# Talk:Modern synthesis (20th century)

There has been a notable amount of scientific criticism from various scientists (non-religious criticism) towards the modern synthesis. For example, Lynn Margulis, James Lovelock, Denis Noble, etc. Although I am a Neo-Darwinian myself and although this is the most robust mechanism proposed for evolution till now, I think there should be added a section for scientific criticism towards this synthesis because there is a notable amount from notable scientists. Asaduzzaman Khan Shahriar (talk) 08:17, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Criticism sections are deprecated on Wikipedia. More specifically, the article describes many different views of the synthesis, including its disputed beginnings, while it was in progress, and afterwards, so any such section would at best be redundant to the main text. Far better, if you know of a specific view that is well-regarded and not yet included, would be to add a brief mention of that in an appropriate part of the article. You should note that many objections are directed towards evolution more generally rather than the 20th-century synthesis as such; and that the term "synthesis" is slippery: the article distinguishes later syntheses which unfortunately have also sometimes been called "modern". Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:22, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
"You should note that many objections are directed towards evolution more generally rather than the 20th-century synthesis as such"
As I said, scientific criticism which are non-religious. There is a whole separate article for that. The people I mentioned gave a scientific criticism to the modern synthesis. More importantly, all 3 of those people are evolutionary biologists who proposed alternative scientific explanations. For example, there is a criticism section for the Gaia Hypothesis, Neutral theory, and the Extended Synthesis. Asaduzzaman Khan Shahriar (talk) 13:11, 5 May 2024 (UTC)
With respect, no; see WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS on an argument not to use on Wikipedia. Many articles are incorrectly or poorly written; that is no reason to imitate them.
Your scientists are objecting to theories long after the events described in this article; those are briefly summarized here as things that FOLLOWED the "modern synthesis". The neutral theory and so on are already discussed here briefly; they apply to LATER SYNTHESES, not to the mid-20th century "modern synthesis" which is a historic thing, long ago completed.  Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:15, 5 May 2024 (UTC)
Okay, but they're not "my scientists". I already stated in my OC that I am a Neo-Darwinian. Asaduzzaman Khan Shahriar (talk) 14:43, 5 May 2024 (UTC)
The original founders of the "modern" synthesis focused on adaptation and the importance of natural selection. By the mid-1960s the "hardened" version of the modern synthesis was strictly an adaptationist perspective on evolutionary theory.
The discoveries of molecular evolution in the 1960s led to the development of the neutral theory by Motoo Kimura (and others) and to the recognition that random genetic drift was by far the most common mechanism of allele frequency change in populations. In other words, it is the dominant mechanism of evolution. This was followed by the nearly-neural theory and the recognition that population size is an extremely important criterion in determining whether a given allele can be recognized by natural selection. (This led to the drift-barrier hypothesis.)
This revolution in population genetic theory is one of the reasons why Stephen Jay Gould declared in 1980 that the modern synthesis was effectively dead. However, other evolution theorists, notably Douglas Futuyma, think that the old modern synthesis was transformed in the late 1960s and that it successfully incorporated the neutral theory and the importance of drift into the more modern version of synthetic theory.
Modern evolution textbooks all contain separate chapters on random genetic drift and extensive discussions of the mathematical equations for the rate of fixation and the probability of fixation for alleles with positive, negative, and neutral selection coefficients.
This perspective is completely missing in this article. Motoo Kimura isn't even mentioned in the article even though he made the most important contribution to evolutionary theory in the last half of the 20th century. Similarly, Stephen Jay Gould, a major critic of the modern synthesis, isn't mentioned in the article—his paper with Lewontin is a classic attack on the adaptationist perspective that permeates the original synthesis. On the other hand, much lesser scientists like Massimo Pigliucci, Eugene Koonin, and (gasp!) Denis Noble get prominent mentions. This has to be changed.Genome42 (talk) 21:35, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
Drift is a real and important mechanism, but it isn't part of the 20thCS. Evolution is a big subject and only one aspect of it is the subject here. Chiswick Chap (talk) 01:26, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
I don’t understand your perspective. Are you saying that the modern synthesis is the old fashioned mid-20th century view of evolution theory and it no longer represents the 21st century version of evolution theory?
If that’s what you think then you should be stating in the introduction that this article is just a historical summary of an old theory and we should delete all references to updated or “extended” versions of the modern synthesis. What term would you like to use for the 21st century version and do you intend to create a new article to cover it? Genome42 (talk) 18:24, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
The article states very clearly, including in its title, that it is a 20th century event. "Synthesis" or "Modern Synthesis" is used in other contexts to cover all sorts of disparate events and processes in biology, but this article, "Modern synthesis (20th century)" is totally focussed on a 20th century event. There is nothing difficult about this: every article has to set its scope, and this one's is perfectly clear. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:27, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
Maybe we should drop the "20th century" disambiguator? It draws focus towards the "20th century", making people expect it will cover more developments from later in the 1900s, and there's not really any ambiguity about the term "modern evolutionary synthesis" (so far as I know).
Funnily enough, the "20th century" bit made me expect this page would be about an entirely different 20th-century "modern synthesis". – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 02:01, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
The disambiguation is essential as the article's subject is the 20th century event. Otherwise the subject would be the entire progress of evolutionary biology to the ever-shifting present day, and we already gave articles both on that and on the later syntheses, which have also been called modern. The 20th century one is important in the history of biology as the event that cemented natural selection in biologists' minds as definitely correct; there had been a period including the so-called eclipse of Darwinism when it seemed quite doubtful. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:51, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
Are the other developments also called the "Modern synthesis"? When I Google the term, it seems to be used predominantly (maybe exclusively) to mean this event. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 17:55, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
Maybe so, but it caused one hell of a shindig here as editors climbed onto their high horses and argued that all the syntheses were modern, or all part of the same thing, etc. etc. etc. I really don't want to do all that stuff again, thank you very much! Part of the trouble seems to be that editors frequently feel at liberty to weigh into discussions with very little preparation or knowledge of an area. I don't suppose that will change any time soon. Huxley was pretty hubristic naming the thing the modern synthesis, as if times would never move on, but the name stuck. For what it's worth, the current name has worked well for several years now, where the previous name did not, and I'll heartily oppose changing it again. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:30, 18 November 2024 (UTC)