eBook PDF Download Digital Library
Author: Daniel P. Todes
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1989-07-13
Total Pages: 242
ISBN-13: 0195363272
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The first book in English to examine in detail the scientific work of 19th-century Russian evolutionists, and the first in any language to explore the relationship of their theories to their economic, political, and natural milieu.
Author: Piers J. Hale
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2014-08-05
Total Pages: 451
ISBN-13: 022610852X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Historians of science have long noted the influence of the nineteenth-century political economist Thomas Robert Malthus on Charles Darwin. In a bold move, Piers J. Hale contends that this focus on Malthus and his effect on Darwin’s evolutionary thought neglects a strong anti-Malthusian tradition in English intellectual life, one that not only predated the 1859 publication of the Origin of Species but also persisted throughout the Victorian period until World War I. Political Descent reveals that two evolutionary and political traditions developed in England in the wake of the 1832 Reform Act: one Malthusian, the other decidedly anti-Malthusian and owing much to the ideas of the French naturalist Jean Baptiste Lamarck. These two traditions, Hale shows, developed in a context of mutual hostility, debate, and refutation. Participants disagreed not only about evolutionary processes but also on broader questions regarding the kind of creature our evolution had made us and in what kind of society we ought therefore to live. Significantly, and in spite of Darwin’s acknowledgement that natural selection was “the doctrine of Malthus, applied to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms,” both sides of the debate claimed to be the more correctly “Darwinian.” By exploring the full spectrum of scientific and political issues at stake, Political Descent offers a novel approach to the relationship between evolution and political thought in the Victorian and Edwardian eras.
Author: Kostas Kampourakis
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2014-04-03
Total Pages: 275
ISBN-13: 1107034914
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Bringing together conceptual obstacles and core concepts of evolutionary theory, this book presents evolution as straightforward and intuitive.
Author: Paul Johnson
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2013-09-24
Total Pages: 178
ISBN-13: 0147509777
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A “riveting” (The Wall Street Journal) biography of one of the most influential and controversial scientists in Western history Acclaimed historian and biographer Paul Johnson turns his keen eye on Charles Darwin, the towering figure whose work continues to spur scientific debate. With his publication of On the Origin of Species, Darwin forever changed our concept of the world. While Johnson praises Darwin’s extraordinary skills as a natural scientist and his monumental achievements, he does not sidestep Darwin’s tragic failures as an anthropologist. Johnson argues that by applying his theory of natural selection to humans, Darwin provided a platform for the burgeoning eugenics movement. Lay readers and academics alike will enjoy this concise and unflinching exploration of Charles Darwin, a genius whose discoveries—even the flawed ones—add significant dimension to our understanding of his mind, the era in which he lived, and his everlasting impact on our world.
Author: Richard Carter
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2017-11-19
Total Pages: 318
ISBN-13: 9781979518840
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →On the Moor shows how a routine walk in the countryside is enhanced by an appreciation of science, history, and natural history. To the uninitiated, the Moor above Hebden Bridge in the West Yorkshire Pennines might seem little more than acre upon acre of heather and the occasional red grouse. But Richard Carter's excursions on to his local patch lead him to examine such diverse topics as: Charles Darwin's weird experiments and ailments; the 17th-century skeptic Sir Thomas Browne; Celtic languages; Bronze Age burials; evolution's kludgy compromises; bird migration; DNA barcoding; skull anatomy; where Earth got its water; the mapping of Great Britain; grouse disease; Scott of the Antarctic; how to define a species; Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath; the Bront�s; the Laws of Thermodynamics; why the sky is blue (and sunsets red); the Greenhouse Effect; the songs of skylarks; snipe courtship; vapour trails; rooks' faces; the best way to cook a wheatear. (Oh, and there's even a plane crash!)
Author: Antony Flew
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-01-18
Total Pages: 149
ISBN-13: 1351312820
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In little more than a hundred years the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin has conquered the thinking world. No other body of ideas has enjoyed such unrivaled success. But precisely because of its scientific status, Darwinism has sometimes been invoked to sustain other ideas and beliefs with a much less solid foundation. Darwinian Evolution is a study of the historical background of Darwin's ideas, of their logical structure, and of their alleged and actual implications. Flew explores the Scottish Enlightenment, an important and often neglected aspect of Darwin's intellectual background. He compares Darwin with such figures as Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, and Karl Marx, emphasizing not the similarities, but the differences between the natural and social sciences. Flew argues that social science must do what natural science does not: take account of individual choice. He examines the creationist controversy in Britain and the United States and discusses the possibility of a human sociobiology. In his new introduction, Flew updates his book by discussing relevant works that have appeared since it was published thirteen years ago. He discusses two different tendencies among both social scientists and those who develop or promote social policies according to various findings in the social sciences: (1) to assume there is no such thing as human nature; and (2) to take no account of the possibility that differences between sets of individuals may be genetically determined. Flew maintains that both these tendencies violate Darwin's theory. Darwinian Evolution is an intriguing study that should be read by sociologists, biologists, philosophers, and all those interested in the impact of Darwin and his work.
Author: Brian Dolan
Publisher: Rodopi
Published: 2000
Total Pages: 532
ISBN-13: 9789042008410
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Thomas Robert Malthus's reputation has lately been rehabilitated in the fields of social biology, demography, environmentalism, and economics. In the midst of this current interest and with the chance to mark the occasion of the bicentenary of the first edition of the Essay on Population (1798), the contributors to this volume take this timely opportunity to examine the historical conditions in which Malthus constructed his theory, and in which the concept of a 'Malthusian' and 'Neo-Malthusian' philosophy first emerged. The essays redress the balance between Malthus's original argument, the immediate responses to Malthus by medics and theologians in Britain and on the Continent, and some of the ways that his ideas were later attacked, appropriated, or misrepresented. Included here are essays that not only re-evaluate the development of Malthus's theory, but also offer critical perspectives on the generation of the 'Malthusian league' and debates about birth control in Britain and on the Continent, and Malthus's influence on the emergence of social science and Darwinian evolutionary biology.
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2016-08-29
Total Pages: 222
ISBN-13: 9004333339
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Thomas Robert Malthus's reputation has lately been rehabilitated in the fields of social biology, demography, environmentalism, and economics. In the midst of this current interest and with the chance to mark the occasion of the bicentenary of the first edition of the Essay on Population (1798), the contributors to this volume take this timely opportunity to examine the historical conditions in which Malthus constructed his theory, and in which the concept of a ‘Malthusian' and ‘Neo-Malthusian' philosophy first emerged.
Author: J. David Archibald
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2017-10-10
Total Pages: 304
ISBN-13: 0231545290
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Historical biogeography—the study of the history of species through both time and place—first convinced Charles Darwin of evolution. This field was so important to Darwin’s initial theories and line of thinking that he said as much in the very first paragraph of On the Origin of Species (1859) and later in his autobiography. His methods included collecting mammalian fossils in South America clearly related to living forms, tracing the geographical distributions of living species across South America, and sampling peculiar fauna of the geologically young Galápagos Archipelago that showed evident affinities to South American forms. Over the years, Darwin collected other evidence in support of evolution, but his historical biogeographical arguments remained paramount, so much so that he devotes three full chapters to this topic in On the Origin of Species. Discussions of Darwin’s landmark book too often give scant attention to this wealth of evidence, and we still do not fully appreciate its significance in Darwin’s thinking. In Origins of Darwin’s Evolution, J. David Archibald explores this lapse, showing how Darwin first came to the conclusion that, instead of various centers of creation, species had evolved in different regions throughout the world. He also shows that Darwin’s other early passion—geology—proved a more elusive corroboration of evolution. On the Origin of Species has only one chapter dedicated to the rock and fossil record, as it then appeared too incomplete for Darwin’s evidentiary standards. Carefully retracing Darwin’s gathering of evidence and the evolution of his thinking, Origins of Darwin’s Evolution achieves a new understanding of how Darwin crafted his transformative theory.
