modern synthesis

American  

noun

Biology.

1. a consolidation of the results of various lines of investigation from the 1920s through the 1950s that supported and reconciled the Darwinian theory of evolution and the Mendelian laws of inheritance in terms of natural selection acting on genetic variation.

---

Example Sentences

In sum, the modern synthesis describes how evolutionary processes, such as natural selection, can affect a population’s genetic makeup, and, in turn, how this can result in the gradual evolution of populations and species.

From Textbooks • Jun. 9, 2022

He traveled to pre-Castro Cuba in the 1950s and returned determined to combine what he learned with what was happening in New York, creating a modern synthesis of the traditional and the avant-garde.

From New York Times • Aug. 24, 2021

It was Haldane’s great accomplishment to help make biology one science, with the modern synthesis.

From New York Times • Jul. 28, 2020

In the decades since, generations of evolutionary biologists have modified, corrected and extended the framework of the modern synthesis in countless ways.

From Nature • Oct. 7, 2014

Each had been worked out separately; but both were needed for the modern synthesis.

From Renaissance in Italy Volume 3 The Fine Arts by Symonds, John Addington