The Roles of Mutation, Inbreeding, Crossbreeding and Selection in Evolution

This foundational paper introduced the adaptive landscape metaphor that revolutionized understanding of evolution and provides the theoretical basis for convergent evolution. Wright visualized fitness as a topographic surface with peaks and valleys, where populations evolve by climbing toward fitness peaks.

The metaphor is central to this chapter's thesis: convergent evolution occurs when multiple populations, starting from different positions on the landscape, climb toward the same peak. Understanding whether an industry's fitness landscape has one dominant peak (convergence inevitable) or multiple peaks (differentiation sustainable) is essential for strategic decision-making.