 It showed that the trends of linear progression (in for example the evolution of the horse) that earlier palaeontologists had used as support for neo-Lamarckism and orthogenesis did not hold up under careful examination.Instead the fossil record was consistent with the irregular, branching, and non-directional pattern predicted by the modern synthesis.During the war, Mayr edited a series of bulletins of the Committee on Common Problems of Genetics, Paleontology, and Systematics, formed in 1943, reporting on discussions of a "synthetic attack" on the interdisciplinary problems of evolution.