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Why we don’t want another “Synthesis”

Overview of attention for article published in Biology Direct, October 2017
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • One of the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#9 of 536)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (97th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (99th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
4 news outlets
blogs
5 blogs
twitter
49 X users
wikipedia
1 Wikipedia page
googleplus
1 Google+ user

Citations

dimensions_citation
46 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
67 Mendeley
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Title
Why we don’t want another “Synthesis”
Published in
Biology Direct, October 2017
DOI 10.1186/s13062-017-0194-1
Pubmed ID
Authors

Arlin Stoltzfus

Abstract

High-level debates in evolutionary biology often treat the Modern Synthesis as a framework of population genetics, or as an intellectual lineage with a changing distribution of beliefs. Unfortunately, these flexible notions, used to negotiate decades of innovations, are now thoroughly detached from their historical roots in the original Modern Synthesis (OMS), a falsifiable scientific theory. The OMS held that evolution can be adequately understood as a process of smooth adaptive change by shifting the frequencies of small-effect alleles at many loci simultaneously, without the direct involvement of new mutations. This shifting gene frequencies theory was designed to support a Darwinian view in which the course of evolution is governed by selection, and to exclude a mutation-driven view in which the timing and character of evolutionary change may reflect the timing and character of events of mutation. The OMS is not the foundation of current thinking, but a special case of a broader conception that includes (among other things) a mutation-driven view introduced by biochemists in the 1960s, and now widely invoked. This innovation is evident in mathematical models relating the rate of evolution directly to the rate of mutation, which emerged in 1969, and now represent a major branch of theory with many applications. In evo-devo, mutationist thinking is reflected by a concern for the "arrival of the fittest". Though evolutionary biology is not governed by any master theory, and incorporates views excluded from the OMS, the recognition of these changes has been hindered by woolly conceptions of theories, and by historical accounts, common in the evolutionary literature, that misrepresent the disputes that defined the OMS. This article was reviewed by W. Ford Doolittle, Eugene Koonin and J. Peter Gogarten.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 49 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 67 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 67 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 14 21%
Student > Ph. D. Student 11 16%
Student > Bachelor 8 12%
Student > Master 8 12%
Professor 5 7%
Other 12 18%
Unknown 9 13%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 24 36%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 19 28%
Arts and Humanities 2 3%
Psychology 2 3%
Chemical Engineering 2 3%
Other 8 12%
Unknown 10 15%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 100. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 20 January 2024.
All research outputs
#418,767
of 25,364,653 outputs
Outputs from Biology Direct
#9
of 536 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#8,770
of 329,577 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Biology Direct
#1
of 6 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,364,653 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 536 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 10.3. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 329,577 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 6 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than all of them