Ronald Fisher e a eugenia: estatística, evolução e genética na busca da civilização permanente

• Autor(a) principal: Cruz, Rodrigo Andrade da
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da PUC_SP
• Texto Completo: https://tede2.pucsp.br/handle/handle/19448
• topic: Eugenia; Fertilidade diferencial; Fisher, Ronald Aylmer [1890-1962]; History of science; Eugenics; Differential fertility; CNPQ::CIENCIAS HUMANAS::HISTORIA::HISTORIA DAS CIENCIAS

In the beginning of the 20th century, England was the stage for an intense debate on the mechanisms of inheritance and their relationship with evolution. To the biologists known as gradualists it was impossible to reconcile Mendelian genetics with Darwinian thought. In turn, advocates of saltationism admitted Mendelian inheritance, but put the foundations of evolution theory into question. This opposition defines the context for the work of Ronald Fisher, who through the use of statistics was able to bridge the gap between the contending positions and thus contributed to the formulation of so-called evolutionary synthesis or Neodarwinism. However, the literature often passes over the fact that the background for the debate and formulation of evolutionary synthesis was provided by eugenics, namely, the science that sought to improve humankind through the control of reproduction. To be sure, eugenics called the attention of Fisher since his youth, and in time he became one of its main developers and advocates. A large part of the theoretical-conceptual grounds of contemporary statistics and population genetics was formulated as a function of Fisher’s concerns with the phenomenon he called differential fertility. According to him, the higher reproduction rates of ‘inadequate’ people by comparison to the ‘best stocks’ was the main cause of the problems humankind had to deal with all along history and also in his time