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Jean Octave Edmond Perrier was a French zoologist who lived through the tumult of British Darwinism and Lyellism, and reminds us in this revealing account that French scientists had much to contribute to such perennial topics as evolution, catastrophism and creationism. While very much a product of the Third Republic, Perrier’s account also aimed to outline timeless issues and permanent advances in taxonomic and developmental biology since classical Greece and Rome. In this aim he succeeds with surprisingly modern perspectives for a book first published in 1884. Perrier was born May 9, 1844 at Tulle, the son of the principal of a school which now bears his name, Lycée Edmond Perrier. In 1864 he was accepted to the École Normale Supérieure, where he was strongly influenced by Louis Pasteur and Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers. After working for three years at a high school in Agen, he obtained a post of naturalist-aid at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (1868), advancing in that institution to Chair of Natural History of Molluscs, Worms and Corals (1876–1903) and then Director of the museum (1900–1919) and Chair of Comparative Anatomy (1903–1921). Previous directors of the museum included many of the scientists he discusses in this book: George Cuvier (1822–1823, 1826–1827, 1830–1831), Isidore Geoffrey St Hilaire (1860– 1861), and Alphonse Milne-Edwards (1891–1900). Perrier’s own research on echinoderms and earthworms took him on several expeditions in 1880-1885, mostly to Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, but also to the Caribbean.
"In preparing this work for the public, the writer was chiefly influenced by a desire to collect the truths of Zoology within a small compass, and to render them more intelligible, by a systematical arrangement. He is not aware that there exists any work in the English language, in which the subject, in its different bearings, has been illustrated in a philosophical manner, or to which a student of Zoology could be referred, as a suitable introduction to the science. There are not wanting, it is true, many disquisitions of great value, on particular departments of the physiology and classification of Animals. But the writings of these naturalists, and others which have been noticed in the body of the work, are not only rare, but expensive; so that the task of investigating the facts which have been established, or the theories which have been proposed, can scarcely, in ordinary circumstances, be entered upon. The want, indeed, of such an introduction to the study of the Animal Kingdom, as should serve as an index to the doctrines on which the classification is founded, has frequently been the subject of regret, and may probably be considered as the origin of that indifference to the science which is but too apparent in this country. This work aims to provide such an introduction by providing a view of the structure, functions, and classification of animals"--Preface.
A collection of twenty-eight essays, five previously unpublished, grouped into nine categories: Philosophy, Natural Selection, Adaptation, Darwin, Diversity, Species, Speciation, Macroevolution, and Historical Perspective. The book, Ernst Mayr notes in the Foreword, is an attempt "to strengthen the bridge between biology and philosophy, and point to the new direction in which a new philosophy of biology will move."
A creationist-turned-scientist demonstrates the facts of evolution and exposes Intelligent Design's real agenda Science is on the defensive. Half of Americans reject the theory of evolution and "Intelligent Design" campaigns are gaining ground. Classroom by classroom, creationism is overthrowing biology. In Why Darwin Matters, bestselling author Michael Shermer explains how the newest brand of creationism appeals to our predisposition to look for a designer behind life's complexity. Shermer decodes the scientific evidence to show that evolution is not "just a theory" and illustrates how it achieves the design of life through the bottom-up process of natural selection. Shermer, once an evangelical Christian and a creationist, argues that Intelligent Design proponents are invoking a combination of bad science, political antipathy, and flawed theology. He refutes their pseudoscientific arguments and then demonstrates why conservatives and people of faith can and should embrace evolution. He then appraises the evolutionary questions that truly need to be settled, building a powerful argument for science itself. Cutting the politics away from the facts, Why Darwin Matters is an incisive examination of what is at stake in the debate over evolution.
The great evolutionist Mayr elucidates the subtleties of Darwin’s thought and that of his contemporaries and intellectual heirs—A. R. Wallace, T. H. Huxley, August Weisman, Asa Gray. Mayr has achieved a remarkable distillation of Darwin’s scientific thought and his legacy to twentieth-century biology.
A compelling portrait of a unique moment in American history when the ideas of Charles Darwin reshaped American notions about nature, religion, science and race “A lively and informative history.” – The New York Times Book Review Throughout its history America has been torn in two by debates over ideals and beliefs. Randall Fuller takes us back to one of those turning points, in 1860, with the story of the influence of Charles Darwin’s just-published On the Origin of Species on five American intellectuals, including Bronson Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, the child welfare reformer Charles Loring Brace, and the abolitionist Franklin Sanborn. Each of these figures seized on the book’s assertion of a common ancestry for all creatures as a powerful argument against slavery, one that helped provide scientific credibility to the cause of abolition. Darwin’s depiction of constant struggle and endless competition described America on the brink of civil war. But some had difficulty aligning the new theory to their religious convictions and their faith in a higher power. Thoreau, perhaps the most profoundly affected all, absorbed Darwin’s views into his mysterious final work on species migration and the interconnectedness of all living things. Creating a rich tableau of nineteenth-century American intellectual culture, as well as providing a fascinating biography of perhaps the single most important idea of that time, The Book That Changed America is also an account of issues and concerns still with us today, including racism and the enduring conflict between science and religion.
This new edition of a foundational text presents a contemporary review of cladistics, as applied to biological classification. It provides a comprehensive account of the past fifty years of discussion on the relationship between classification, phylogeny and evolution. It covers cladistics in the era of molecular data, detailing new advances and ideas that have emerged over the last twenty-five years. Written in an accessible style by internationally renowned authors in the field, readers are straightforwardly guided through fundamental principles and terminology. Simple worked examples and easy-to-understand diagrams also help readers navigate complex problems that have perplexed scientists for centuries. This practical guide is an essential addition for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in taxonomy, systematics, comparative biology, evolutionary biology and molecular biology.
Prologue p. ix Acknowledgments p. xv 1 Background to the Problem p. 3 2 British Society and the Scientific Community p. 16 3 Beliefs: Geological, Philosophical, and Religious p. 36 4 The Mystery of Mysteries p. 75 5 Ancestors and Archetypes p. 94 6 On the Eve of the Origin p. 132 7 Charles Darwin and the Origin of Species p. 160 8 After the Origin: Science p. 202 9 After the Origin: Philosophy, Religion, and Politics p. 234 10 Overview and Analysis p. 268 Notes p. 275 Bibliography p. 285 Index p. 312.
This volume provides the readers with a broad but detailed consideration of a wide array of transmutationist thinkers who published before Darwin. Highlighting some of those whom Darwin later acknowledged as well as number he chose not to, readers are shown that the notion that none of these earlier thinkers offered a well-developed or workable theory of evolution is untenable once we read their own words. Further, we will quickly see that transmutation, or the ‘developmental hypothesis’ as it was also sometimes called, had a wide audience across the period under consideration. Scholars such as Adrian Desmond have already drawn attention to the political radicals in the London and Edinburgh medical schools who embraced the transmutationist ideas of the French anatomists Etienne Geoffroy Saint Hilaire and the naturalist and zoologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, and the historians John van Wyhe and Roger Cooter have highlighted the materialist naturalism of phrenologists whose work was so amenable to developmentalist thinking. Paul Elliott has drawn our attention to the “Derbyshire Darwinians,” who championed the transmutationist and egalitarian Enlightenment ideas of Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin’s grandfather — as well as the extent to which the Derby Philosophical Society was a breeding ground for this kind of thinking. It was here, for instance, that the young radical journalist Herbert Spencer spent many hours in his formative years. Thus, while Darwin was quietly working away at his big species book, transmutation was being discussed and debated, written about, and advocated across the nation. The book he eventually published in 1859, On the Origin of Species, was thus a contribution to an already very lively, controversial, contested, and ongoing debate. However, Darwin had not intended to published Origin as we know it; it is in fact only what he called a brief abstract of the detailed multi-volume work he had initially had in mind. It was upon receipt of a short essay from the naturalist and collector Alfred Russel Wallace that Darwin was pressed to publish. In this short paper Wallace had quite independently arrived at a theory of species development that was remarkably similar to that which Darwin had been working on for some twenty years.