate a textbook cardboard version of history than obtain a deeper understanding of it), but I think that discussions of Darwin can provide a useful starting place to talk about the "big picture" of evolutionary theory. Because Darwin had such a large amount of correspondence and the development of natural sciences in Victorian England is so well documented, it is possible to illustrate how others, from other naturalists to the author of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, "paved the way" for Darwin. (I must give credit where credit is due, as well. The Dispersal of Darwin has continually featured excellent biographical information about other naturalists on a near-daily basis.)

Discussing evolutionary theory after Darwin, however, is a thornier problem. The idea of natural selection was widely considered as the first reasonable explanation for evolutionary change but many naturalists did not accept it (for a variety of reasons). For a long time there were competing ideas like orthogenesis, vitalism, and Neo-Lamarckism. More scientists were considering the fact of evolution but there was no consensus on the primary mechanism through the 1920's, the development of the Modern Synthesis eventually laying the groundwork for later developments. (The only book I can think of that directly treats this "lost" history of the late 19th and early 20th centuries is Peter Bowler's The Eclipse of Darwinism.)

The fact that evolution is a major idea that unites all of biology also can make it difficult to provide an effective synthesis of more recent discoveries. We are all more prone to gravitate to the research of our own disciplines, making it easy to ignore or even belittle the work of scientists in other fields. Creating a new synthesis of what we now understand about evolution is made increasingly difficult as disciplines continue to develop and branch; no one person can be an expert in every relevant field. Still, the more people there are talking about new insights and discoveries, the better, and I hope that during the next year the spotlight gets thrown on researchers presently studying evolution.

I know that I'm going to continue to write about Darwin, but I also want to highlight the work of some of my other favorite scientists, particularly T.H. Huxley and G.G. Simpson. What researchers (past or present) would you like to see receive more attention as we celebrate the "Year of Evolution"?