Branching Darwinisms: The Rise and Fall of the Eclipse Metaphor in the Historiography of Evolutionary Biology (Evolutionary Biology ? New Perspectives on Its Development, 10)

This book offers a meta-historical analysis of the “eclipse of Darwinism” narrative in evolutionary biology. It examines major historiographical labels – such as “Darwinism,” “anti-Darwinian,” “eclipse of Darwinism,” and “modern synthesis” – highlighting their varying uses in past and current historiography. This analysis not only invites a rethinking of how evolutionary biology’s development is periodized but also clarifies how historical narratives shape modern scientific practice by revealing the link between scientific practice and historical interpretation. Using a historical and epistemological perspective, the volume explores both the history of the “eclipse” period and how evolutionary biologists and historians have written that history. Its methodology integrates the study of historiographical traditions with analyses of scientific writings, popular accounts, and personal correspondence among scholars. The book concludes that the “eclipse” metaphor has lost heuristic value and that dividing biology into pre- and post-synthetic phases is misleading. Darwinism neither entered the 1880s–1920s as a unified program nor simply fragmented into isolated strands. Instead, evolutionary studies comprised diverse traditions that branched out and progressively specialized.

David Ceccarelli earned his PhD in Historical, Social, and Philosophical Sciences at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata.” He is currently post-doctoral Research Fellow at Roma Tre University, and has taught History of Science at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” and the University of Florence. He has been a Research Fellow at the Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine (2015–2016) and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Linda Hall Library (2022–2023). David is a historian of science whose research interests range from the history and historiography of evolutionary biology, the history of evolutionary social theories, and the relationship between psychology and evolutionism, to the visual history of science. His current research focuses on the place of historical narratives in evolutionary biology and the use of historiographical categories in modern scientific practice.