scholarly journals Cognitive niche

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-70
Author(s):  
Đorđe Petronić ◽  
Igor Vujović
Keyword(s):  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Human Intelligence ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Cognitive Niche ◽  
Human Habitat ◽  
Science Philosophy ◽  
The Origin Of Life ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Survival Mode

In a joint publication with Alfred Russell Wallace, Charles Darwin presented the theory which stated that all life forms were developed by natural selection in which the fight for survival had the effect similar to artificial intelligence applied to selective breeding. Despite a coincidence of views concerning the origin of life, these two scientists had their disagreements. Wallace argued that intelligence could have never arisen through the process of natural adaptation, but rather as a consequence of intelligent design. On the other hand, Darwin insisted that human intelligence could only be explained by the theory of evolution. This difference in point of views on the matter is a manifestation of the difference in the efforts to answer the question: "Why are people so intelligent?" In this context, the main aim of the study is to present a literature review concerning evolutionary psychology and to provide an explanation of the evolution of human intelligence. In other words, the study seeks to explain why people are able to accomplish such intellectual exploits as the ones found in mathematics, science, philosophy, law, etc., bearing in mind that such abilities or talents cannot be found in the original human habitat. The results have showed that evolutionary psychologists consider humans to be so intelligent due to the fact that they have evolved to fill the "cognitive niche". The cognitive niche is a survival mode characterized by managing the environment through mediating cognition and social cooperation.

Biological calorimetry and the thermodynamics of the origination and evolution of life

2009 ◽  
Vol 81 (10) ◽  
pp. 1843-1855 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee D. Hansen ◽  
Richard S. Criddle ◽  
Edwin H. Battley
Keyword(s):  
Life Forms ◽  
Living Matter ◽  
Constant Input ◽  
Atp Production ◽  
Random Mixture ◽  
Evolution Of Life ◽  
The Origin Of Life ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Or Organization ◽  
The Universe

Calorimetric measurements on biological systems from small molecules to whole organisms lead to a new conception of the nature of live matter that has profound consequences for our understanding of biology. The data show that the differences in Gibbs energy (ΔG) and enthalpy (ΔH) are near zero or negative and the difference in entropy (ΔS) is near zero between a random mixture of molecules and live matter of the same composition. A constant input of energy is required to maintain ion gradients, ATP production, and the other functions of living matter, but because cells are organized in a spontaneous process, no energy input is required to maintain the structure or organization of cells. Thus, the origin of life and evolution of complex life forms occurs by thermodynamically spontaneous processes, carbon-based life should be common throughout the universe, and because there is no energy cost, evolution can occur relatively rapidly.

Life on the Earth

2021 ◽  
pp. 137-162
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Ervin-Blankenheim
Keyword(s):  
Plate Tectonics ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Geologic Time ◽  
Long Span ◽  
Foot Structure ◽  
Evolutionary Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Extinction Events

Change in life forms over the long span of the Earth’s history, and the theory of evolution are discussed in chapter 7. Along with the tenets of geologic time (chapters 3 and 4) and plate tectonics (chapters 5 and 6), evolution encompasses another foundational idea in geology. This chapter examines the history of evolutionary thought and theory, starting with Charles Darwin and his work on natural selection. The historic “Bone Wars” that occurred with the discovery of the dinosaur fossils is an example of how fossils are used and sometimes misused to unravel the evolution of a significant branch in the Earth’s history of life. So too, the story of horses and their ancestors is portrayed in the Cenozoic era, as early equine ancestor species responded in their body size and tooth and foot structure to changes in climate and the opening of grasslands. The number and variety of life forms waxes and wanes over geologic time, through evolution and sometimes extinction events, only to re-emerge over eons, eras, periods, and epochs, leading to pulses of biodiversity in the fossil record. The theory of evolution was forged after the work by Darwin and others by later developments in molecular biology and DNA research which support modern evolutionary theory.

Influence of Cell Wall Composition on the Fossilisation of Bacteria and the Implications for the Search for Early Life Forms

1997 ◽  
Vol 161 ◽  
pp. 491-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frances Westall
Keyword(s):  
Cell Wall ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Cation Binding ◽  
Positive Bacterium ◽  
Gram Positive ◽  
Gram Positive Bacteria ◽  
Transmission Electron ◽  
Hydrothermal Sediments ◽  
Identification Of Bacteria ◽  
The Difference

AbstractThe oldest cell-like structures on Earth are preserved in silicified lagoonal, shallow sea or hydrothermal sediments, such as some Archean formations in Western Australia and South Africa. Previous studies concentrated on the search for organic fossils in Archean rocks. Observations of silicified bacteria (as silica minerals) are scarce for both the Precambrian and the Phanerozoic, but reports of mineral bacteria finds, in general, are increasing. The problems associated with the identification of authentic fossil bacteria and, if possible, closer identification of bacteria type can, in part, be overcome by experimental fossilisation studies. These have shown that not all bacteria fossilise in the same way and, indeed, some seem to be very resistent to fossilisation. This paper deals with a transmission electron microscope investigation of the silicification of four species of bacteria commonly found in the environment. The Gram positiveBacillus laterosporusand its spore produced a robust, durable crust upon silicification, whereas the Gram negativePseudomonas fluorescens, Ps. vesicularis, andPs. acidovoranspresented delicately preserved walls. The greater amount of peptidoglycan, containing abundant metal cation binding sites, in the cell wall of the Gram positive bacterium, probably accounts for the difference in the mode of fossilisation. The Gram positive bacteria are, therefore, probably most likely to be preserved in the terrestrial and extraterrestrial rock record.

Mind the step: did Hooker's judgement clinch Darwin's disenchantment?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek Partridge
Keyword(s):  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Marine Invertebrates ◽  
Theory Development ◽  
Step Change ◽  
Primary Research ◽  
Research Activity ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Causal Force ◽  
Joseph Hooker

The decade from 1844 to 1854 in which Charles Darwin first published two books and then studied barnacles for the final eight years has long been a puzzling digression from the development of his theory of evolution. This essay proposes that it was a conjunction of two quite different activities: a three-year pause initiated to assess and hopefully finalize the editorial completion of his 1844 Essay for publication, followed by a step-change decision to redirect his primary research activity in late 1847. A disenchantment hypothesis is proposed; it presents the step-change decision as a consequence of weighing up the accumulated unencouraging prospects for species-theory development in competition with the emergence of promising projections associated with a broad study of marine invertebrates. Recognition of the triumph, as Darwin initially saw it, of his Essay, followed by years of hostile inputs, opens this new route to understanding this decade. Within it Joseph Hooker emerges as a significant causal force. Many of the customary ‘postponement’ explanations of this digression can be integrated with this pause-and-step-change explanation, whereas explanation of the interval as a gap due to a pre-planned activity cannot, and is revealed to be seriously faulty.

2. Evolution and natural selection

2019 ◽  
pp. 9-26
Author(s):  
Samir Okasha
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Philosophical Argument ◽  
Modern Biology ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Philosophical Significance ◽  
Argument From Design ◽  
Evolution By Natural Selection

In 1859 Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, in which he set out his theory of evolution. The book marked a turning point in our understanding of the natural world and revolutionized biology. ‘Evolution and natural selection’ outlines the theory of evolution by natural selection, explaining its unique status in biology and its philosophical significance. It considers how Darwin’s theory undermined the ‘argument from design’, a traditional philosophical argument for the existence of God; how the integration of Darwin’s theory with genetics, in the early 20th century, gave rise to neo-Darwinism; and why, despite evolutionary theory being a mainstay of modern biology, in society at large there is a marked reluctance to believe in evolution.

scholarly journals Race before Darwin: Variation, adaptation and the natural history of man in post-Enlightenment Edinburgh, 1790–1835

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-350
Author(s):  
BILL JENKINS
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Natural Order ◽  
Human Variation ◽  
Adaptive Responses ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
The University

AbstractThis paper draws on material from the dissertation books of the University of Edinburgh's student societies and surviving lecture notes from the university's professors to shed new light on the debates on human variation, heredity and the origin of races between 1790 and 1835. That Edinburgh was the most important centre of medical education in the English-speaking world in this period makes this a particularly significant context. By around 1800 the fixed natural order of the eighteenth century was giving way to a more fluid conception of species and varieties. The dissolution of the ‘Great Chain of Being’ made interpretations of races as adaptive responses to local climates plausible. The evidence presented shows that human variation, inheritance and adaptation were being widely discussed in Edinburgh in the student circles around Charles Darwin when he was a medical student in Edinburgh in the 1820s. It is therefore no surprise to find these same themes recurring in similar form in the evolutionary speculations in his notebooks on the transmutation of species written in the late 1830s during the gestation of his theory of evolution.

Darwinism

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Ruse
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
General Term ◽  
Evolutionary Change ◽  
Social Darwinism ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Mendelian Genetics ◽  
Thomas Henry Huxley ◽  
Foundational Work

The modern usage of the term Darwinism dates from the publication of On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin, in which he argued for evolution through natural selection. Very soon after the appearance of the Origin (in 1859), Darwin’s great supporter Thomas Henry Huxley introduced the term Darwinism. The term—together with the related terms Darwinian and Darwinist—took root. The codiscoverer of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace, used the term as the title of a book expounding evolution: Darwinism: An Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection, with Some of Its Applications. Note that there seems to be a fuzziness about the term. Some identify Darwinism with evolution through natural selection. Others suggest that the essence of Darwinism is not selection per se but change or variation. Late in the 19th century, George Romanes coined the term neo-Darwinism to cover those for whom natural selection is basically the only significant cause of change. In 1930 Ronald A. Fisher, in his Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, argued that the newly developed theory of Mendelian genetics offered the required foundation for a perspective that made natural selection the central force of evolutionary change. Although the British were happy to call the Darwin-Mendel synthesis neo-Darwinism, in America the synthesis was known as the synthetic theory of evolution. This reflects that in the New World it was Sewall Wright who did the foundational work in bringing Mendelian genetics into the evolutionary picture and that he never thought of natural selection as being the force that Fisher took it to be. For Wright and his followers, especially Theodosius Dobzhansky, genetic drift was always a major component of the evolutionary picture, and as Fisher pointed out nonstop, this is about as non-Darwinian a notion as it is possible to have. By 1959 professional evolutionists (on both sides of the Atlantic) agreed that Darwin had been right about natural selection: it is the major cause of evolutionary change. Neo-Darwinism fell into disuse, as everyone now used the term Darwinism for evolution through natural selection. Mention should also be made of so-called social Darwinism, the application of Darwinism to persons and groups within society. The earliest use apparently was during Darwin’s own lifetime, by a historian discussing land tenure in Ireland. However, it was not a popular or general term, coming into widespread use only in the 1940s, with the publication of the American historian Richard Hofstadter’s book Social Darwinism in American Thought.

Chapter VI: Darwin

1980 ◽  
Vol 25 (S1) ◽  
pp. 34-48
Author(s):  
Richard Albert Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Mental Development ◽  
Fiftieth Anniversary ◽  
Unique Characteristic ◽  
Main Trend ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Descent Of Man ◽  
Animal World

In this year falls the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Charles Darwin—one of those rare individuals who have altered the main trend of thought and inaugurated a new attitude and a new outlook in human affairs.—JULIAN HUXLEY, Contemporary Review, October 1932.Language has justly been considered as one of the chief distinctions between man and the lower animals. But man, as a highly competent judge, Archbishop Whately, remarks, ‘is not the only animal that can make use of language to express what is passing in his mind, and can understand, more or less, what is so expressed by another.’—DARWIN, Descent of Man, Chap. III.The investigation of language, as pointed out in the last chapter, had been carried on for a hundred years in the belief that language was a unique characteristic of man, and did not extend to the animal world beneath him. But with the publication of the Descent of Man in 1871 the whole problem of language was suddenly expanded into a much wider region. Darwin, in that book, distinctly challenged the human boundaries that had been set to language as being artificial and arbitrary, and extended the problem over into the animal world, maintaining that the difference between the language of man and the cries of animals was not a difference in kind, as had been formerly thought, but a difference in degree only, a difference in definiteness of connotation and distinctness of articulation. This difference in language followed naturally, he maintained, upon the difference in degree of their mental development.

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