modern synthesis
jwhitfield | January 21, 2009To a man with a hammer, said Mark Twain, everything looks like a nail. The better your hammer, I would add, the more nail-like everything looks.
In natural selection, Darwin had crafted one of the best hammers of all time. And in chapter 5 of the origin, 'Laws of Variation', you can hear him umming and aahing about various alternative mechanisms of evolutionary change before deciding that, actually, you know what this needs...hold 'er steady...Thwack!
How about, for example, the "effect of external conditions" -- "food climate &c.". Well, "Gould believes that birds of the same species are…