Unfinished Synthesis Biological Hierarchies and Modern Evolutionary Thought [Hardcover]

This study provides a stimulating critique of contemporary evolutionary thought, analyzing the Modern Synthesis first developed by Theodosius Dobzhansky, Ernst Mayr, and George Gaylord Simpson. The author argues that although only genes and organisms are taken as historic individuals in conventional theory, species, higher taxa, and ecological entities such as populations and communities should also be construed as individuals--an approach that yields the ecological and genealogical hierarchies that interact to produce evolution. This clearly stated, controversial work will provoke much debate among evolutionary biologists, systematists, paleontologists, and ecologists, as well as a wide range of educated lay readers.

1. Approaching Complexity: Thinking About Evolution
2. Genes and the Evolutionary Synthesis
3. Systematics, Paleontology, and the Modern Synthesis
4. The Structure and Content of the Modern Synthesis
5. Toward Hierarchy: Trends and Tensions in Evolutionary Theory
6. The Evolutionary Hierarchies
7. Hierarchic Interactions: The Evolutionary Process
References
Index

Interesting and provocative....A must for those with a genuine interest in the processes of evolution. --Choice

Eldredge--the invertebrate paleontologist renowned for his role in developing the theory of punctuated equilibria and the epistemological approach to phylogenetic pattern recognition known as cladistics--now gives us...one of the more important challenges to the neo-Darwinian evolutionary synthesis....This is a must for anyone, of any persuasion, interested in evolutionary theory. --Science Books & Films

An authoritative, well-researched, lively account of evolutionary theory and evidence for student and layman alike. --Book Trends Monthly