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This is also true. There was a kind of mini-war going on between the plant genetics and molecular crowd, and the more physiological crowd. The point of battle was who was making solid contributions and advancements in scientific knowledge and who were mere describers without a clue.
The upper levels of this mini-war approach the concepts of evolution in a different way, so that the genetics crowd can claim great advances in understanding the evolutionary processes in and of themselves without bothering with the larger scale of the whole organism.
The problem is that most traditionally understood mechanicisms of natural selection all take place at the organism level, since that is the embodiment of the phenotype. So the geneticist is left somewhat in the dark as to the `global' picture of they are doing.
There is an interesting little philosophical problem. It is very difficult to track a particular phenotypic feature or phenomenon back to its genetic complex. On the other hand if you start at the genetic level, is it much easier to find what the gene complex codes for in the phenotype, and then trace its physiological and anatomical linkages.
The consequence of this methodological problem is that genetics can make great advancement in its body of knowledge, while the physiologist is usually left in the dark about the underlying molecular and genetic system of what he or she is studying. So then it appears that physiology is old fashioned and genetics is the bright shinning star.
In my opinion neither group gives me what I want to know which is both pictures joined into the worlds of plants and animals I am familiar with.
Now throw in the mix the psychology, sociology, linguistics and anthro crowd who, seem to have re-discovered the idea that their various fields have something to do with human evolution. From the hard core molecular crowd, all these new comers seem like more physiologists to bother with.
Here something to contemplate as totally hilarious. The search for the queer gene. If I pretend to be a biologist for moment, I say excuse me, folks, but will you please demonstrate to me that `queer' is physiological feature or a discrete and isolateable phenomenon first. After you show me that, then I will read about your molecular basis, and maybe we can find some genetic complex that might or might not have something to do with physiological phenomenon.
CG