Brian Olsen

Indiana University

Gerhard Heberer and Issues in Current

Historiography of The Modern Synthesis

Gerhard Herberer (1901-1973) was a unique figure in the German evolutionary biology

community in the early twentieth century because he was a physical anthropologist who

concerned himself with the broader questions of evolution in the biological world. He was

interested in both evolutionary paleontology and genetics, two scientific interests that

according to Ernst Mayr, rarely intermingled.1 His work during the 1940’s was important in that

he promoted a Darwinian view of evolution that had no room for Lamarckian or orthogenetic

explanations and integrated contemporary genetic and systematic research. More specifically,

his acceptance of population genetics and macroevolution via natural selection acting on genes

and mutations make him part of a select group in Germany affirming the key tenets of what

biologists would come to call the Modern Synthesis. His own contribution to this work was the

concept of additive typogenesis, which helped harmonize aspects of micro- and macro-

evolution that had proved problematic to the idea of speciation, and which integrated

mutation, phylogenetics, and population genetics.2 Throughout his life, he created a distinct

view of what the Modern Synthesis was, and how he fit into it. But how are we to view

1 Ernst Mayr and William B. Provine. The Evolutionary Synthesis : Perspectives on theUnification of Biology (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), P. 280.2 Uwe Hossfeld. Gerhard Heberer (1901-1973) : Sein Beitrag zur Biologie im 20.

Jahrhundert (Berlin: VWB, 1997), P. 140.

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Heberer in relation to a concept as historiographically fluid as the Modern Synthesis? As

Smocovitis points out, the concept of the Modern Synthesis is a “moving target” that has been

used in very different ways by both biologists and historians of science, and refers both to the

scientific concept and the process of its creation. 3 The most pervasive narrative is that created

by Ernst Mayr that gives the majority of the credit for the Synthesis to a few key scientists

working mainly in England and America that he calls “architects.” I propose to use Heberer to

show the need to revise Mayr’s narrative to include the German evolutionary community in the

process of the Synthesis, and reexamine his view of almost universal German resistance to

natural selection.

Starting in the 1960’s, Mayr began to create a coherent narrative of the Modern

Synthesis that was previously lacking. According to Smocovitis’ extensive history of the

historiography of the Synthesis, he created this new narrative to replace an existing one that he

felt was incomplete. This previous account, created largely by Julian Huxley and reinforced by

Dobhzhansky and Muller, focused on the synthesis of mathematical and experimental aspects

of genetics and selection theory, with special emphasis on the importance of genetics.4 Mayr

felt that the focus should be on population thinking in general, which would balance the

influence of geneticists with that of naturalists and systematists, as well as taking a more

historical approach.5 For his definition of synthesis, he refers to Laudan:

3

Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis. Unifying Biology : The Evolutionary Synthesis and Evolutionary Biology (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1996), P. 19.4 Ibid., P. 20.5 Ibid., P. 25.

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“‘There are times when two or more research traditions, far from mutually undermining one

another, can be amalgamated, producing a synthesis, which is progressive with respect to both

the former research traditions’…What happened between 1937 and 1947 was precisely such a

synthesis between research traditions that had previously been unable to communicate.”6

Mayr also begins to contextualize the Modern Synthesis within the idea of a Kuhnian scientific

revolution. He believes that the Synthesis was not a paradigm shift, but a compromise

between existing viewpoints. It was not a revolution in itself, but instead “the final

implementation of the Darwinian revolution.”7

While this reinterpretation broadened disciplinary credit for the creation of the Modern

Synthesis, it did not go so far as to dilute it by sharing it with the many scientists who were

involved in these areas. He eventually narrowed the list of “architects” of the Modern

Synthesis to a few key figures; Dobzhansky, Huxley, Mayr, Simpson, Rensch and Stebbins. He

lists some basic, vague, criteria for being an architect: 1. Willingness “to learn the new findings

in areas of biology outside their own field of specialization.” 2. Accepting the “Darwinian

interpretation without reservations.” 3. The ability to “remove misunderstandings and to build

bridges between hierarchical levels.”8 He credits these few for their ability to build bridges, and

mentions the various others who helped “ ‘clear the terrain’ so that the bridges could be built

and who had supplied important building materials.”9 While all of the architects that he

designates did important research in the Synthesis, the “bridge building” he is using to define

6 Mayr and Provine, Synthesis, P. 40.7 Mayr and Provine, Synthesis, P. 43.8 Mayr and Provine, Synthesis, Pp. 40-41.9 Ernst Mayr. The Growth of Biological Thought (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1982), P. 568.

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their importance, seems largely based on their ability to create consensus among scientific

communities. The problem is that Mayr never sets a strict set of criteria for being an architect.

He mentions the importance of numerous people in numerous countries in fulfilling the few

criteria he sets out, but he never specifically tells us why he chooses to focus on a particular

handful. He of course mentions important contributions of the few he speaks of in depth as

architects, but he never gives us any unifying factor or set of factors exclusive to his group of

“architects.” Other than his personal designation (to which we can no longer avail since his

passing in 2005), what methods have we for picking an “architect” out of a field of many

scientists, working in many countries, who meet the basic criteria he has set for bridge

building? He also switches interchangeably between the concepts of the Modern Synthesis as a

social construction and as a set of scientific discoveries, which probably results from his trying

to write as both a scientist and a historian, rather than a historian of science. 10 This architect

concept combined with Mayr’s belief in “the almost universal rejection in Germany of the

theory of natural selection,”11 brings to light problems with his account.

Gerhard Heberer problematizes the narrative and categories that Mayr is trying to

create. While Rensch is the sole German designated as an architect of the Modern Synthesis,

many aspects of his career run parallel to Heberer. Both began their careers in Zoology, and

both participated in a 1927 expedition to the Sunda Islands in Indonesia.12 In the same

10 Smocovitis, Unifying, P 54. 11 Mayr, Growth, P. 535.12 Heberer, Gerhard, and Wolfgang Lehmann. Die Inland-Malaien Von Lombok Und

Sumbawa; Anthropologische Ergebnisse Der Sunda-Expedition Rensch. (Göttingen,: "Muster-Schmidt", Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 1950), P.4.

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paragraph that Mayr lists Rensch as an architect of the Synthesis, he refers to Die Evolution der

Organismen, a volume that Heberer organized and edited, as contributing to the Synthesis.13

When talking about German evolution before the Modern Synthesis in Mayr and Provine’s 1980

work. The Evolutionary Synthesis, Rensch describes Heberer’s work as “Neo-Darwinistic” and

mentions his role in rejecting the orthogenetic ideas of Schindewolf in favor of relying on

genetics and natural selection.14 Nor is Mayr’s praise for Heberer’s work faint. He says in a

review of Evolution der Organismen that:

Heberer shows that the concept of gradual evolution is favored by all the available evidence

and that the hypothesis of the origin of new types through saltations (macromutations) is based

on a misunderstanding of known genetic mechanisms. The phenomena of mosaic evolution

(particularly among so-called "missing links") and the invariable coincidence of gaps in phyletic

series with gaps in the fossil record greatly strengthen the theory of gradual evolution. The

documentation of this thesis by Heberer is broad and convincing, and it contains much that is

new and original.15

Part of this elevation of Rensch over Heberer may be due to the fact that Mayr worked under

and corresponded with Rensch, 16 as well as many of the others that he lists as architects. He

may also be trying to distance Heberer from the core of the Synthesis, because Heberer was

active in the Nazi party and Mayr worried that “evolution was synonymized with the most

13 Mayr, Growth, P. 568.14 Bernhard Rensch, “Historical Development of the Present Synthetic Neo-Darwinism in Germany” in The Evolutionary Synthesis: Perspectives on the Unification of Biology, ed. Ernst Mayr and William B. Provine (Cambridge, Mass, : Harvard University Press, 1980), Pp. 285,288, 290.

15 Ernst Mayr. Review of Die Evolution der Organismen. Part 4; Part 5 by Gerhard Heberer,Source: Science, New Series, Vol. 127, No. 3291 (Jan. 24, 1958), p. 193.16 Mayr and Provine, Synthesis, P. 34.

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typological selectionism, and biology with Nazi racism.”17 Rensch was quite the opposite, as he

was forced to leave a post at the zoological museum in Berlin due to his refusal to join the Nazi

party. Part of Mayr’s disparaging stance toward the German evolutionary biology community

may be a need to distance himself and the Modern Synthesis from the community’s

associations with Nazism.

Smocovitis attempts to clarify and extend social considerations, and makes them a

central aspect of her account. She attempts to create a story that has value to the scientist,

but also draws on externalist approaches such as “cultural history/cultural study, literary

theory, and philosophy of history.”18 While Smocovitis may be commended for attempting to

create new methods of historiography to gain new perspectives on the process behind the

Modern Synthesis, the approach takes the “architect” concept so far as to exclude an

international context. While the research of the American or Americanized scientists is

mentioned, the scientific tenets that one might use to define the Synthesis are not focused on

because they are too difficult to pin down.19 This excludes those that Mayr may have included,

if not centralized, in the Modern Synthesis because their research added to knowledge of

evolution while staying within a broad set of possible tenets when he broadly defines the

process of the Modern Synthesis thusly:

On the whole — and admittedly this is an oversimplification —two camps were recognizable,

the geneticists and the naturalists-systematists. They spoke different languages; their attempts

17 Uwe Hossfeld and Thomas Junker. “The Architects of the Evolutionary Synthesis in National Socialist Germany: Science and Politics,” Biology and Philosophy 17 (2002): P. 24318 Smocovitis, Unifying, P. 6.19 Ibid., P.54.

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in joint meetings come to come to an agreement were unsuccessful…And yet, within the short

span of twelve years (1936-1947), the disagreements were almost suddenly cleared away and a

seemingly new theory of evolution was synthesized from the valid components of the

previously feuding theories.20

Heberer would be someone included in this broader view of the Synthesis because he did

Synthetic work. He and virtually anyone working in Germany, including Rensch is excluded

under Smocovitis’ narrative because they are not writing in the same language, or part of the

same institutions. Smocovitis believes that the Synthesis is “an Anglo-American historical

event” and Mayr thinks that this view may “stress Anglo-American contributors, possibly to the

exclusion of other national contexts of activity.”21 While Smocovitis shrinks the scope of the

Modern Synthesis, there are other, more inclusive perspectives from which to view Heberer.

Junker, Hossfeld, and Reif, some of the only historians who mention Heberer at any

length, have a more nuanced picture of his role in the Modern Synthesis. Their pluralistic take

on the Modern Synthesis, which views the synthesis as a“new paradigm of the theory of

evolution” in which different possible sets of ideas, leaves room for the accomplishments of

Heberer. 22 In their joint article “The Synthetic Theory of Evolution: General Problems and the

German Contribution to the Synthesis”, they count him amongst the architects of the Synthesis

and compare Organismen to Huxley’s pivotal New Systematics.23 The praise for Heberer seems

20 Mayr and Provine, Synthesis, 1980. P. XV.21 Smocovitis, Unifying, P. 207.22 Wolf-Ernst Reif , Thomas Junker, and Uwe Hossfeld. "The Synthetic Theory of

Evolution:General Problems and the German Contribution to the Synthesis." Theory in Biosciences 119 (2000): P. 44.23 Ibid. P. 73

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merited, as he not only participated in the Modern Synthesis, but was active in its promotion in

Germany. This view of the Synthesis seems merely to loosen the criteria to define it , while still

clinging to Mayr’s basic framework, including the idea of an “architect.” As this still includes the

arbitrary elevation of a group of architects from a broad and active international evolution

community, the best way to broaden the Synthesis to include Germany, would be to give up

Mayr’s focus on a few key figures within his orbit. This would require looking at larger networks

and relationships that may have been operating outside of Mayr’s circle. Hossfeld has yet

another way of incorporating Heberer into the Synthesis.

Hossfeld has other interests at stake in Heberer. His book, Heberer (1901-1973) Sein

Beitrag zur Biologe im 20. Jahrhundert, an expansion of his doctoral thesis, tries to define

Heberer’s stance astride evolutionary biology and physical anthropology. With an open mind to

Heberer’s role, he says that “It is necessary now to examine, what Heberer's scientific

accomplishments in the field of evolutionary biology were, why his work in evolutionary biology

received almost no reception, and whether the title, theoretical joint founder of the

evolutionary synthesis, is justified.” 24 Hossfeld does little to challenge Mayr’s narrative in this

work and looks to wedge Heberer into Mayr’s “architect” construct by altering it just enough to

include Heberer. He includes Heberer by changing the criteria for founding status to agreement

of theory. He eventually concludes that Heberer did bridge the gap between micro- and

macroevolution and that his lack of a reception in the Anglo-American evolutionary biology

24 “Es gilt nun zu hinterfragen, was die wissenschaftlichen Verdienste von HEBERER auf dem Gebiet der Evolutionsbiologie waren, warum im anglo-amerikanischen Raum kaum eine Rezeption seiner evolutionsbiologischen Arbeiten erfolgte und ob der Anspruch, theoretischer Mitbegründer der evolutionären Synthese zu sein, gerechtfertigt ist.” Hossfeld, Heberer, P. 9.

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community was due to his inter- and postwar Nazi associations, and not lack of scientific

merit.25

Heberer, of course, had his own views of, and contributions to the Modern Synthesis.

Darwin was a central part of this work. During the Synthesis he wrote that: “At present we are

undergoing a new basis through the synthesis of systematics, paleontology and genetics, for a

magnificent new formation of evolution theory whose matrix is represented by selection

theory.”26 He also recognizes that the much of the new bio-geographic theory has its origins in

Darwin when he states:

The extraordinary expansion of the systematic-biogeographic knowledge, the deep insights,

which modern paleontology has imparted into the historic flow of evolution , led in association

with the current genetics to the creation of the modern evolution theory, which was designated

by SIMPSON appropriately as the synthetic theory of the evolution. Its logical structure is

predetermined in the classic work of DARWIN! 27

25 Ibid. P. 152.

26 „Zur Zeit erleben wir auf neuer Basis durch die Synthese von Systematik, Paläontologie und Genetik eine großartige Neuformung der Evolutionstheorie, deren Grundgerüst die Selektionstheorie darstellt „ Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin-Wallace: Dokumente zur Begründung Der Abstammungslehre Vor 100 Jahren 1858/59-1958/59, ed. Gerhard Heberer (Stuttgart: G. Fischer, 1959), P. 7

27 „Die außerordentlichen Erweiterungen der systematisch-biogeographischen Kenntnisse, die

tiefgehenden Einsichten, die die moderne Paläontologie in die historischen Evolutionsabläufe vermittelt hat, führten im Verein mit der aktuellen Genetik zur Schaffung der modernen Evolutionstheorie, die von SIMPSON treffend als Synthetische Theorie der Evolution bezeichnet worden ist. Ihr Grundgefüge ist in dem klassischen Werke DARWINS vorgegeben!“Gerhard Heberer and Schwanitz ed. Hundert Jahre Evolutionsforschung; Das Wissenschaftliche Vermächtnis Charles Darwins (Stuttgart: G. Fischer, 1960), P.1.

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Such sentiments do not fit well into Mayr’s view of Germany, although they do fit well with

Mayr’s view of the Modern Synthesis as the culmination of a Darwinian revolution. Just as

Mayr views the Synthesis from the perspective of a systematist and naturalist, so does Heberer,

in that he puts focus on Simpson, the figure who was most influential in introducing the

Modern Synthesis into paleontology. Simpson had a similarly admiring view of Heberer and

said of his theory of additive typo genesis:

He is, in short, a strong and persuasive adherent of the synthetic theory of evolution essentially

as also expounded by Huxley, Dobhzhansky, this reviewer (as Heberer emphasizes), and others.

Heberer's purpose here is not so much to expound the general theory as to show that the origin

of taxa from species upward is in fact by summation in populations and not by individual

systemic mutations or saltations. 28

Much of this work has its origins in periods when Darwinism was supposedly under attack in

Germany.

Mayr thinks that Darwinism and genetics itself were out of fashion until the mid 1930’s

in Germany, and that there was almost no interest in evolutionary genetics.29 This view

corresponds closely with that of Peter Bowler, who sees the early twentieth century as a period

when the primacy of Darwinism was eclipsed by anti-Darwinian ideas. Both blame the

ideological freedom of the German genetics community for allowing anti-Darwinian ideas to

flourish.30 Bowler states that this freedom allowed discourse between experimentalists and

28 G. G. Simpson, Review of Die Evolution Der Organismen: Ergebnisse Und Probleme Der Abstammungslehre by Gerhard Heberer. The Quarterly Review of Biology 33, no. 2 (1958).pp. 148-14929 Mayr and Provine, Synthesis, P. 28030 Peter J. Bowler, Evolution: The History of an Idea. 3rd , completely rev. and expand ed: (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), P. 272.

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geneticists, but they directed this communication towards finding anti-Darwinian mechanisms

of evolution.31 Both recognize the broad acceptance of Darwin within the German scientific

community, but they see any contamination from ideas of soft inheritance as an obstacle to the

Synthesis. Bowler sees it as explicitly anti-Darwinian, while Mayr realizes that many scientists

held views that included Darwinian and non-Darwinian mechanisms, but were unable to

recognize the incompatibility of these types of ideas. Bowler sees the Modern Synthesis as the

end of this eclipse of Darwinism because population genetics is able to once and for all disprove

the idea of soft inheritance, and it puts focus on new Darwinian areas of research.32 Mayr feels

that most of the components of the Synthesis were already in place and that they simply

needed to be viewed in the right way, by the right people.

The problem with Mayr’s account here is that he must make apologies for himself and

Rensch because they accepted “the existence of a certain amount of soft inheritance” in their

early work, but that they “subsequently adopted the Darwinian interpretation without

reservations.”33 Bowler acknowledges that this acceptance in their early work lasted up until

the 1930’s,34 where Mayr locates the start of the Modern Synthesis. This would make it seem

that Mayr does not feel comfortable beginning having the Synthesis begin until he had found

the courage of his own convictions in the exclusivity of Darwinism, and casts further doubt on

his choice to give privileged historical status to a handful of scientists from a larger international

community. Heberer never faced these issues because his anthropological work was grounded

31 Ibid., P. 244.32 Ibid., P. 308.33 Mayr and Provine, Synthesis, P. 40.34 Bowler, Evolution, P. 316.

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in Darwin, who he saw as a predecessor because he was the first to apply the newly scientific

conceptions of evolution toward the origins of humans.

Heberer does not fit this eclipse model. Heberer was already researching evolutionary

genetics as a compliment to his work in anthropology in the very early 1930’s.35 Mayr also felt

that Haeckel was responsible the rejection of natural selection due to his overly materialistic

portrayal of Darwinism. Yet Heberer was a Haeckel enthusiast who justified Haeckel by relating

his work to modern evolutionary theory, and was inspired by him to pursue synthetic ideas. 36

To problematize the situation even further, Heberer was not just someone who cleared the way

for bridges to be built. His work met Mayr’s criteria for being synthetic, because he was familiar

with zoological field work (his initial area of study), developments in genetics, and systematics

and because he clarified areas where population geneticists were talking past each other. He

applied modern understandings of phylogeny and genetics to rewriting the evolutionary trees

of early human ancestors37, and combined these divergent traditions into work that might be

classified by today’s standards as physical anthropology. He did truly synthetic research that

integrated mutation, phylogenetics, and population genetics during the period of the Synthesis.

35 Hossfeld, Heberer, P. 167

36 Ernst Haeckel. Der Gerechtfertigte Haeckel: Einblicke in Seine Schriften Aus Anlass Des Erscheinens Seines Hauptwerkes 'Generelle Morphologie Der Organismen' Vor 100 Jahren. Ed. Gerhard Heberer (Stuttgart: G. Fischer, 1968), P. 3.

37 Heberer, Gerhard and Günther Bergner. Menschliche Abstammungslehre; Fortschritte Der

"Anthropogenie," 1863-1964. (Stuttgart: G. Fischer, 1965). P. 315.

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In Die Evolution Der Organismen; Ergebnisse und Probleme Der Abstammungslehre,

Heberer fully develops his idea of additive typogenesis, which he first articulated in work on

experimental phylogenetics in 1943. In the introduction, he talks about the inevitable

appearance of a system that uses experimental genetics and phylogenetics, as well as existing

phylogenetic evidence to unite the different areas of phylogeny, and his and others attempts to

accomplish such a synthesis in spite of the isolation that had been imposed by the war.38

Additive typogenesis was representative of this synthesis. It is intended to try and answer issues

of the macro/micro-phylogeny problem that Synthetic theory had brought to the fore.39 He

shows how abstract genetic calculations must be supplemented with an understanding of

paleontology when he says that “It can be calculated how high the probability is of retaining in

one shot (= a complex, simultaneous series of mutations) the factors that are necessary in order

to retain, be it also of slight complexity, a synorganization. Such examples of calculation are

however, meaningless and miss the problem. They fail to account for the time component!”40

38 „Die erste Auflage des vorliegenden Werkes erschien im Jahre 1943. Die Entwicklung der Evolutionsforschung, besonders durch die Fortschritte der experimentellen Genetik und experimentellen Phylogenetik, die Neufassung der Systematik und die schnell ausnehmende Vervollständigung des stammesgeschichtlichen Urkundenmateriales, ließ eine Synthese, die möglichst alle Gebiete der Phylogenetik erfasste, notwendig erschien. Trotz der durch die Zeitverhältnisse bedingten weitgehenden Isolierung vom Auslande unternahmen es Herausgeber und Mitarbeiter, eine solche Synthese durchzuführen.“ Gerhard Heberer ed. Die Evolution Der Organismen; Ergebnisse Und Probleme Der Abstammungslehre, 2. erw. Aufl. Band 1. (Stuttgart: G. Fischer, 1959), P. vii.

39 „Im Verlaufe der neueren Entwicklung der Evolutionstheorie-die vielleicht heute am besten im Sinne SIMPSONS (1944,1951 und 1953) als synthetische Theorie der Evolution bezeichnet wird-hat sich das sog. ‚Makro-Mikrophylogenie-Problem‘ immer mehr in den Mittelpunkt der theoretischen Erörterungen geschoben.“ ibid. P. 857.40 „Es wird berechnet, wie hoch die Wahrscheinlichkeit ist, um mit einem Wurf (= eine komplexe simultane Mutationsserie) die Faktoren zu erhalten, die notwendig sind, um eine Synorganisation, sei es auch nur von geringer Komplexität, zu erhalten. Solche Rechenexempel

13

He wants to apply the realities of the fossil record that detail the course and timescale of

evolution to the work being done in genetics. The abstract calculation makes an assumption of

a macro mutation happening through several simultaneous and harmonious locus changes,

rather than the synorganization model that recognizes how different features can become

genetically linked and be changed and expressed in sets. In additive typogenesis, micro

mutations can add up to and contribute towards macromutations, with micro mutations that

have minor or invisible affects on the phenotype becoming important at different times and a

constantly shifting balance between different features with apparently varying degrees of

adaptation. 41 Heberer summarizes the significance of this theory best when he writes:

The conception of the typological problem (trans-specific evolution in the sense of Rensch

1947), first described in 1943 in the first edition of this work, has thus found its full

confirmation through the development of paleontology and evolutionary genetics. It appears

therefore indeed, as if experimental phylogenetics has completely combined the main factors

of the causation of evolution with the analysis of the current evolutionary mechanism.42

This comprehensive perspective presents many contradictions to Mayr’s account.

sind jedoch sinnlos und treffen das Problem überhaupt nicht. Sie berücksichtigen nicht die Zeitkomponente!“ Gerhard Heberer, “Theorie der additiven Typogenese“ in Die Evolution Der Organismen; Ergebnisse Und Probleme Der Abstammungslehre, ed. Gerhard Heberer,2. erw. Aufl. Band 1. (Stuttgart: G. Fischer, 1959), P. 895.41 „Wenn also gesagt wird, bei Typogenesen entstände konstitutiv Neues, so wird das hier im Sinne unserer Begriffserweiterung als additiv verstanden und daher von einer Theorie der additiven Typogenese gesprochen.“ibid., P. 866.42 “Die von uns erstmalig 1943 in der ersten Auflage dieses Werkes dargestellte Auffassung des phyletischen Typenproblems (der transspezifischen Evolution i.S. RENSCHS 1947) hat also durch die Entwicklung der Paläontologie und der Evolutionsgenetik ihre vollständige Bestätigung gefunden. Es scheint daher in der Tat, als ob die experimentelle Phylogenetik mit der Analyse des aktuellen Evolutionsmechanismus die Grundzüge der Kausalität der Evolution überhaupt erfasst hat.“ ibid., P. 909.

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Gerhard Heber creates problems for Mayr’s narrative of the Modern Synthesis. His

designation of “architects” does not provide us with a useful and historiographically consistent

method of singling out particular scientists involved in the Modern Synthesis. Heberer

contradicts his picture of the eclipse of Darwinism due to his early adoption of evolutionary

genetics and his synthetic research. If Heberer does not fit into this eclipse narrative, why

should we categorize an entire community of scientists, with a variety of perspectives on

evolution, as hostile to Darwinism? In the narrative Mayr has created, Germany is rather 2-

dimensonaly represented when in reality, as Heberer demonstrates, there is a complex

interplay of ideas and disciplines. There are many potentially fruitful international connections,

especially in Germany, even within the narrative that Mayr and Provine created with their 1980

account, but they are dismissed or left largely unexplored. If this focus on a handful of

important scientists can be removed, we will have a much better understanding of the many

different researchers working in diverse areas that were required to create something as

complex as the Modern Synthesis, while avoiding the narrow scope that Mayr forces us to use

without explicit justification. In historiography, much like in photography, focusing on a small

group can blur what is happening in the background and distort the complete picture. The fact

that evolutionary biology went through a process of change in the early-to-mid twentieth

century that brought together previously divergent fields and methodologies is clear, so the

concept of synthesis still gives us a useful framework, whatever specific problems the current

narrative may have. Looking at how different communities, on intranational and international

levels, altered their research and conceptions to create something as sweeping as the Modern

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Synthesis, will give us a much more complete perspective. We currently have snapshots of the

Modern Synthesis, but such a sweeping process as the Modern Synthesis requires a panorama.

16

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