"Session: A comparative history of evolutionary theories in the mid 20th century (Pedro Ricardo Fonseca, Ana Leonor Pereira, João Rui Pita)".

The presentation provides a critical evaluation of the most popular evolutionary theories in Portugal during the conservative dictatorial regime known as the Estado Novo (1933-1974). Neo-Darwinism, Neo-Lamarckism and Theistic Evolution are the main evolutionary theories considered. Due to the length of the presentation, we will narrow our scope to the analyses of the scientific production of some of the country's most influential zoologists, either conducting and supervising research at Portuguese universities, such as João Gualberto de Barros e Cunha (1865-1950) (University of Coimbra), Amílcar de Magalhães Mateus (1911-1996) (University of Oporto) and Germano da Fonseca Sacarrão (1914-1992) (University of Lisbon), or at other relevant scientific institutions, such as Alberto Candeias (1891-1972) (Estação de Biologia Marítima). In order to guarantee a better contextualization of our subject, a brief historical survey of evolutionary theories in Portugal before 1933 will be presented. We then address in greater detail the following three topics: (1) the stances of the cited Portuguese zoologists towards different evolutionary theories, especially in their dissertation thesis and popular science works; (2) the influence of different evolutionary theories on their scientific research (and the scientific research of their disciples); (3) the differentiated treatment of different evolutionary theories in secondary and high school textbooks of their authorship and co-authorship. In another presentation, within the same session, we will also be analysing the scientific production of some of the country's most influential botanists during the same period.