Julian Huxley, Theodosius Dobzhansky and the Meaning of Fitness

与明尼苏达大学的约翰·贝蒂博士合作， 斯韦特利茨试图描述造成这一现象的历史因素 朱利安·赫胥黎和狄奥多西之间的公开争论 Dobzhansky关于“健身”的定义， 60年代 这一争论反映了形成这一现象的重要社会因素 第二次世界大战后关键概念的含义和辩护 进化生物学：遗传学家努力使“适应性” 从优生的考虑，人口遗传学的兴起， 进化生物学的中心领域， 这两个发展。 这项研究将有助于 历史和哲学中的一些学术领域 包括越来越多的关于进化的文献， 综合，遗传学与社会的关系，以及 尤其是赫胥黎和杜布赞斯基。 它还将补充 哲学文学，强调历史 影响术语含义的偶然事件。

Working with Dr. John Beatty of the University of Minnesota, Dr. Swetlitz is seeking to delineate the historical factors responsible for the public controversy between Julian Huxley and Theodosius Dobzhansky regarding the definition of "fitness" in the early 1960s. This controversy reflected important social factors shaping the meaning and defense of key concepts in post-World War II evolutionary biology: efforts by geneticists to distance "fitness" from eugenic considerations, the rise of population genetics as the central field in evolutionary biology, and reactions in opposition to both of these developments. This research will contribute to a number of areas of scholarship within the history and philosophy of biology including the growing literatures on the evolutionary synthesis, the relationship between genetics and society, and on Huxley and Dobzhansky in particular. It will also complement the philosophical literature by emphasizing the historical contingencies that affect how terms take on meaning.