A Brief History of the Theory of Evolution

2007 ◽  
Vol 18 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 23-68
Author(s):  
Michael R. Kauth
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
History Of

Missing Links in the History of Life

2002 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 97-118
Author(s):  
Charles R. Marshall
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Fossil Record ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
History Of ◽  
Living Species

Ever since Darwin proposed his theory of evolution (or more correctly, theories; see Mayr, 1991) it has been assumed that intermediates now extinct once existed between living species. For some, the hunt for these so-called missing links in the fossil record became an obsession, a search for evidence thought needed to establish the veracity of evolutionary theory. Few modern paleontologists, however, search explicitly for ancestors in the fossil record because we now know that fossils can be used to chart the order of evolution regardless of whether they are directly ancestral either to extinct organisms or to those living today.

scholarly journals The Fourth Way in Finland

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 78-87
Author(s):  
Vesa Iitti
Keyword(s):  
Holy Land ◽  
Unique Combination ◽  
Orthodox Christianity ◽  
The West ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
History Of ◽  
Psychology Theory ◽  
Fourth Way ◽  
Spiritual Work

This article focuses on the general history of the Fourth Way in Finland. The Fourth Way, or simply ‘the Work’, began as a Greco-Armenian man named Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff (1866?–1949) gathered groups of pupils in St Petersburg and Moscow in 1912. To these groups, Gurdjieff started to teach what he had learned and synthesized between ca 1896 and 1912 during his travels on spiritual search of Egypt, Crete, Sumeria, Assyria, the Holy Land, Mecca, Ethiopia, Sudan, India, Afghanistan, the northern valleys of Siberia, and Tibet. Neither Gurdjieff nor any of his disciples called themselves a church, a sect, or anything alike, but referred to themselves simply as ‘the Work’, or as ‘the Fourth Way’. The name ‘the Fourth Way’ originates in a Gurdjieffian view that there are essentially three traditional ways of spiritual work: those of a monk, a fakir, and a yogi. These ways do not literally refer to the activities of a monk, a fakir, and a yogi, but to similar types of spiritual work emphasizing exercise of emotion, body, or mind. Gurdjieff’s teaching is a blend of various influences that include Suf­ism, orthodox Christianity, Buddhism, Kabbalah, and general elem­ents of various occult teachings of both the East and the West. Gurdjieff’s teaching is a blend of various influences that include Suf­ism, orthodox Christianity, Buddhism, Kabbalah, and general elem­ents of various occult teachings of both the East and the West. It is a unique combination of cosmology, psychology, theory of evolution, and overall theory and practise aiming to help individ­uals in their efforts towards what is called ‘self-remembering’.  

What Is Diversity?

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Mona Sue Weissmark
Keyword(s):  
Social Issues ◽  
Brain Size ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Classification Systems ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Tower Of Babel ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History Of ◽  
Physical Attributes

This introductory chapter traces the history of ideas about race and human classification systems, from the bible to the Classical period and on to the first “scientific” attempts to rank differences and ascribe characteristics to races. Starting with the view from the Tower of Babel came the notion that linguistic and cultural diversity was the Supreme Being’s punitive response to such human hubris of reaching for heaven on earth. Following that came a litany of scholars, scientists, and doctors, who established hierarchies that left white Europeans on the top of the intellectual period, and other races lagging behind. Among these was Hippocrates, who wrote that the forms and dispositions of human beings corresponded with the nature of the country, their region’s climate and topography. Meanwhile, the French physician Francois Bernier developed the first post-Classical racial classification system, basing it on physical attributes. Johann Friedrich Blumenbach was the first phrenologist, and although he also classified race, he asserted that all races belonged to a single species. Physician George Morton measured cranial size and then estimated brain size in an effort to rank humans based on intelligence. The chapter then looks at more modern concepts, such as Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution; scientific rejection of the notion that races were biologically different; and UNESCO’s statement that social issues give rise to racism.

Missing Links in the History of Life

1999 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 119-144
Author(s):  
Charles R. Marshall
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Fossil Record ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
History Of ◽  
Living Species

Ever since Darwin proposed his theory of evolution (or more correctly, theories; see Mayr, 1991) it has been assumed that intermediates now extinct once existed between living species. For some, the hunt for these so-called missing links in the fossil record became an obsession, a search for evidence thought needed to establish the veracity of evolutionary theory. Few modern paleontologists, however, search explicitly for ancestors in the fossil record because we now know that fossils can be used to chart the order of evolution regardless of whether they are directly ancestral either to extinct organisms or those living today.

scholarly journals Race before Darwin: Variation, adaptation and the natural history of man in post-Enlightenment Edinburgh, 1790–1835

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-350
Author(s):  
BILL JENKINS
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Natural Order ◽  
Human Variation ◽  
Adaptive Responses ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
The University

AbstractThis paper draws on material from the dissertation books of the University of Edinburgh's student societies and surviving lecture notes from the university's professors to shed new light on the debates on human variation, heredity and the origin of races between 1790 and 1835. That Edinburgh was the most important centre of medical education in the English-speaking world in this period makes this a particularly significant context. By around 1800 the fixed natural order of the eighteenth century was giving way to a more fluid conception of species and varieties. The dissolution of the ‘Great Chain of Being’ made interpretations of races as adaptive responses to local climates plausible. The evidence presented shows that human variation, inheritance and adaptation were being widely discussed in Edinburgh in the student circles around Charles Darwin when he was a medical student in Edinburgh in the 1820s. It is therefore no surprise to find these same themes recurring in similar form in the evolutionary speculations in his notebooks on the transmutation of species written in the late 1830s during the gestation of his theory of evolution.

Beyond Neoliberalism

2021 ◽  
pp. 132-161
Author(s):  
Christina Ergas
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Economic ◽  
World View ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
Green Technologies ◽  
Social Inequity ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Economic Paradigm ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fierce Competition

Chapter 4 explains the cultural stories and values that bolster the neoliberal paradigm, one that shapes exploitative socioecological relationships. It argues that ideas have consequences and details the history of Western thought—such as Descartes’ hierarchical dualisms and social sciences’ profound misunderstanding of Darwin’s theory of evolution—that brought extreme individualization, inequality, and fierce competition. These stories and values promote ideas that humans have moral dominion over nature and man has dominion over woman. This world view justifies social inequity as well as humans’ exploitation of other species and the environment. These codified stories and values perpetuate humans’ acts of harm against others and the planet. The chapter further discusses how and why economic context matters in shaping paths of resistance and co-opting alternative and green technologies. It explains the need to scale up socioecological values first in order to cultivate the underlying framework for a new environmental economic paradigm.

Islamic Theological Views on Darwinian Evolution

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nidhal Guessoum
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
Darwinian Evolution ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Human Exceptionalism ◽  
The World ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
History Of ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
Biological Entities ◽  
Muslim Scholars

The various positions that Muslim scholars have adopted vis-à-vis Darwin’s theory of evolution since its inception in 1859 are here reviewed with an eye on the theological arguments that are embraced, whether explicitly or implicitly. A large spectrum of views and arguments are thus found, ranging from total rejection to total acceptance, including “human exceptionalism” (evolution is applicable to all organisms and animals but not to humans). The two main theological arguments that are thus extracted from Muslim scholars’ discussions of evolution are: 1) Is God excluded by the evolutionary paradigm or does the term “Creator” acquire a new definition? 2) Does Adam still exist in the human evolution scenario, and how to include his Qur’anic story in the scientific scenario? Additional, but less crucial issues are sometimes raised in Islamic discussions of evolution: a) Does the extinction of innumerable species during the history of life on earth conflict with the traditional view of God’s creation? b) Is theodicy (“the problem of evil”) exacerbated or explained by evolution? c) Are “species” well-defined and important biological entities in the Islamic worldview? d) Can the randomness that seems inherent in the evolutionary process be reconciled with a divine creation plan? These questions are here reviewed through the writings and arguments of Muslim scholars, and general conclusions are drawn about why rejectionists find it impossible to address those issues in a manner that is consistent with their religious principles and methods, and why more progressive, less literalistic scholars are able to fold those issues within a less rigid conception of God and the world.

Th. Dobzhansky and the development of evolutionary biology in the USSR

2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 346-371
Author(s):  
Mikhail B. Konashev
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Special Role ◽  
Synthetic Theory ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of

Th. Dobzhansky played a special role in the reception and development of the “synthetic theory of evolution,” as well as in the establishment of scientific connections between Soviet and U.S. evolutionists, and first and foremost, geneticists. These connections greatly influenced the development of Soviet genetics, of evolutionary theory and evolutionary biology as a whole, and in particular the restoration of Soviet genetics in the late 1960s. A discussion of Dobzhansky’s correspondence and collaboration with colleagues in his native country, moreover, allows for an improved understanding of the complex and dramatic history of Soviet genetics and evolutionary theory. It also provides novel insights into the interactions between scientists and authorities in the Soviet Union (USSR).

Contributions to the History of Psychology: XCV. Possible Relations between Theories of Evolution and Animal Learning

1993 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 211-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse E. Purdy ◽  
Arthur Harriman ◽  
Joseph Molitorisz
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Learning Theory ◽  
World View ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Learning Theories ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theories Of Evolution

It is proposed that the dominance of continuity learning theory as set against noncontinuity learning theory during the middle third of the 20th century rested importantly on its derivation from Darwin's theory of evolution. The kinship is shown in several ways. First, Thorndike and Hull echoed the principle of natural selection in their belief that behaviors underwent gradual modification because acts that were attended steadily by favorable consequences tended to occur with increasing frequency. Second, they denied both nonphysical explanations of behavior and a priori purposes which might guide that behavior. Third, the laws of learning were said to hold for all organisms. It is argued that the continuity approach may have enjoyed success because it was consistent with the Darwinian world view. Had punctualist, rather than gradualist, explanations of evolution come to the fore in the late 19th century, learning theories might have proceeded quite differently with the dominance of noncontinuity approaches.

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