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Theodosius Grigorievich Dobzhansky (Russian: Феодо́сий Григо́рьевич Добржа́нский; Ukrainian: Теодо́сій Григо́рович Добржа́нський; January 25, 1900 – December 18, 1975) was an American geneticist and evolutionary biologist.
Theodosius Dobzhansky (born Jan. 25, 1900, Nemirov, Ukraine, Russian Empire [now in Ukraine]—died Dec. 18, 1975, Davis, Calif., U.S.) was a Ukrainian-American geneticist and evolutionist whose work had a major influence on 20th-century thought and research on genetics and evolutionary theory.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Genetically Variable Populations
- Making A New Species
- The Modern Synthesis
At the time, most biologists assumed that all of the members of any given species had practically identical genes. But these were assumptions bred in the lab. Dobzhansky began analyzing the genes of wild fruit flies, traveling from Canada to Mexico to catch members of the species Drosophila pseudoobscura. He found that different populations of D. p...
In 1937, Dobzhansky published these results in a landmark book, Genetics and the Origin of Species. In it, he sketched out an explanation for how species actually came into existence. Mutations crop up naturally all the time. Some mutations are harmful in certain circumstances, but a surprising number have no effect one way or the other. These neut...
Dobzhansky’s ability to combine genetics and natural history attracted many other biologists to join him in the effort to find a unified explanation of how evolution happens. Their combined work, known as “The Modern Synthesis,” brought together genetics, paleontology, systematics, and many other sciences into one powerful explanation of evolution,...
Jun 5, 2012 · Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900–75) was one of the principal architects of the so-called synthetic theory of evolution. Born and initially trained in Russia, where he became an entomologist and zoologist with wide-ranging interests, he brought a rich background in systematics and study of natural populations with him when he came to ...
- Richard Burian
- 2004
Learn about the life and work of Theodosius Dobzhansky, a geneticist who integrated genetics and evolutionary theory. He wrote influential books on fruit flies, natural selection, and the Modern Synthesis.
Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900–1975) was a key author of the Synthetic Theory of Evolution, also known as the Modern Synthesis of Evolutionary Theory, which embodies a complex array of biological knowledge centered around Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection couched in genetic terms.
Learn how Dobzhansky, a Russian geneticist who moved to the US, provided laboratory evidence for natural selection and variation in fruit flies. He was one of the architects of the modern synthesis that reconciled genetics and evolution.
