Abstract
THE Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal for 1945 of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences has been presented to Prof. Sewall Wright, Ernest D. Burton distinguished service professor, University of Chicago, for his fundamental work dealing with the genetics of evolutionary processes, a programme based on work over a long period, including his paper "The Differential Equation of the Distribution of Gene Frequencies"(Proc. Nat . Acad . Sci ., 31, No. 12 ; 1945). In making the presentation, Prof. Th. Dobzhansky said that in a series of papers published during the last twenty-five years, and particularly since 1931, Prof. Wright has developed the modern mathematical theory of biological evolution. In the past, different authors attributed the principal role in evolution to different factors; there existed partisans of natural selection, of mutation, of hybridization, etc. Wright has shown that what is most important is the quantitative interrelations of all the factors. He has also discovered a new evolutionary agent, now known as the genetic drift or the Sewall Wright phenomenon. This hitherto almost unsuspected phenomenon is probably very effective, in connexion with the other previously known agents, in bringing about the theoretically most important and interesting form of evolutionary change, known as progressive evolution. The brilliant synthesis reached by Prof. Wright makes him the outstanding living evolutionist and the father of the modern neo-Darwinism.
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U.S. National Awards Academy of Sciences : Medal Awards. Nature 161, 49–50 (1948). https://doi.org/10.1038/161049d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/161049d0