Evolutionary biology enjoys the peculiar dual status of being that subject which clearly unites all biological endeavors, while occasionally seeming to be nearly as remote from complete understanding as when Darwin brought it within the realm of materialistic science. Somehow, the basic precepts first proposed by Darwin have never been either fully accepted or disposed, to be followed by a movement toward further progress in some other direction. The arguments of today – the questions of natural selection and adaptation, saltation versus gradualism, and questions of relatedness among organisms – are not all that different from those discussed 100 years ago, even if the research materials seem that much more sophisticated.