Huxley, Thomas Henry (1825–95)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario A. Di Gregorio
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Origin Of Species ◽  
Common Descent ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Vertebrate Palaeontology ◽  
Invertebrate Zoology

Huxley, an English zoologist with strong philosophical interests, originally influenced by K.E. von Baer’s embryological typology, became an authority first in invertebrate zoology and then in vertebrate palaeontology. After the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, he proclaimed his acceptance of the theory of evolution, but disagreed on important points and applied common descent – but not natural selection – in his scientific works only after reading Ernst Haeckel’s Generelle Morphologie (1866). He published extensively in anthropology, ethnology, philosophy, religion, politics and ethics, and was a great popularizer of science.

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.

Darwin, Teleology and Taxonomy

Philosophy ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 48 (183) ◽  
pp. 35-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Woodfield
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Origin Of Species ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Language User ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Evolution By Natural Selection ◽  
Descent Of Man

Darwinism is ‘much more than a theory’, said the German botanist Albert Wigand in 1875; ‘it is a frame of mind which dominates thought, a resuscitated “Naturphilosophie”, in which the terms “Polarity”, “Totality”, “Subject”, “Object” are replaced by terms such as “Struggle for Existence”, “Inheritance”, “Selection”, and so on.’ Subsequent events have indicated that Wigand had a point. But it is not clear to us yet what exactly the point is. Interest in Man's Place in Nature, and in his alleged biological uniqueness as a language-user and tool-maker, is as great now as it was in 1871 when Darwin's Descent of Man was first published. We now have access to well over a hundred years' worth of material sparked off by The Origin of Species, linking Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection to almost every field under the sun. Yet the precise status of his theory is still the subject of vigorous controversy in philosophy of science.

‘Hurrah for the missing link!’: a history of apes, ancestors and a crucial piece of evidence

2011 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter C. Kjærgaard
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Human Evolution ◽  
Fossil Record ◽  
Animal Kingdom ◽  
Missing Link ◽  
Origin Of Species ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
History Of ◽  
Evolution By Natural Selection

In the nineteenth century the idea of a ‘missing link’ connecting humans with the rest of the animal kingdom was eagerly embraced by professional scientists and popularizers. After the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859, many tied the idea and subsequent search for a crucial piece of evidence to Darwin and his formulation of the theory of evolution by natural selection. This article demonstrates that the expression was widely used and that the framework for discussions about human's relation to the apes and gaps in the fossil record were well in place and widely debated long before Origin of Species became the standard reference for discussing human evolution. In the second half of the century the missing link gradually became the ultimate prize in palaeoanthropology and grew into one of the most powerful, celebrated and criticized icons of human evolution.

A Cognitive Semantics Approach to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Drogosz
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Evolutionary Change ◽  
Cognitive Semantics ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Origin Of Species ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Comprehensive Study

DARWIN’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION ranks among the most influential of modern scientific theories. Applying the methodology of COGNITIVE SEMANTICS , this study investigates how metaphors based on domains of JOURNEY, STRUGGLE, TREE and HUMAN AGENCY serve to conceptualize key concepts of Darwin’s theory — such as evolutionary change, natural selection, and relationships among organisms. At the outset the author identifies original metaphors in The Origin of Species, to turn to their realizations in modern discourse on evolution in later chapters. Thus, the study uncovers how metaphors contribute to structuring the theory by expressing it in a coherent and attractive way, and how they provide mental tools for reasoning. As the first comprehensive study of conceptual metaphors that underlie Darwin’s theory and affect the way we talk and think about evolution, it may be of interest not only to linguists and evolutionary biologists but also to anyone interested in the interconnection between thought and language.

scholarly journals Bydraes van Darwin se voorgangers tot die Ewolusieteorie

1991 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-17
Author(s):  
J. H. Swanepoel
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
Origin Of Species ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Selection Theory ◽  
Phylogenetic Classification ◽  
Natural Selection Theory

A review of the literature with respect to ideas and hypotheses on evolution, prior to Darwin’s Origin of Species, reveals that many biologists long before Darwin postulated theories similar to his natural selection theory. The relation between phylogenetic classification and evolution, as well as the epigenetic theory of evolution, was postulated nearly fifty years be­fore Darwin. With this review of the literature an attempt is made to put Darwin and his forerunners in a better perspective with each other.

Grassland Management and the Early Development of British Ecology

1986 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Sheail
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Early Development ◽  
Wild Species ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Grassland Management ◽  
Origin Of Species ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Evolution By Natural Selection ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Worster depicted ecology as ‘a stranger who has just blown into town’ — it had ‘a presence without a past’. In seeking to remedy this deficiency, historians have drawn attention to the fact that an interest in the relationship of wild species to their environment, and to one another, can be discerned well before the theory of evolution by natural selection was enunciated by Charles Darwin in the Origin of Species.

‘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.

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