Neo-Darwinism

Jean Gayon (1)

1 IHPST - Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques

For two decades, there has been a tremendous amount of literature on possible alternatives to the dominant Neo-Darwinian paradigm in evolutionary theory. However scientists as well as historians and philosophers, have often found it difficult to decide whether such or such a conception is "Darwinian" or "non-Darwinian". Contemporary debates on the obsolescence and possible "death", or else the vitality and expansion of Darwinism, have generated considerable conceptual confusion. The purpose of this paper is to set some landmarks capable of lessening this confusion by clarifying the structure of the reference to Darwin in evolutionary theory.

Mots clés: Neo-Darwinism

Domaines: Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences

Jean Gayon. Neo-Darwinism. Gereon Wolters, James Lennox, Peter Mclaughlin. Concepts, Theories, and Rationality in the Biological Sciences, The Second Pittsburgh-Konstanz Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science, Universitätsverlag Konstanz & University of Pi, pp.1-25, 1995. ⟨halshs-00775470⟩