Charles Darwin

On Purpose ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 76-90
Author(s):  
Michael Ruse
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
South America ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Galapagos Archipelago ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Way

This chapter focuses on Charles Darwin who spent five years as the naturalist of the ship HMS Beagle, spending much time in South America and eventually going all the way around the globe. During this time Darwin's religious beliefs changed from fairly conservative Anglican to deist, a view he held for the next several decades, changing again at the end of his life to a form of agnosticism. Although by the nature of his work he had to spend much time thinking and writing about the science–religion relationship, he always claimed that by nature he was not a particularly a religious man. Darwin returned to England and in the next two years became first an evolutionist and then a Darwinian, meaning he discovered his mechanism of change, natural selection. What spurred the move to evolution was, above all, the distribution of the animals on the Galapagos Archipelago, a group of islands in the Pacific that the HMS Beagle visited in the final part of its journey.

Charles Darwin and the Falkland Islands

Polar Record ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 22 (139) ◽  
pp. 413-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Grove
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
South America ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Galapagos Islands ◽  
Falkland Islands ◽  
Galápagos Islands ◽  
Southern South America ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Evolution By Natural Selection ◽  
Endemic Flora

AbstractCharles Darwin's notes, diary entries and letters covering visits to southern South America and the Falkland Islands in 1833 and 1834 throw light on the revolutionary events of the time. His notes also contain the first indication of an evolutionary concept, suggested by the endemic flora and fauna of the Falklands, which guided his later observations on the Galapagos Islands and lead ultimately to his theory of evolution by natural selection.

The many lives of Charles Darwin: early biographies and the definitive evolutionist

2010 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 339-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard Lightman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Cutoff Point ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The Many ◽  
British Culture ◽  
Iconic Figure ◽  
The Way

This article focuses on the early book-length biographies of Darwin published from his death in 1882 up to 1900. By making 1900 the cutoff point I can examine the biographies produced when the iconic figure was not yet set in stone, and before the rediscovery of Mendel's work in the early twentieth century and the anniversary celebrations of 1909 changed the way in which Darwin was regarded. Darwin's biographers dealt with three major themes. First, several biographers emphasized his scientific abilities, in particular his powers of observation and his prowess in conducting experiments. Second, many biographers discussed his character, a key issue in determining whether or not he could be trusted as a scientific guide. Finally, his scientific theories and religious beliefs, and how they related to the evolutionary controversy, formed a topic taken up by most biographers. By focusing on these three themes, the biographies published before 1900 were important in shaping the image of Darwin that was forming in American and British culture.

Fatal asymmetries

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Luis Sánchez
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Artificial Selection ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Descent Of Man

Abstract In Descent of Man, Charles Darwin noted the impact of political institutions on natural selection. He thought that institutions such as asylums or hospitals may deter natural selection; however, he did not reach a decisive answer. Questions remain as to whether the selective impacts of political institutions, which in Darwin’s terms may be referred to as “artificial selection,” are compatible with natural selection, and if so, to what extent. This essay argues that currently there appears to be an essential mismatch between nature and political institutions. Unfitted institutions put exogenous and disproportionate pressures on living beings. This creates consequences for what is postulated as the condition of basic equivalence, which allows species and individuals to enjoy similar chances of survival under natural circumstances. Thus, contrary to Darwin’s expectations, it is sustained that assumed natural selection is not discouraged but becomes exacerbated by political institutions. In such conditions, selection becomes primarily artificial and perhaps mainly political, with consequences for species’ evolutionary future.

‘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.

RUSKIN, DARWIN, AND LOOKING BENEATH SURFACES

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 709-726 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katelin Krieg
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
John Ruskin ◽  
Victorian Science ◽  
The Way ◽  
Desire To Change

John Ruskin and Charles Darwinshared a desire to change the way their readers looked at both nature and art. However, when considering them together, we typically remember their failure to see eye to eye on man's place in nature. Examining Ruskin's responses to Darwin's work, sexual selection in particular, or Ruskin's late dissatisfaction with Victorian science more generally, scholars have emphasized their conflicting worldviews. Yet this tendency to focus on conceptual disagreement fails to consider a shared intellectual background between the two men: the science of geology.

scholarly journals Evolution and evolvability: celebrating Darwin 200

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
John F.Y Brookfield
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Variation ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Time Scales ◽  
Evolutionary Change ◽  
Adaptive Mutation ◽  
Genetic Covariances ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Way

The concept of ‘evolvability’ is increasingly coming to dominate considerations of evolutionary change. There are, however, a number of different interpretations that have been put on the idea of evolvability, differing in the time scales over which the concept is applied. For some, evolvability characterizes the potential for future adaptive mutation and evolution. Others use evolvability to capture the nature of genetic variation as it exists in populations, particularly in terms of the genetic covariances between traits. In the latter use of the term, the applicability of the idea of evolvability as a measure of population's capacity to respond to natural selection rests on one, but not the only, view of the way in which we should envisage the process of natural selection. Perhaps the most potentially confusing aspects of the concept of evolvability are seen in the relationship between evolvability and robustness.

A Yahgan for the killing: murder, memory and Charles Darwin

2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-443 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOSEPH L. YANNIELLI
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Western Coast ◽  
Cultural Interaction ◽  
European Expansion ◽  
Multiple Contexts ◽  
History Of

AbstractIn March 1742, British naval officer John Byron witnessed a murder on the western coast of South America. Both Charles Darwin and Robert FitzRoy seized upon Byron's story a century later, and it continues to play an important role in Darwin scholarship today. This essay investigates the veracity of the murder, its appropriation by various authors, and its false association with the Yahgan people encountered during the second voyage of theBeagle(1831–1836). Darwin's use of the story is examined in multiple contexts, focusing on his relationship with the history of European expansion and cross-cultural interaction and related assumptions about slavery and race. The continuing fascination with Byron's story highlights the key role of historical memory in the development and interpretation of evolutionary theory.

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