Abstract.
The German zoologist and geneticist Ludwig Plate was a pupil and successor of the “German Darwin” Ernst Haeckel as the director of the Institute of Zoology at Jena University. Plate campaigned for a revival of the original Darwinism. His research program, which he labelled “old-Darwinism”, proclaimed the synthesis of selectionism with “moderate Lamarckism” and orthogenesis.This article reconstructs and analyses Plate’s “old-Darwinian” synthesis and sheds light on Plate’s controversial biography, especially his conflict with Haeckel.
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Our research was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (HO 2143/5–2).
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Levit, G.S., Hoßfeld, U. The Forgotten “Old-Darwinian” Synthesis: The Evolutionary Theory of Ludwig H. Plate (1862–1937). N.T.M. 14, 9–25 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00048-005-0233-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00048-005-0233-3