Editing Modern synthesis (20th century) (section)

== Historiography ==

Looking back at the conflicting accounts of the modern synthesis, the historian Betty Smocovitis notes in her 1996 book ''Unifying Biology: The Evolutionary Synthesis and Evolutionary Biology'' that both historians and philosophers of biology have attempted to grasp its scientific meaning, but have found it "a moving target";<ref name=Smocovitis187>{{harvnb|Smocovitis|1996}}</ref> the only thing they agreed on was that it was a historical event.<ref name=Smocovitis187/> In her words

{{blockquote|by the late 1980s the notoriety of the evolutionary synthesis was recognized ... So notorious did 'the synthesis' become, that few serious historically minded analysts would touch the subject, let alone know where to begin to sort through the interpretive mess left behind by the numerous critics and commentators.<ref>{{harvnb|Smocovitis|1996}}<!--p. 43--></ref>}}