mutation theory

mutation theory, idea that new species are formed from the sudden and unexpected emergence of alterations in their defining traits. Advanced at the beginning of the 20th century by Dutch botanist and geneticist Hugo de Vries in his Die Mutationstheorie (1901–03; The Mutation Theory), mutation theory joined two seemingly opposed traditions of evolutionary thought. First, its practitioners, often referred to as mutationists, accepted the primary contention of saltationist theory, which argued that new species are produced rapidly through discontinuous transformations. Saltationist theory contradicted Darwinism, which held that species evolved through the gradual accumulation of variation over vast epochs. Second, mutationists tended to hold the strict Darwinian line that all differentiation is for the good of the species, which differed from the saltationist idea that some organismic variations are inherently undesirable. The second argument was premised on the belief that more variation provided better opportunities for adaptation to a variable environment. The dovetailing of seemingly antithetical traditions made mutation theory one of the vanguard movements in early 20th-century evolutionary and genetic theory.

De Vries held that new species arrive suddenly and without prior precedent through the process of mutation, which he considered to be the change of one species into another due to the formation of “a new center of analogous variations.” Rather than simply argue that species are discontinuous from each other—as in the case of neo-Lamarckism—mutation theory suggested that variations themselves are discontinuous, as in the cases of dwarfism, giantism, and albinism. Based on his observations of common evening primrose (Oenothera lamarckiana), which occasionally spawns offspring that differ significantly in leaf traits and overall size from parent generations and that sometimes cannot be crossed with parent generations, de Vries argued that new species came into existence fully formed and viable but lacking the defining characteristics of the parent generation. Thus, de Vries’s analysis focused on the creative force of discontinuity as a prime explanation for the origin of new species.

Mutation theory attempted to address a key lack in Darwinian analysis with respect to the incompleteness of the fossil record. Rather than insist that knowledge of the fossil record is insufficient to identify transitional stages in the gradual accumulation of incremental variations over time, de Vries’s mutation theory insisted that no such gaps in the genealogical trees of organisms existed. Thus, what appeared to be absences in the fossil record could be marshaled as evidence in favour of a Mendelian and saltationist-based theory of evolution.

Other mutationist theories were developed after de Vries’s work, including German-born American geneticist Richard Goldschmidt’s “hopeful monsters” theory and American paleontologists Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge’s punctuated equilibrium theory. Those ideas not only remained faithful to the saltationist basis for new species formation but also championed de Vries’s devotion to the pure Darwinian belief that allvariation proves beneficial. In doing so, mutationist theories recognized alternative viable organismic formations (often labeled “disabilities” at the human level) as examples of the creative force of new species coming into existence through mutation. That interpretation contradicted assertions by eugenicists and geneticists that some mutations are monstrosities or organismic abominations.