ABSTRACT
The history of science demonstrates that research work does not always progress directly from simple to more complex issues. In the initial developments within many research areas, the progress is rather characterised by the reverse movement from complex to simple tasks. Some of the grand ideas from the early days of scientific work have to be pushed aside before researchers can start to construct a solid foundation for a long-term effort in their chosen area of investigation. However, the visions of the pioneers may still serve as a reminder of the remaining issues, as a ‘demand specification’ of what the discipline should ultimately be able to cover. An important example of such a development is found in biology (see Provine, 1971; Mayr, 1982; Mayr and Provine, 1980). Here Darwin’s (1859/1964) On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection integrated results from an enormous area including such diverse subjects as, e.g., systematics, biogeography, and palaeontology. However, some biologists had to retreat from the grand scheme in order to develop an understanding of the precise mechanisms of inheritance as well as to model formally the evolutionary process. In theoretical population genetics the foundation was created which helped the subsequent general development of evolutionary biology. In retrospect, one may say that a convenient division of labour emerged between certain theorists who emphasised microevolutionary phenomena within a given population and more practically oriented naturalists who dealt with the macroevolutionary phenomena of interaction and segregation between different populations. Nevertheless, while the novel work was performed in the first decades of this century, it tended to isolate itself from naturalists interested in the same macroevolutionary phenomena as had been Darwin’s starting point. Furthermore, the theoretical and laboratory-oriented work also created many controversies, e.g., about gradualism and punctualism, which in retrospect appear to be mistaken. Fortunately, some biologists were able to bridge the gap between the clear-cut analysis of microevolution and the macroevolutionary phenomena (like speciation) which interested practically oriented naturalists. In this way, such biologists (like Dobzhansky, Huxley, and Mayr) created the evolutionary synthesis on which much of modem biology built.
