Weber, Bruce H. “A Full Spectrum of Biology As Seen Through the Light of Evolution.” (2012): 609-611.
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T he book In the Light of Evolution: Essays from the Laboratory and Field takes its title from a famous line by the great evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky: “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution,” which was part of a speech given to the American Society of Zoologists in August 1964 and published three months later in American Zoologist . In 1973, Dobzhansky used this same line as the title of his article published in the journal American Biology Teacher . Dobzhansky was concerned that the impact of the discovery of the structure of DNA and the subsequent rapid growth of molecular biology was pushing the traditional focus on organismal biology, ecology, and evolutionary biology to the periphery. His concern was instantiated by the creation of new departments of molecular biology in universities and the fragmentation of the life sciences. His point was that sense could be made of what Ernst Mayr called “the biology of proximate causality” (relating to, e.g., biochemistry, physiology, and cell biology) only through the evolutionary context (termed the ultimate causality by Mayr) in which these fields arose. Dobzhansky called for a synthesis of the molecular and organismic or evolutionary approaches in order to synergistically gain a deeper understanding of life phenomena.