Abstract

Jean Gayon’s encounters with American evolutionary biologists and philosophers of biology affected his project of justifying the Darwinian research tradition. He challenged entrenched views about evolution in France by showing how the population-genetic theory of natural selectionSelection removed conceptual blockages that had thwarted the Darwinian research tradition. He taught his American colleagues how important French physiological genetics was to the DarwinismDarwinism of the modern evolutionary synthesis and, with Richard BurianBurian, Richard, stressed the compatibility of the Synthesis with postwar French molecular geneticsMolecular genetics. His seamless integration of history and philosophy of biology helped create an international learned society in which historians and philosophers of biology work together (ISSHSPB).