Jeremy DeSilva. A Most Interesting Problem: What Darwin’s Descent of Man Got Wrong and Right about Human Evolution

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-122
Author(s):  
Bernard Wood
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Interesting Problem ◽  
Descent Of Man

scholarly journals Evaluating Darwin’s Book on the Descent off Man

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Egbert Leigh
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Human Evolution ◽  
Interesting Problem ◽  
Descent Of Man

AbstractThis is a review of A Most Interesting Problem: What Darwin’s Descent of Man Got Right and Wrong about Human Evolution, edited by Jeremy DeSilva. The book has ten chapters, the first seven evaluating and updating the seven chapters of The Descent of Man, the eighth outlining Darwin’s theory of sexual selection, the ninth criticizing Darwin’s view of how sexual selection shaped human racial divergence, and the tenth summarizing hominin diversification.

scholarly journals Darwin's Use of Intellectual Disability in The Descent of Man

2008 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven A. Gelb
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Disability ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Intellectual Disabilities ◽  
Human Evolution ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Descent Of Man

When Charles Darwin turned his attention to writing about human descent in 1871 he attempted to narrow the fossil gap between human beings and higher primates by presenting persons with intellectual disabilities — "idiots" in the language of the day — as evidence in support of the theory of evolution. This paper explores the four ways that Darwin used persons with intellectual disabilities in The Descent of Man: 1) as intermediate rung on the evolutionary ladder connecting humans and primates; 2) as exemplars of the inevitable waste and loss produced by natural selection acting upon variability; 3) as the floor of a scale representing the "lowest", most unfit variety of any species when individuals were rank ordered by intelligence; and 4) as atavistic reversions to extinct forms whose study would reveal the characteristics of earlier stages of human evolution. Darwin's strategic use of intellectual disability is brought to bear on the controversy regarding the mental state of Darwin's last child.

scholarly journals The late ascent of Darwin's Descent: exploring human evolution and women's role for a new China, 1927–1965

BJHS Themes ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Lijing Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Evolution ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Evolutionary Theories ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
Comprehensive Examination ◽  
Chinese Intellectuals ◽  
Women's Role ◽  
Descent Of Man

Abstract Darwin's ideas held sway among Chinese intellectuals by the early twentieth century. Yet the usual emphasis was a Spencerism instead of Darwin's original ideas. As a result, translations of The Descent of Man in the early twentieth century quickly fell into oblivion. When the embryologist Zhu Xi (1900–62) eventually decided to give all evolutionary theories a comprehensive examination, he nevertheless found the idea of sexual evolution inadequate, as expressed in his volume Biological Evolution (1958). Only in the 1950s did serious efforts to translate Descent gather momentum, thanks to eugenicist and sociologist Pan Guangdan (1899–1967). Such efforts were not only responses to a renewed interest in Darwinism under the socialist regime, but also expressions that synthesized both scholars’ earlier paths in wrestling with schemes of human evolution and the roles of women in China's survival and renewal. Trained in different scientific and cultural milieus and holding almost oppositional views, the two scholars nevertheless converged in finding new meanings in Darwin's Descent.

Settlement, Society and Cognition in Human Evolution

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona Coward ◽  
Robert Hosfield ◽  
Matt Pope ◽  
Francis Wenban-Smith
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution

An Update on Human Evolution

1986 ◽  
Vol 31 (8) ◽  
pp. 585-585
Author(s):  
David J. Merrell
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution
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