Introduction: Selectionist Reasoning as a Tool of Thought

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Ziman
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Artificial Life ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Origin Of Species ◽  
Organic Evolution ◽  
History Of ◽  
Selective Retention ◽  
Adaptive Nature ◽  
Cultural Entities

This chapter focuses on a new mode of metascientific reasoning that applies the underlying rationale of Charles Darwin's explanation of the ‘Origin of Species’ to many other examples of historical change. More specifically, it examines the ‘evolutionary paradigm of rationality’ which can be summed up in the formula: BVSR = Blind Variation + Selective Retention. It shows how selection in reasoning applies to the changing membership of a population, rather than to changes that might be taking place in any particular member of that population; how the adaptive nature of the Darwinian process results in a population whose members are more ‘fit’ — that is, better able to satisfy the criteria of selection; and the essentially naturalistic nature of evolutionary reasoning. It also discusses bio-organic evolution as a classic example of a Darwinian process; the concept of ‘artificial life’ in relation to many evolutionary phenomena; the evolution of primitive human artefacts and other cultural entities; and the application of evolutionary reasoning to the history of science. The chapter concludes by looking at evolutionary reasoning as a ‘tool of thought’.

Generation and the Origin of Species (1837–1937): A Historiographical Suggestion

1989 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. J. S. Hodge
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Heritable Variation ◽  
Origin Of Species ◽  
Research And Teaching ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual

Bernard Norton's friends in the history of science have had many reasons for commemorating, with admiration and affection, not only his research and teaching but no less his conversation and his company. One of his most estimable traits was his refusal to beat about the bush in raising the questions he thought worthwhile pursuing. I still remember discoursing at Pittsburgh on Darwin's route to his theory of natural selection, and being asked at the end by Bernard what were Darwin's views on heredity. I answered with the conventional waffle to the effect that the theory concerned the populational fate rather than the individual production and transmission of heritable variation, so that whatever views Darwin had on heredity had only a subsidiary place in his theorizing. Bernard was not fooled. ‘I would have thought’, he said, ‘that in order to understand anyone's theorising about evolution it would be necessary to look at his views on heredity’.

“Life Is a Verb”: Inflections of Artificial Life in Cultural Context

2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Helmreich
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
Artificial Life ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Art Criticism ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
History Of ◽  
Verb Inflections

This review essay surveys recent literature in the history of science, literary theory, anthropology, and art criticism dedicated to exploring how the artificial life enterprise has been inflected by—and might also reshape—existing social, historical, cognitive, and cultural frames of thought and action. The piece works through various possible interpretations of Kevin Kelly's phrase “life is a verb,” in order to track recent shifts in cultural studies of artificial life from an aesthetic of critique to an aesthetic of conversation, discerning in the process different styles of translating between the concerns of the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and sciences of the artificial.

scholarly journals Science and islands in Indo-Pacific worlds

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 541-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
SEBESTIAN KROUPA ◽  
STEPHANIE J. MAWSON ◽  
DORIT BRIXIUS
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Pacific Islands ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
European Institutions ◽  
Cultural Exchanges ◽  
New Directions ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many

AbstractThis Introduction offers a conceptualization of the Indo-Pacific, its islands and their place within the history of science. We argue that Indo-Pacific islands present a remarkable combination of social, political and spatial circumstances, which speak to themes that are central to the history of science. Having driven movements of people and represented staging grounds for explorations, expansions and cross-cultural exchanges, these spaces have been at the forefront of historical change. The historiographies of the two oceans have traditionally emphasized indigenous agency while downplaying European historical trajectories, and therefore they provide historians of science with materials and methodologies that promise nuanced portrayals of knowledge production in cross-cultural settings. Rather than unifying the oceans into a cohesive narrative, we seek to uncover the many horizons of Indo-Pacific worlds and pluralize the spaces within which knowledge travelled at specific times, but not at others. Offering a middle plane between the globe and the region, islands are particularly productive sites for such analyses, as they bring to attention both localized kinds of agency and the impacts of colonialism and globalization. This special issue investigates what happens to knowledge within island spaces and demonstrates that even as small strips of land, islands can significantly enhance our understanding of the practices of knowledge making within the broader contours of world history. In bringing to the fore the contributions of actors from across the wider social spectrum and, especially, the interacting roles of indigenous agents and their traditions, Indo-Pacific worlds thus offer exciting new directions for a field which has often been dominated by a focus on European institutions.

scholarly journals On Knowledge Contamination: New Data Challenges Claims of Darwin’s and Wallace’s Independent Conceptions of Matthew’s Prior-Published Hypothesis

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 167-205
Author(s):  
Mike Sutton
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Knowledge Transfer ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Origin Of Species ◽  
Prior Publication ◽  
Organic Evolution ◽  
History Of

Patrick Matthew’s (1831) prior-publication of the complete hypothesis of natural selection “anticipated” Darwin’s Origin of Species by 28 years and Darwin’s and Wallace’s (1858) Linnean papers on the same topic by 27. Founded on the premise that no naturalist read it before 1860, Darwin’s and Wallace’s claims of duel independent discovery of Matthew’s hypothesis have been accepted by the scientific community. However, the central premise upon which those claims have been accepted — that no naturalist read Matthew’s ideas before 1858 — is a proven fallacy, because the famous and hugely influential naturalist Loudon reviewed Matthew’s book in 1832, commenting that it appeared to have something original to say on “the origin of species”. The fact that Loudon was a naturalist has been totally ignored until now. Furthermore, it is newly discovered that after reviewing Matthew’s book he went on to edit the journal that published two of Blyth’s highly influential papers on organic evolution. Blyth was Darwin’s most prolific and helpful correspondent on the topic. Further new discoveries reveal that, besides Loudon, whose work was well known to Darwin and his associates, six other naturalists read Matthew’s book and then cited it years before 1858. One, Selby, sat on several scientific committees with Darwin, and was a friend of his father. Selby went on to edit Wallace’s famous Sarawak paper on organic evolution. Another, Robert Chambers, a correspondent of Darwin, who met with him, went on to write the influential Vestiges of Creation, which both Darwin and Wallace admitted was an influence on their work. Undeniable potential knowledge-transfer routes did exist before 1858, therefore, between those who read Matthew’s ideas and commented upon them in the literature, and Darwin and Wallace. In light of the fact that influential naturalists, known to both Darwin and Wallace, did read Matthew’s original ideas before 1858, veracity in the history of discovery requires now an investigation into the possibility of cryptomnesia or deliberate pre-1860 plagiarism by Darwin and Wallace. In that regard, the notion of “knowledge contamination” is proposed and presented in a three-fold typology of escalating culpability for replicators of prior published work with citation. Future research in this area should turn to the neglected correspondence and private journal archives of those naturalists known to Darwin and Wallace who read Matthew’s ideas before 1860.

Piaget and Garcia's History of Science

1990 ◽  
Vol 35 (7) ◽  
pp. 654-656
Author(s):  
Harry Beilin
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
History Of

Introduction: Emotion, History and the Arts

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Sullivan ◽  
Marie Louise Herzfeld-Schild
Keyword(s):  
Historical Change ◽  
Carson Mccullers ◽  
Emotional Life ◽  
Review Section ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
War Correspondents ◽  
History Of ◽  
Johan Huizinga

This introduction surveys the rise of the history of emotions as a field and the role of the arts in such developments. Reflecting on the foundational role of the arts in the early emotion-oriented histories of Johan Huizinga and Jacob Burkhardt, as well as the concerns about methodological impressionism that have sometimes arisen in response to such studies, the introduction considers how intensive engagements with the arts can open up new insights into past emotions while still being historically and theoretically rigorous. Drawing on a wide range of emotionally charged art works from different times and places—including the novels of Carson McCullers and Harriet Beecher-Stowe, the private poetry of neo-Confucian Chinese civil servants, the photojournalism of twentieth-century war correspondents, and music from Igor Stravinsky to the Beatles—the introduction proposes five ways in which art in all its forms contributes to emotional life and consequently to emotional histories: first, by incubating deep emotional experiences that contribute to formations of identity; second, by acting as a place for the expression of private or deviant emotions; third, by functioning as a barometer of wider cultural and attitudinal change; fourth, by serving as an engine of momentous historical change; and fifth, by working as a tool for emotional connection across communities, both within specific time periods but also across them. The introduction finishes by outlining how the special issue's five articles and review section address each of these categories, while also illustrating new methodological possibilities for the field.

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