THEOLOGIES, IDEOLOGIES AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY

Since a century evolution has mostly been interpreted by two simple, ' 'opposite'' kinds of ''theories'' - i. e. as due either to fitness dif ferences among genotypes or to some other simple mechanism - while bon a fide, more complex theories were less popular throughout. In particu lar by far the most complete theories ever produced were suddenly, alm ost universally abandoned just after World War II, though not as a con sequence of major breakthroughs. The muses of this situation are exami ned by analogy with much earlier developments and their demise by Cart esianism. The down to earth solutions these ''complete'' theories prov ide to the problems of ''speciation'' and the origins of cells are con trasted with the ''miraculous'' approaches by systemic neo-Darwinists.