Nineteenth-Century American Literature and the Discourse of Natural History

Nineteenth-Century American Literature and the Discourse of Natural History illuminates how literary experimentation with natural history provides penumbral views of environmental survival. The book brings together feminist revisions of scientific objectivity and critical race theory on diaspora to show how biogeography influenced material and metaphorical concepts of species and race. It also highlights how lesser known writers of color like Simon Pokagon and James McCune Smith connected species migration and mutability to forms of racial uplift. The book situates these literary visions of environmental fragility and survival amidst the development of Darwinian theories of evolution and against a westward expanding American settler colonialism.

Graphing Culture Change in North American Archaeology

Documentation, analysis, and explanation of culture change have long been goals of archaeology. The earliest archaeological spindle graphs appeared in the 1880s and 1890s, but had no influence on subsequent archaeologists. Line graphs showing change in frequencies of specimens in each of several artifact types were used in the 1910s and 1920s. Seriograms or straight-sided spindles diagraming interpretations of culture change were published in the 1930s, but were seldom subsequently mimicked. Spindle graphs of centered and stacked columns of bars, each column representing a distinct artifact type, each bar the empirically documented relative frequency of specimens in an assemblage, were developed in the 1940s, became popular in the 1950s and 1960s, and are often used to illustrate culture change in textbooks published during the twentieth century. Graphs facilitate visual thinking, different graph types suggest different ontologies and theories of change, and particular techniques of parsing temporally continuous morphological variation of artifacts into types influence graph form. Line graphs, bar graphs, spindle diagrams, and phylogenetic trees of artifacts and cultures indicate archaeologists often mixed elements of Darwinian variational evolutionary change with elements of Midas-touch-like transformational change. Today there is minimal discussion of graph theory or graph grammar in both introductory archaeology textbooks and advanced texts, and elements of the two theories of evolution are often mixed. Culture has changed, and despite archaeology’s unique access to the totality of humankind’s cultural past, there is minimal discussion on graph theory, construction, and decipherment in the archaeological literature.

Usain Bolt. A “hopeful monster”? A descriptive case study (Usain Bolt. Un "monstruo esperanzado"? Un estudio de caso descriptivo)

Usain Bolt's stunning sportive achievements sparked admiration from around the world and raised the question of the genesis of his sport excellence. In the light of the various theories of evolution, we try to understand whether there are evolutionary grounds for considering Usain Bolt a “hopeful monster”, i.e. a transgressive phenotype beyond the range of parental phenotypes. This hypothesis would call into question the gradualism defended by Darwin and would give room to saltationism by which profound changes can occur in one or a few generations. It seems that the saltational hypothesis is not scientifically adequate to justify Usain Bolt’s sport performance. Not knowing the genetic profile of Usain Bolt and his ancestors, we can hypothesize that his sporting excellence is the result of a given polymorphism or phenotypic changes induced by ecological determinants, among which training and nutrition stand out.We can admit that Usain Bolt is a rare case of developmental plasticity that enables his genome to generate a phenotype associated with a specific competence for sprinting.In the current state of scientific knowledge, there is no way to associate any polymorphism with performance in sporting events related to strength and speed but a challenging field is open for science. Aware of the difficulties in characterizing Usain Bolt, he is undoubtedly the result of an extraordinary combination of genetic and environmental factors. Resumen. Los impresionantes logros deportivos de Usain Bolt despertaron la admiración de todo el mundo y plantearon la cuestión de la génesis de su excelencia deportiva. A la luz de las diversas teorías de la evolución, tratamos de comprender si existen bases evolutivas para considerar a Usain Bolt como un "monstruo esperanzado", es decir, un fenotipo transgresor más allá del rango de fenotipos parentales. Esta hipótesis pondría en tela de juicio el gradualismo defendido por Darwin y daría lugar al saltacionismo mediante el cual pueden ocurrir cambios profundos en una o pocas generaciones. Parece que la hipótesis saltacional no es científicamente adecuada para justificar el rendimiento deportivo de Usain Bolt. Sin conocer el perfil genético de Usain Bolt y sus ancestros, podemos plantear la hipótesis de que su excelencia deportiva es el resultado de un determinado polimorfismo o cambios fenotípicos inducidos por determinantes ecológicos, entre los que destacan el entrenamiento y la nutrición. Podemos admitir que Usain Bolt es un caso raro de plasticidad del desarrollo que permite que su genoma genere un fenotipo asociado con una competencia específica para correr. En el estado actual del conocimiento científico, no hay forma de asociar ningún polimorfismo con el rendimiento en eventos deportivos relacionados con la fuerza y la velocidad, pero hay un campo desafiante para la ciencia. Consciente de las dificultades para caracterizar a Usain Bolt, es sin duda el resultado de una extraordinaria combinación de factores genéticos y ambientales.

From the ethology of animals to the human ecology

The title “From the ethology of animals to human ecology” acknowledges both the theories of evolution developed in numerous scientific fields of science, and the academic achievements of Konrad Lorenz and his partners, the development of which are shown through the order of studies they published, from the scope of classical ethology and the row of humanities, to philosophy and human ecology. Lorenz conducted an ethological examination of human culture, thereby uncovering its biological bases, its dynamics, social pathologies and means for overcoming them. Thanks to this Lorenz gained an insight into the character of the crisis of contemporary civilization, described and diagnosed it, presented the causes and proposed a cure. Lorenz recommended mobilizing efforts to create an ecological ethos for those surviving on Earth. Today it isn’t possible to predict the future of Homo sapiens on our planet, however, it is our duty to prepare for our struggle to survive. It is not only about survival but also about the preservation of the human way of life. This is a matter of biological and spiritual survival. Therefore, Lorenz’s ethological humanism takes on the mantle of a new ‘evolutionary humanism’.

Total Umwelten Create Shared Meaning the Emergent Properties of Animal Groups as a Result of Social Signalling

In this paper, I discuss the concept of ‘shared meaning’, and the relationship between a shared understanding of signs within an animal social group and the Umwelten of individuals within the group. I explore the concept of the ‘Total Umwelt’, as described by Tønnesen, (2003), and use examples from the traditional ethology literature to demonstrate how semiotic principles can not only be applied, but underpin the observations made in animal social biology. Traditionally, neo-Darwinian theories of evolution concentrate on ‘fitness’ or an organism’s capacity to survive and reproduce in its own environmental niche. However, this process also relies on underlying signs and sign processes, which are often over-looked in traditional ethology and behavioural ecology. Biosemiotics, however, places the emphasis on sign process, with signs and signals comprising a semiosphere. Significantly, whilst the semiosphere is formulated as physical phenomena, specifically energetic and material signs which can be detected and transmitted as signals from one individual to another, it is the Umwelten of living organisms which give those signals meaning. Further, two or more Umwelten can merge, giving rise to a ‘Total Umwelt’, which facilitates shared meaning of signs between two or more individuals. Across and within generations, this gives rise to cultural interpretation of signs within populations. I argue this is the fundamental basis for emergent group properties in social species, or indeed in solitary living species where individuals interact to mate, defend territories or resources, or in raising altricial young. I therefore discuss a fusion of traditional behavioural ecology- based theory with semiotics, to examine the phenomenon of ‘shared meaning’ in animal social groups.

“La trama apocalíptica del Antropoceno”

This chapter examines figurations of a plant-animal-human-digital continuum in the novel Las constelaciones oscuras by contemporary Argentine author Pola Oloixarac. The novel connects three different eras: the nineteenth century, on the cusp between Michel Foucault’s observed transition between the “classic” and the “modern” eras; the 1980s and 1990s representing the origins of the internet and activities of nascent communities of hackers; and the year 2025 when the biopolitical drive of states and corporations to know peoples’ locations at any given moment, based on DNA tracking, comes close to being realized. The findings of the nineteenth century botanist Niklas Bruun defy gradualist theories of evolution and set the stage for the examination of multispecies relationships, carried out away from the prying eyes of humans. The chapter argues that Oloixarac “speculatively fabulates” how our understanding of the “trama apocalíptica del antropoceno” might be different, were animals able to speak, and were we fully able to appreciate our biological plurality (and thus the concrete dependence on the ecosystem we are destroying). I argue that an underlying focus on astrologically unifying factors draws us away from arbitrarily defined national borders to appreciate the challenges we face at a planetary level.

Turning Resistance into Passion for Knowledge with the Tools of Agency: Teaching-Learning about Theories of Evolution for social justice among foster youth

We discuss implementing critical-theoretical pedagogy within a collaborative transformative project in a foster care program in the U.S. to showcase the activist role of the educator in providing tools of agency for youth struggling against oppression. This project aimed at enhancing and spurring the residents’ (adolescent boys’) agency through collaborative learning activities. The cornerstone was to explore the ethical-political dimensions of knowledge in connection with the boys’ own thematic universe, thus compelling them to take a stand on social and scientific issues in their own lives, their communities, and the society at large. The topic of evolution was chosen to critically examine erroneous and nefarious assumptions associated with a reductionist version of evolutionary theory that promotes the fallacious and racist, and quite widespread, view that race-based social inequality is biologically determined. This was a view that some boys apparently took up from social discourses and practices in their surrounds. A workshop on evolution led by the first author provided a forum for the boys to discuss their views on such contentious matters as social ranking and presumed inequalities in human potential while confronting outrageous stereotypes about so called “Black inferiority” and whether notions of evolution and human nature support or challenge such views.