One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought. Ernst Mayr

1992 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-191
Author(s):  
Douglas J. Futuyma
Keyword(s):  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Ernst Mayr ◽  
Evolutionary Thought

Unfinished Synthesis

1986 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niles Eldredge
Keyword(s):  
Modern Synthesis ◽  
Ernst Mayr ◽  
Conventional Theory ◽  
Higher Taxa ◽  
Evolutionary Thought ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Theodosius Dobzhansky ◽  
George Gaylord Simpson

This study provides a stimulating critique of contemporary evolutionary thought, analyzing the Modern Synthesis first developed by Theodosius Dobzhansky, Ernst Mayr, and George Gaylord Simpson. The author argues that although only genes and organisms are taken as historic "individuals" in conventional theory, species, higher taxa, and ecological entities such as populations and communities should also be construed as individuals--an approach that yields the ecological and genealogical hierarchies that interact to produce evolution. This clearly stated, controversial work will provoke much debate among evolutionary biologists, systematists, paleontologists, and ecologists, as well as a wide range of educated lay readers.

The Origins of Diversity: Darwin's Conditions and Epigenetic Variations

2007 ◽  
Vol 19 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 103-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
David E. Marsh
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Double Helix ◽  
Paradigm Change ◽  
Short History ◽  
Adaptive Mutations ◽  
Evolutionary Thought ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Heritable Change

This short history of evolutionary thought during the last few centuries describes how some of our foremost thinkers have debated – and still do – the precise mechanisms at the roots of evolutionary change. Commentators frequently contradicted themselves, as well as each other. The popularity of Christian fundamentalism waned following the World Wars. Eventually the rug was pulled from beneath it – till a more recent reaction. Amidst all this babble coming from numerous towers of Babel over centuries, we failed to see Charles Darwin as the great environmentalist: who said environmental conditions, whilst working hand in glove with natural selection, constituted the more important 'law.' A bird's eye view of 18th and 19th century evolutionary thought is considered against the climate of those times (politics, industrial revolution, trade, religious expansionism, etc). Darwinism superseded Lamarckism helped by the neo-Darwinism of Weismann, higher mathematics, population genetics – the 'Modern Synthesis' of 1935 – culminating in the discovery of the double helix by Watson, Crick et al, assuring us of the correctness of 'primacy of DNA theory'. Stimulation and challenge is currently fuelled by exciting nascent knowledge of epigenetic variations and Cairnsian 'adaptive mutations'. The work of Marcus Pembrey and Barry Keverne tracking human and animal variation back generationally describing how 'genomic imprinting' causes reversible heritable change from slight variations in the chromosomes of parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and parents to be. The purpose of this thesis is to put forward a new theme proposed neither by Lamarck or Darwin. We stand on the threshold of the first paradigm change for 150 years.

Jemmy Button

1987 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher P. Toumey
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Tierra Del Fuego ◽  
South American ◽  
Evolutionary Thought ◽  
Human Capacity ◽  
Naval Officers

Jemmy Button was an Indian of Tierra del Fuego who inadvertently inspired four generations of nineteenth-century English missionaries to risk their earthly lives to save his eternal soul. These earnest evangelicals made five expeditions to Jemmy's South American homeland to make Christians of him and his countrymen. One of these ventures was an embarrassing fiasco, another ended in death by starvation, and a third led to a treacherous massacre.This young Indian's unintended influence also touched evolutionary thought. Jemmy Button was a friend and companion to Charles Darwin on the famous voyage of H.M.S. Beagle. Jemmy's versatile personality was intriguing to Darwin. He could be a naked Indian hunter when in Tierra del Fuego, and a foppish English gentleman when in the company of British naval officers. His ability to change like this inspired Darwin's earliest written reflections on the human capacity to progress from savagery to civilization.

Wallace, Alfred Russel (1823–1913)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara G. Beddall
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Geographical Distribution ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
South American ◽  
Malay Archipelago ◽  
Evolutionary Thought

Co-discoverer with Charles Darwin of the theory of natural selection, Wallace travelled to the Amazon in 1848. Four years of collecting specimens there for sale in Europe revealed patterns of geographical distribution among animals. Unfortunately, much of his South American collection was lost in a fire at sea during the voyage home, which forced him to begin his collecting anew. This led to eight more years of travel (1854–62), this time in the Malay Archipelago, where he made his own momentous discovery of the theory of natural selection in 1858. An exceptionally clear thinker, he made many valuable contributions to evolutionary thought.

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