Paleontology and Darwin's Theory of Evolution: The Subversive Role of Statistics at the End of the 19th Century

Pattern Without Process: Eugen Smirnov and the Earliest Project of Numerical Taxonomy (1923-1938)

The progress towards mathematization or, in a broader context, towards an increased "objectivity" is one of the main trends in the development of biological systematics in the past century. It is commonplace to start the history of numerical taxonomy with the works of R. R. Sokal and P. H. A. Sneath that in the 1960s laid the foundations of this school of taxonomy. In this article, I discuss the earliest research program in this field, developed in the 1920s by the Russian entomologist and biometrician Eugen (Evgeniy Sergeevich) Smirnov. The theoretical and methodological grounds of this program are considered based on the published works of Smirnov as well as some archival sources. The influence of Smirnov's evolutionary (mechano-Lamarckian) convictions on the development of this project of "exact systematics" is analyzed as well as the author's attempts to establish a novel concept of "mathematical essentialism" in animal taxonomy. The probable causes of the failure of Smirnov's project are viewed from both externalist and internalist perspectives, including the opposition to the use of quantitative methods in biology by some of the Lysenkoist ideologists in the USSR. A brief comparison of Smirnov's research program with that developed 40 years later by Sokal and Sneath is provided.

Charles Darwin as a statistical thinker

Recently historians and philosophers of science have been interested in the role of statistics and probability in investigating population variation. The focus is typically on investigators applying statistics and probability to explain large scale phenomenon that arise out of the collective behavior of numerous and varied individuals. The case studies that inform this work come mostly from molecular physics and 20th century genetical versions of evolutionary theory. Charles Darwin's work on evolution is rarely mentioned in this context except to point out his shortcomings-he made evolutionary theory "ripe" for statistical investigations, but he was not a statistical thinker. But this is a mistake, Darwin was a statistical thinker. In this essay I describe two instances where Darwin utilized statistical methods to investigate evolution. In the light of these cases, we ought to revise our views about Darwin's scientific methodology, in particular, how he came to develop his ideas about evolution and about the nature of his "population thinking". Furthermore, Darwin's cases provide us with an expanded view about what constitutes "statistical thinking" in the biological sciences. In the examples we will find Darwin using statistical measures of type frequencies to detect large scale ensemble effects, confirm hypotheses by comparing between expected and observed averages, and applying the astronomer's law of error to explain evolutionary trends.

Reinhold Fritzgaertner y los reportes de fósiles de Honduras a finales del siglo XIX

Durante el siglo XIX el Gobierno de Honduras propició la llegada de académicos extranjeros, siendo el geólogo y paleontólogo alemán Reinhold Fritzgaertner uno de los casos más notorios por su influencia en el impulso de la actividad minera en Honduras, sin embargo, se ha descrito muy poco su rol en la historia de la paleontología de América Central. A través de una extensa revisión documental en bibliotecas virtuales de Europa y América, en el repositorio virtual Tzibalnaah-UNAH y en el Archivo Nacional de Honduras, se buscó determinar los vínculos académicos de Reinhold Fritzgaertner y su aporte en la investigación de la paleontología de Honduras en el siglo XIX. Fritzgaertner llega a Honduras después de completar sus estudios de doctorado bajo la asesoría del renombrado geólogo y paleontólogo alemán Friedrich August von Quenstedt y de fungir como asistente del renombrado geólogo y paleontólogo norteamericano James Hall, manteniendo vínculos con importantes instituciones académicas de la época. Su presencia en Honduras trascendió la minería y desarrolló un papel notorio en la historia de la ciencia de este país, en una época en que la evidencia paleontológica de Honduras adquirió importancia en el mundo académico. Fritzgaertner puede ser considerado el académico que tuvo el mayor conocimiento de la paleontología de Honduras en el siglo XIX, y mediante su participación en las diferentes exposiciones mundiales, los reportes en medios escritos de divulgación y sus vínculos académicos internacionales, propició el reporte de fósiles de Honduras a finales del siglo XIX. Palabras clave: Paleontología, América Central, Historia de Honduras, Exposiciones mundiales.

A Plea for a New Synthesis: From Twentieth-Century Paleobiology to Twenty-First-Century Paleontology and Back Again

In this paper, I will briefly discuss the elements of novelty and continuity between twentieth-century paleobiology and twenty-first-century paleontology. First, I will outline the heated debate over the disciplinary status of paleontology in the mid-twentieth century. Second, I will analyze the main theoretical issue behind this debate by considering two prominent case studies within the broader paleobiology agenda. Third, I will turn to twenty-first century paleontology and address five representative research topics. In doing so, I will characterize twenty-first century paleontology as a science that strives for more data, more technology, and more integration. Finally, I will outline what twenty-first-century paleontology might inherit from twentieth-century paleobiology: the pursuit of and plea for a new synthesis that could lead to a second paleobiological revolution. Following in the footsteps of the paleobiological revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, the paleobiological revolution of the twenty-first century would enable paleontologists to gain strong political representation and argue with a decisive voice at the "high table" on issues such as the expanded evolutionary synthesis, the conservation of Earth's environment, and global climate change.

Invertebrate Paleontology and Evolutionary Thinking in the US and Britain, 1860-1940

The role of paleontology in evolutionary biology between the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859 and the Evolutionary Synthesis of the 1940s (the post-Darwin, pre-Synthesis [PDPS] period) is frequently described as mostly misguided failure. However, a significant number of American and British PDPS invertebrate paleontologists of this period did devote considerable attention to evolution, and their evolutionary theories and conclusions were a good deal more diverse and nuanced than previous histories have suggested. This paper brings into focus a number of important but underrecognized aspects of the history of paleontology within the history of biology, including that PDPS paleontologists were not all as theoretically backward as they have been portrayed; that the post-Synthesis narrative of the history of evolution should be continually reevaluated, in part to decouple historical understanding from the agendas of authors who have used history to advance particular views of evolution; and that there is a much richer story to be told about the history of evolutionary biology in both the pre- and post-Synthesis eras.

Challenging the Adaptationist Paradigm: Morphogenesis, Constraints, and Constructions

In this paper, I argue that the German morphological tradition made a major contribution to twentieth-century study of form. Several scientists paved the way for this research: paleontologist Adolf Seilacher (1925-2014), entomologist Hermann Weber (1899-1956), and biologist Johann-Gerhard Helmcke (1908-1993) together with architect Frei Otto (1925-2015). All of them sought to examine morphogenetic processes to illustrate their inherent structural properties, thus challenging the neo-Darwinian framework of evolutionary theory. I point out that the German theoretical challenge to adaptationist thinking was possible through an exchange and transfer of practices, data, technologies, and knowledge between biologically oriented students of form and architects, designers, and engineers. This exchange of practices and knowledge was facilitated by the establishment of two collaborative research centers at the beginning of the 1970s. Hence, by showing the richness of topics, methods, and technologies discussed in German-speaking morphology between 1950 and the 1970s, this paper paves the way to a much broader comprehension of the shifts that have shaped twentieth-century evolutionary biology.

Technoscientific approaches to deep time

In this paper, I argue that in order to understand the process behind the knowledge production in the historical sciences, we should change our theoretical focus slightly to consider the historical sciences as technoscientific disciplines. If we investigate the intertwinement of technology and theory, we can provide new insights into historical scientific knowledge production, preconditions, and aims. I will provide evidence for my claim by showing the central features of paleontological and paleobiological data practices of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In order to work with something that is imperfect and incomplete (the fossil record), paleontologists used different technological devices. These devices process, extract, correct, simulate, and eventually present paleontological explananda. Therefore, the appearance of anatomical features of non-manipulable fossilized organisms, phenomena such as mass-extinctions, or the life-like display of extinct specimens in a museum's hall, depend both on the correct use of technological devices and on the interplay between these devices and theories. Consequently, in order to capture its underlying epistemology, historical sciences should be analyzed and investigated against other technoscientific disciplines such as chemistry, synthetic biology, and nanotechnology, and not necessarily only against classical experimental sciences. This approach will help us understand how historical scientists can obtain their epistemic access to deep time.

Series of forms, visual techniques, and quantitative devices: ordering the world between the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

In this paper, I investigate the variety and richness of the taxonomical practices between the end of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. During these decades, zoologists and paleontologists came up with different quantitative practices in order to classify their data in line with the new biological principles introduced by Charles Darwin. Specifically, I will investigate Florentino Ameghino's mathematization of mammalian dentition and the quantitative practices and visualizations of several German-speaking paleontologists at the beginning of the twentieth century. In so doing, this paper will call attention to the visual and quantitative language of early twentieth-century systematics. My analysis will therefore contribute to a prehistory of the statistical frame of mind in biology, a study which has yet to be written in full. Second, my work highlights the productive intertwinement between biological practices and philosophical frameworks at the turn of the nineteenth century. Deeply rooted in Kantian bio-philosophy, several biologists sought to find rules in order to apply ordering principles to chaotic taxonomic information. This implies the necessity to investigate the neglected role of Kantian and Romantic bio-philosophy in the unfolding of twentieth-century biology.

Chinese paleontology and the reception of Darwinism in early twentieth century

The paper examines the social, cultural and disciplinary factors that influenced the reception and appropriation of Darwinism by China's first generation paleontologists. Darwinism was mixed with Social Darwinism when first introduced to China, and the co-option of Darwinian phrases for nationalistic awakening obscured the scientific essence of Darwin's evolutionary theory. First generation Chinese paleontologists started their training in 1910s-1920s. They quickly asserted their professional identity by successfully focusing on morphology, taxonomy and biostratigraphy. Surrounded by Western paleontologists with Lamarckian or orthogenetic leanings, early Chinese paleontologists enthusiastically embraced evolution and used fossils as factual evidence; yet not enough attention was given to mechanistic evolutionary studies. The 1940s saw the beginning of a new trend for early Chinese paleontologists to incorporate more biological and biogeographical components in their work, but external events such as the dominance of Lysenkoism in the 1950s made the Modern Synthesis pass by without being publicly noticed in Chinese paleontology. Characterized by the larger goal of using science for nation building and by the utilitarian approach favoring local sciences, the reception and appropriation of Darwinism by first generation Chinese paleontologists raise important questions for studying the indigenizing efforts of early Chinese scientists to appropriate Western scientific theories.

Manifest ambiguity: Intermediate forms, variation, and mammal paleontology in Argentina, 1830-1880

This paper presents the impact of diverse aspects of Darwin's works on the practices of mammal paleontology in different moments of nineteenth-century Argentina. Starting with Darwin through the publications of Florentino Ameghino, it shows the extraordinary complexity of systematic paleontology that characterized the second half of the nineteenth century. Neither "natural selection" nor "struggle for life" seemed to have shaped the practices of vertebrate paleontology in Argentina. Darwin's earlier work as a voyageur and geologist together with later concerns about intermediate forms and variation allow for an assessment of the impact of Darwin's work on the practice of paleontology in Argentina.

The reception of Darwin in late nineteenth-century German paleontology as a case of pyrrhic victory

This paper investigates German-speaking paleontologists' reception of Darwin's thought and the ways in which they negotiated their space of knowledge production accordingly. In German-speaking regions, the majority of paleontologists welcomed Darwin's magnum opus, since it granted paleontology an independent voice within biology, and thus a new institutional setting. However, in the process of negotiating the features of paleontology within the Darwinian framework, German paleontologists constrained their practices too narrowly, for fear of leaving open possible results at odds with the burgeoning Darwinian biological community. In doing so, they also limited the further development of German paleontology. In other words, paleontologists Karl Alfred von Zittel (1839-1904) and Melchior Neumayr (1845-1890) advocated for a handmaid's role for paleontology, which increased biologists' dependence on paleontologists for empirical evidence, but which limited paleontologists' theoretical autonomy. By analyzing both the institutional strategies and the methodology of German-speaking paleontology at the end of the nineteenth century, this paper shows the importance of scientists' ability to enter into and negotiate their place within the broader biological community.