Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution

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Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution

DarwinAndTheDarwinianRevolution.jpg

First edition
Author Gertrude Himmelfarb
Subject Charles Darwin, Evolution
Publisher Chatto & Windus
Publication date
1959
Pages 422

Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution is a 1959 biography of Charles Darwin by historian Gertrude Himmelfarb. [1] The book has been praised for its historical research but heavily criticized for attacking the theory of natural selection. [2] [3] [4]

Charles Darwin British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

Charles Robert Darwin, was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. His proposition that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors is now widely accepted, and considered a foundational concept in science. In a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding.

Gertrude Himmelfarb, also known as Bea Kristol, is an American historian. She has been a leader of conservative interpretations of history and historiography. She has written extensively on intellectual history, with a focus on Great Britain and the Victorian era, as well as on contemporary society and culture.

Natural selection Mechanism of evolution by differential survival and reproduction of individuals

Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charles Darwin popularised the term "natural selection", contrasting it with artificial selection, which in his view is intentional, whereas natural selection is not.

Contents

Reception

Reviewer Francis G. Townsend described it as a "scholarly book, well organized and well written, interesting to the intelligent reader whatever his special field". [5] Historian Charles F. Mullett also described the book as scholarly but noted that the book contains a "slough of misrepresentation". Himmelfarb insisted to her readers that the theory of natural selection is on shaky ground, but Mullett pointed out that the theory is supported by "numerous experiments and observations [that] have established it most securely". [6]

Historian Charles Coulston Gillispie wrote that, although the book contains well researched history on Darwin, it is a book that is hostile to science. According to Gillispie, "her scientific discussion of the status of the theory of natural selection is simply incorrect". [3]

Charles Coulston Gillispie was an American historian of science, and the Dayton-Stockton Professor of History of Science, Emeritus at Princeton University.

Anthropologist Neil Tappen has written:

Himmelfarb makes her greatest effort in discussing Darwin's theory of natural selection and arguing against its validity. Here she is at her very worst; her lack of thorough grounding in modern biology becomes painfully evident. She is not aware of the vast weight of genetic evidence against Lamarckian and vitalist doctrines. She claims that there has been no evidence of natural selection in operation. It has been observed through time in numerous organisms, whereas there is an excellent record for several forms, including man... Her ventures into physical anthropology are no less disastrous. [4]

Biologist Ernst Mayr described the book as displaying an "abyss of ignorance and misunderstanding". [7] PZ Myers has criticized the book for utilizing discredited arguments against natural selection, similar to those of creationists. [8]

Ernst Mayr German-American evolutionary biologist

Ernst Walter Mayr was one of the 20th century's leading evolutionary biologists. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, philosopher of biology, and historian of science. His work contributed to the conceptual revolution that led to the modern evolutionary synthesis of Mendelian genetics, systematics, and Darwinian evolution, and to the development of the biological species concept.

PZ Myers American scientist and associate professor of biology

Paul Zachary Myers is an American biologist who founded and writes the Pharyngula science-blog. He is associate-professor of biology at the University of Minnesota Morris (UMM) where he works in the field of developmental biology. He is a critic of intelligent design (ID), the creationist movement, and other pseudoscientific concepts.

Creationism religious belief

Creationism is the religious belief that the universe and life originated "from specific acts of divine creation", as opposed to through natural processes, such as evolution.

Related Research Articles

Darwinism Theory of biological evolution

Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce. Also called Darwinian theory, it originally included the broad concepts of transmutation of species or of evolution which gained general scientific acceptance after Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, including concepts which predated Darwin's theories. It subsequently referred to the specific concepts of natural selection, the Weismann barrier, or the central dogma of molecular biology. Though the term usually refers strictly to biological evolution, creationists have appropriated it to refer to the origin of life, and it has even been applied to concepts of cosmic evolution, both of which have no connection to Darwin's work. It is therefore considered the belief and acceptance of Darwin's and of his predecessors' work—in place of other theories, including divine design and extraterrestrial origins.

<i>Darwins Dangerous Idea</i> 1995 book by Daniel Dennett looking at some repercussions of Darwinian theory

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Punctuated equilibrium theory in evolutionary biology

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Neo-Darwinism

Neo-Darwinism is the interpretation of Darwinian evolution through natural selection as it has variously been modified since it was first proposed. It was early on used to name Charles Darwin's ideas of natural selection separated from his hypothesis of pangenesis as a Lamarckian source of variation involving blending inheritance.

Modern synthesis (20th century) Combination of Darwins theory of evolution with natural selection and Mendels findings on heredity

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Orthogenesis Hypothesis that organisms have an innate tendency to evolve towards some goal

Orthogenesis, also known as orthogenetic evolution, progressive evolution, evolutionary progress, or progressionism, is the biological hypothesis that organisms have an innate tendency to evolve in a definite direction towards some goal (teleology) due to some internal mechanism or "driving force". According to the theory, the largest-scale trends in evolution have an absolute goal such as increasing biological complexity. Prominent historical figures who have championed some form of evolutionary progress include Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and Henri Bergson.

Mutationism

Mutationism is one of several alternatives to evolution by natural selection that have existed both before and after the publication of Charles Darwin's 1859 book, On the Origin of Species. In the theory, mutation was the source of novelty, creating new forms and new species, potentially instantaneously, in sudden jumps. This was envisaged as driving evolution, which was thought to be limited by the supply of mutations.

Edward Bagnall Poulton evolutionary biologist

Sir Edward Bagnall Poulton, FRS HFRSE FLS was a British evolutionary biologist who was a lifelong advocate of natural selection through a period in which many scientists such as Reginald Punnett doubted its importance. He invented the term sympatric for evolution of species in the same place, and in his book The Colours of Animals (1890) was the first to recognise frequency-dependent selection.

Darwinism: An Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection with Some of Its Applications is an 1889 book on biological evolution by Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-discoverer of evolution by natural selection together with Charles Darwin. This was a book Wallace wrote as a defensive response to the scientific critics of natural selection. Of all Wallace's books, it is cited by scholarly publications the most.

Peter J. Bowler Historian of biology, author

Peter J. Bowler is a historian of biology who has written extensively on the history of evolutionary thought, the history of the environmental sciences, and on the history of genetics. His 1984 book, Evolution: The History of an Idea is a standard textbook on the history of evolution; a 25th anniversary edition came in 2009. His 1983 book The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian Evolution Theories in the Decades Around 1900 describes the scientific predominance of other evolutionary theories which led many to minimise the significance of natural selection, in the first part of the twentieth century before genetics was reconciled with natural selection in the modern synthesis.

<i>Ontogeny and Phylogeny</i> (book) book by Stephen Jay Gould

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Moritz Wagner German naturalist

Moritz Wagner was a German explorer, collector, geographer and natural historian. Wagner devoted three years (1836–1839) to the exploration of Algiers: it was here that he made important observations in natural history, which he later supplemented and developed: that geographical isolation could play a key role in speciation.

The eclipse of Darwinism The period when evolution was widely accepted, but natural selection was not

Julian Huxley used the phrase “the eclipse of Darwinism” to describe the state of affairs prior to what he called the modern synthesis, when evolution was widely accepted in scientific circles but relatively few biologists believed that natural selection was its primary mechanism. Historians of science such as Peter J. Bowler have used the same phrase as a label for the period within the history of evolutionary thought from the 1880s to around 1920, when alternatives to natural selection were developed and explored—as many biologists considered natural selection to have been a wrong guess on Charles Darwin's part, or at least as of relatively minor importance. An alternative term, the interphase of Darwinism, has been proposed to avoid the largely incorrect implication that the putative eclipse was preceded by a period of vigorous Darwinian research.

Universal Darwinism An attempt to expand the application of Darwinian evolutionary theory to other fields

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No Struggle for Existence, No Natural Selection: A Critical Examination of the Fundamental Principles of the Darwinian Theory is a 1908 book by George Paulin.

Evolution Without Evidence: Charles Darwin and "The Origin of Species" is a 1982 book by historian Barry G. Gale.

Teleology in biology The use of language of goal-directedness in the context of evolutionary adaptation

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History of speciation

The scientific study of speciation — how species evolve to become new species — began around the time of Charles Darwin in the middle of the 19th century. Many naturalists at the time recognized the relationship between biogeography and the evolution of species. The 20th century saw the growth of the field of speciation, with major contributors such as Ernst Mayr researching and documenting species' geographic patterns and relationships. The field grew in prominence with the modern evolutionary synthesis in the early part of that century. Since then, research on speciation has expanded immensely.

References

  1. Burnet, J. F. (1961). "Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution by Gertrude Himmelfarb." The English Historical Review. Vol. 76, No. 298. pp. 173-174.
  2. Ashby, Eric. (1959). "Charles Darwin and T. H. Huxley." New Scientist . p. 591
  3. 1 2 Gillispie, Charles C. (1960). "Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution by Gertrude Himmelfarb." Isis. Vol. 51, No. 2, p. 216.
  4. 1 2 Tappen, Neil C. (1960). "The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin: Including an Autobiographical Chapter by Francis Darwin, Charles Darwin; The Autobiography of Charles Darwin and Selected Letters by Francis Darwin, Charles Darwin; Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution by Gertrude Himmelfarb". American Anthropologist. New Series, Vol. 62, No. 3, pp. 528-531.
  5. Townsend, Francis G. (1959). "Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution by Gertrude Himmelfarb." The English Journal. Vol. 48, No. 9, p. 554
  6. Mullett, Charles F. (1960). "Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution by Gertrude Himmelfarb." The Journal of Modern History. Vol. 32, No. 2. pp. 179-180.
  7. Mayr, Ernst. (1997). Evolution and the Diversity of Life: Selected Essays. Harvard University Press. p. 291. ISBN   0-674-27104-1
  8. Myers, PZ. (2005). "A Critique of Himmelfarb’s Scientific Views". The Panda's Thumb . Retrieved 2015-11-14.
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