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The Causes of Evolution

book by John Burdon Sanderson Haldane

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 29, 2025
Entity authorityQ7721756 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Causes of Evolution is a 1932 book on evolution by J.B.S. Haldane (1990 edition ISBN 0-691-02442-1), based on a series of January 1931 lectures entitled "A Re-examination of Darwinism". It was influential in the founding of population genetics and the modern synthesis.

Chapters

It contains the following chapters:

Introduction

Variation within a Species

The Genetical Analysis of Interspecific Differences

Natural Selection

What is Fitness?

Conclusion

The book also contains an extensive appendix containing the majority of Haldane's mathematical treatment of the subject.

Editorial summary

“The Causes of Evolution” enters the record as book by John Burdon Sanderson Haldane. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Causes, Evolution and book can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1932, 1990, 1931—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Causes, Evolution and book.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“The Causes of Evolution” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Causes, Evolution and book provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7721756. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1932, 1990 and 1931.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Causes of Evolution”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Causes of Evolution primary sources, The Causes of Evolution archive and Causes research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Causes of Evolution”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “The Causes of Evolution” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.