ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the history of several key evolutionary concepts: fitness, selection, heredity, and the evolutionary individual. It focuses on the contributions of four figures: Charles Darwin, Ronald Fisher, Richard Lewontin, and Elliott Sober. Each understands the key concepts in slightly different ways, and the change over time in what evolution means provides context for the disputes and difficulties of contemporary evolutionary theory. Problems for evolutionary theory that arise from the shift in the meanings of terms or from changing conceptions of evolutionary processes are highlighted by this historical analysis. Particular attention is paid to the gradual emergence of natural selection as the only significant evolutionary process, and to explaining Fisher’s account of fitness.
