On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Darwin
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
South America ◽  
Origin Of Species ◽  
The Past

Introduction When on board H.M.S. ‘Beagle,’ as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to me...

Let's Be Realistic: Evolutionary Complexity, Epistemic Probabilism, and the Cognitive Science of Religion

2007 ◽  
Vol 100 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Day
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
John Dewey ◽  
Lost Cause ◽  
Cognitive Science Of Religion ◽  
Origin Of Species ◽  
The Past ◽  
Science Of Religion ◽  
Litmus Test ◽  
Philosophical Progress

John Dewey famously argued that Darwin had introduced a new conceptual vocabulary that would completely overhaul the traditional philosophical enterprise. His sense was that the kinds of monumental metaphysical questions that philosophy typically asked about causes, trends and purposes start to look meaningless and willfully unanswerable once we absorb the tough lessons of natural selection. More specifically, Dewey thought that The Origin of Species provided a strong but beneficial dose of philosophical therapy because it illustrated how to simultaneously abandon the lifeless questions of the past while formulating new questions to take their place. Darwin's achievement revealed for Dewey that sometimes philosophical progress is not “an affair of different ways of dealing with old problems, but of relegation of the problems to the attic in which are kept the relics of former intellectual bad taste.” From this perspective, the litmus test for measuring intellectual growth is surprisingly simple. If we examine the concerns that once excited our ancestors and feel only the shudder of regret that so much energy was wasted on a lost cause, we can be reasonably confident that we have taken a few steps forward.

Extraordinary Claims, Extraordinary Proof

2019 ◽  
pp. 61-96
Author(s):  
Thomas G. Nolen
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Origins ◽  
Origin Of Species ◽  
The Past ◽  
Adaptive Value ◽  
Overwhelming Evidence ◽  
Human Characteristic

In 1859, Darwin proposed an extraordinary claim that natural selection could explain both the origin of species and why organisms were so well adapted to their environments. In the past 160 years, through thousands of studies, an enormous body of evidence has been compiled supporting Darwin’s extraordinary claims. This chapter explores both the critiques of current skeptics who contend that evolutionary theory has little utility for the modern human condition and presents research that has tested the now “un-extraordinary” claims about human origins. Further, utilizing the assumption that humans are animals, the author argues that when testing the possible adaptive value of a human characteristic, the standard fall back should no longer be that the trait is “cultural” but that, on the basis of overwhelming evidence, it is biological. If this happened to not be the case, then that would require extraordinary proof.

scholarly journals An examination of species limits in theAulacorhynchus“prasinus” toucanet complex (Aves: Ramphastidae)

PeerJ ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. e2381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Winker
Keyword(s):  
Gene Flow ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
South America ◽  
Multivariate Analyses ◽  
Biological Species ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Social Selection ◽  
Species Limits ◽  
Color Changes ◽  
The Past

The number of species recognized inAulacorhynchustoucanets has varied tremendously over the past century. Revisors seem to disagree on whether head and bill coloration are useful indicators of species limits, especially in theA.“prasinus” complex. Using morphometrics, I tested the hypothesis that the major color-based subspecific groups ofA.“prasinus”sensu latoare simply “cookie-cutter” (i.e., morphologically nearly identical) toucanets with different head and bill colorations. Univariate and multivariate analyses show that they are not simply morphological replicates of different colors: a complex array of morphometric similarities and dissimilarities occur between the major subspecific groups, and these variations differ between the sexes. Latitude and longitude had a small but significant association with female (but not male) PC1 and PC2. Hybridization and intergradation were also considered using plumage and bill characters as a surrogate to infer gene flow. Hybridization as indicated by phenotype appears to be substantial betweenA. “p.” cyanolaemusandA. “p.” atrogularisand nonexistent between other major groups, although from genetic evidence it is likely rare betweenA. “p.” albivittaandA. “p.” cyanolaemus. The congruence and complexities of the morphological and color changes occurring among these groups suggest that ecological adaptation (through natural selection) and social selection have co-occurred among these groups and that species limits are involved. Further, hybridization is not evident at key places, despite in many cases (hypothetical) opportunity for gene flow. Consequently, I recommend that this complex be recognized as comprising five biological species:A. wagleri, prasinus, caeruleogularis, albivitta,andatrogularis. Four of these also have valid subspecies within them, and additional work may eventually support elevation of some of these subspecies to full species. Species limits in South America especially need more study.

The Evolution of Lead Extraction

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 32
Author(s):  
Melanie Maytin ◽  
Laurence M Epstein ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Lead Extraction ◽  
Significant Morbidity ◽  
Extraction Techniques ◽  
Extraction Technology ◽  
Device Management ◽  
Future Developments ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Life Threatening

Prior to the introduction of successful intravascular countertraction techniques, options for lead extraction were limited and dedicated tools were non-existent. The significant morbidity and mortality associated with these early extraction techniques limited their application to life-threatening situations such as infection and sepsis. The past 30 years have witnessed significant advances in lead extraction technology, resulting in safer and more efficacious techniques and tools. This evolution occurred out of necessity, similar to the pressure of natural selection weeding out the ineffective and highly morbid techniques while fostering the development of safe, successful and more simple methods. Future developments in lead extraction are likely to focus on new tools that will allow us to provide comprehensive device management and the design of new leads conceived to facilitate future extraction. With the development of these new methods and novel tools, the technique of lead extraction will continue to require operators that are well versed in several methods of extraction. Garnering new skills while remembering the lessons of the past will enable extraction technologies to advance without repeating previous mistakes.

Darwinian Evolutionary Theory

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Ruse
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Origin Of Species ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Descent Of Man

Charles Robert Darwin, the English naturalist, published On the Origin of Species in 1859 and the follow-up work The Descent of Man in 1871. In these works, he argued for his theory of evolution through natural selection, applying it to all organisms, living and dead, including our own species, Homo sapiens. Although controversial from the start, Darwin’s thinking was deeply embedded in the culture of his day, that of a middle-class Englishman. Evolution as such was an immediate success in scientific circles, but although the mechanism of selection had supporters in the scientific community (especially among those working with fast-breeding organisms), its real success was in the popular domain. Natural selection, and particularly the side mechanism of sexual selection, were known to all and popular themes in fiction and elsewhere.

IV.—The Geological Development, Descent and Distribution of the Mammalia

1893 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 401-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl A. von Zittel
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
The Past ◽  
Limited Experience ◽  
The World ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
North And South America ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
North And South ◽  
Animal World

In a spirited treatise on the ‘Origin of our Animal World’ Prof. L. Rütimeyer, in the year 1867, described the geological development and distribution of the mammalia, and the relationship of the different faunas of the past with each other and with that now existing. Although, since the appearance of that masterly sketch the palæontological material has been, at least, doubled through new discoveries in Europe and more especially in North and South America, this unexpected increase has in most instances only served as a confirmation of the views which Rutimeyer advanced on more limited experience. At present, Africa forms the only great gap in our knowledge of the fossil mammalia; all the remaining parts of the world can show materials more or less abundantly, from which the course followed by the mammalia in their geological development can be traced with approximate certainty.

‘Short-Spanned Living Creatures’: Evolutionary Perspectives in Rhoda Broughton’s Not Wisely, but Too Well (1867)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Aaron Green
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Simple Structure ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Origin Of Species ◽  
Charles Lyell ◽  
Crystal Palace ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Evolutionary Perspectives

Abstract In Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863), Charles Lyell appraised the distinct contribution made by his protégé, Charles Darwin (On the Origin of Species (1859)), to evolutionary theory: ‘Progression … is not a necessary accompaniment of variation and natural selection [… Darwin’s theory accounts] equally well for what is called degradation, or a retrogressive movement towards a simple structure’. In Rhoda Broughton’s first novel, Not Wisely, but Too Well (1867), written contemporaneously with Lyell’s book, the Crystal Palace at Sydenham prompts precisely this sort of Darwinian ambivalence to progress; but whether British civilization ‘advance[s] or retreat[s]’, her narrator adds that this prophesized state ‘will not be in our days’ – its realization exceeds the single lifespan. This article argues that Not Wisely, but Too Well is attentive to the irreconcilability of Darwinism to the Victorian ‘idea of progress’: Broughton’s novel, distinctly from its peers, raises the retrogressive and nihilistic potentials of Darwin’s theory and purposes them to reflect on the status of the individual in mid-century Britain.

An Enchanted Garden

2018 ◽  
pp. 157-191
Author(s):  
Robert Holland
Keyword(s):  
World System ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Origin Of Species ◽  
The Past ◽  
Cultural Sphere ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Globalized World ◽  
Victorian Age

This chapter details British engagement with the Mediterranean from 1860 to 1890, highlighting British dilemmas in the field of culture during the High Victorian age. The Britons of the period remade their world in material terms, but also, eventually, in political ones. Many also confronted the frightening disintegration of their religious faith in the wake of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Thus, it is hardly surprising that in other matters, and above all in the cultural sphere, they sought ways of sticking to what was familiar about the past, or revising it in ways that did not entail the radical experiments or the disruption that they so deplored across the Channel. The Mediterranean, so embedded in the existing imaginative landscape, continued to be central to themes pervading British aesthetic and stylistic preferences, though increasingly absorbed among a widening array of other influences as a globalized world system took shape in however messy and eclectic a way.

scholarly journals A 21st Century Vision for Neotropical Snake Systematics

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 58
Author(s):  
Robert Alexander Pyron
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Global Change ◽  
South America ◽  
Ecosystem Function ◽  
Museum Specimens ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Recent Synthesis

We live in an unprecedented age for systematics and biodiversity studies. Ongoing global change is leading to a future with reduced species richness and ecosystem function (Pereira, Navarro, & Martins, 2012). Yet, we know more about biodiversity now than at any time in the past. For squamates in particular, we have range maps for all species (Roll et al., 2017), phylogenies containing estimates for all species (Tonini, Beard, Ferreira, Jetz, & Pyron, 2016), and myriad ecological and natural-history datasets for a large percentage of species (Meiri et al., 2013; Mesquita et al., 2016). For neotropical snakes, a recent synthesis of museum specimens and verified localities offers a fine-grained perspective on their ecogeographic distribution in Central and South America, and the Caribbean (Guedes et al., 2018).

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