The Evolution of “Darwinism”: Up Close and Personal

This is a sequel to a recent article arguing that the standard “just-so-story” of the history of Darwinism through the so-called Modern Synthesis has obfuscated the central persistent problem Darwin’s natural selection theory has faced ever since 1859, namely its failure to explain or account for macroevolution and the origin of higher taxa. It also “deconstructed” the standard story and explored the actual disunity underlying the apparent “unity” of synthesis supporters. Here, I explore the various international meanings of “evolution,” “Darwinism,” “Dismal Darwinism,” “Visionary Biology,“ “Modern Synthesis,” “natural selection,” “microevolution,” and “macroevolution” and then focus on the contextual origins, creation, and development of the modern “evolutionary synthesis,” how and why it was so widely and quickly endorsed, how it became the standard “just-so-story” taught by evolutionary biologists and historians alike for so long, and who, how, why, and when the disunity underlying the apparent “unity” re-emerged and the so-called “synthesis” unraveled, as I observed firsthand and experienced it over the past 50 years.