Session: Hodgiana (Ruse, Bowler, Hodge, Radick, Hoquet, Lopez-Beltran)

Compared to the period around the Origin, the history of evolutionary theory around the coming of the Darwin-Mendel synthesis in 1930 is very much an undermined field. However, thanks to the daughter of Ronald Fisher, Joan Box, and the indefatigable labors of Will Provine, we do have a basic understanding of the work of the early population geneticists, especially Fisher and Sewall Wright. I shall argue however that it has been Jon Hodge who has taken the discussion to a much higher level of historical sophistication, particularly with his seminal discussion of the religious and eugenical factors driving Fisher. After Hodge's work, no one could possibly think that what was going on in the man's mind was simply an attempt to map nature. Fisher had a very strong driving set of external factors or aims. If immodestly I might say that I was able to do much the same for Wright, showing the overwhelming influence of Herbert Spencer on his thinking, I would be the first to agree strongly that I was motivated only because the revolutionary scientist Hodge gave us the paradigm, leaving puzzles for normal science inquirers like myself. If there was sauce for the English goose, then there simply had to be sauce for the American gander. In this discussion, I shall present the various moves made by or inspired by Hodge's deep insights, and then look at his more recent thinking on these topics.