Method as a function of "disciplinary landscape": C.D. Darlington and cytology, genetics and evolution, 1932-1950.

This article considers the reception of British cytogeneticist C.D. Darlington's controversial 1932 book, Recent Advances in Cytology. Darlington's cytogenetic work, and the manner in which he made it relevant to evolutionary biology, marked an abrupt shift in the status and role of cytology in the life sciences. By focusing on Darlington's scientific method--a stark departure from anti-theoretical, empirical reasoning to a theoretical and speculative approach based on deduction from genetic first principles--the article characterises the relationships defining the "disciplinary landscape" of the life sciences of the time, namely those between cytology, genetics, and evolutionary theory.