Download or read book Darwin s Sacred Cause written by Adrian Desmond and published by HMH. This book was released on 2014-11-11 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An “arresting” and deeply personal portrait that “confront[s] the touchy subject of Darwin and race head on” (The New York Times Book Review). It’s difficult to overstate the profound risk Charles Darwin took in publishing his theory of evolution. How and why would a quiet, respectable gentleman, a pillar of his parish, produce one of the most radical ideas in the history of human thought? Drawing on a wealth of manuscripts, family letters, diaries, and even ships’ logs, Adrian Desmond and James Moore have restored the moral missing link to the story of Charles Darwin’s historic achievement. Nineteenth-century apologists for slavery argued that blacks and whites had originated as separate species, with whites created superior. Darwin, however, believed that the races belonged to the same human family. Slavery was therefore a sin, and abolishing it became Darwin’s sacred cause. His theory of evolution gave a common ancestor not only to all races, but to all biological life. This “masterful” book restores the missing moral core of Darwin’s evolutionary universe, providing a completely new account of how he came to his shattering theories about human origins (Publishers Weekly, starred review). It will revolutionize your view of the great naturalist. “An illuminating new book.” —Smithsonian “Compelling . . . Desmond and Moore aptly describe Darwin’s interaction with some of the thorniest social and political issues of the day.” —Wired “This exciting book is sure to create a stir.” —Janet Browne, Aramont Professor of the History of Science, Harvard University, and author of Charles Darwin: Voyaging

Download or read book Angels and Ages written by Adam Gopnik and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-01-27 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this captivating double life, Adam Gopnik searches for the men behind the icons of emancipation and evolution. Born by cosmic coincidence on the same day in 1809 and separated by an ocean, Lincoln and Darwin coauthored our sense of history and our understanding of man’s place in the world. Here Gopnik reveals these two men as they really were: family men and social climbers, ambitious manipulators and courageous adventurers, grieving parents and brilliant scholars. Above all we see them as thinkers and writers, making and witnessing the great changes in thought that mark truly modern times.

Download or read book Darwin Deleted written by Peter J. Bowler and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-03-22 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of science text imagining how evolutionary theory and biology would have been understood if Darwin had never published his "Origin of Species" and other works.--publisher summary.

Download or read book The Book That Changed America written by Randall Fuller and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-01-02 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Reading Darwin in Arabic 1860 1950 written by Marwa Elshakry and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-01-06 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Reading Darwin in Arabic, Marwa Elshakry questions current ideas about Islam, science, and secularism by exploring the ways in which Darwin was read in Arabic from the late 1860s to the mid-twentieth century. Borrowing from translation and reading studies and weaving together the history of science with intellectual history, she explores Darwin’s global appeal from the perspective of several generations of Arabic readers and shows how Darwin’s writings helped alter the social and epistemological landscape of the Arab learned classes. Providing a close textual, political, and institutional analysis of the tremendous interest in Darwin’s ideas and other works on evolution, Elshakry shows how, in an age of massive regional and international political upheaval, these readings were suffused with the anxieties of empire and civilizational decline. The politics of evolution infiltrated Arabic discussions of pedagogy, progress, and the very sense of history. They also led to a literary and conceptual transformation of notions of science and religion themselves. Darwin thus became a vehicle for discussing scriptural exegesis, the conditions of belief, and cosmological views more broadly. The book also acquaints readers with Muslim and Christian intellectuals, bureaucrats, and theologians, and concludes by exploring Darwin’s waning influence on public and intellectual life in the Arab world after World War I. Reading Darwin in Arabic is an engaging and powerfully argued reconceptualization of the intellectual and political history of the Middle East.

Download or read book The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex written by Charles Darwin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2008-09-02 with total page 960 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the current resurgence of interest in the biological basis of animal behavior and social organization, the ideas and questions pursued by Charles Darwin remain fresh and insightful. This is especially true of The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Darwin's second most important work. This edition is a facsimile reprint of the first printing of the first edition (1871), not previously available in paperback. The work is divided into two parts. Part One marshals behavioral and morphological evidence to argue that humans evolved from other animals. Darwin shoes that human mental and emotional capacities, far from making human beings unique, are evidence of an animal origin and evolutionary development. Part Two is an extended discussion of the differences between the sexes of many species and how they arose as a result of selection. Here Darwin lays the foundation for much contemporary research by arguing that many characteristics of animals have evolved not in response to the selective pressures exerted by their physical and biological environment, but rather to confer an advantage in sexual competition. These two themes are drawn together in two final chapters on the role of sexual selection in humans. In their Introduction, Professors Bonner and May discuss the place of The Descent in its own time and relation to current work in biology and other disciplines.

Download or read book Debating Darwin written by Robert J. Richards and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-09-10 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two evolutionists debate the intellectual roots of Darwin’s theories, drawing connections to German Romanticism, the Scottish Enlightenment, and more. Charles Darwin is an icon of modern science, and his theory of evolution is commonly referenced by scientists and nonscientists alike. Yet there is a surprising amount we don’t know about the father of modern evolutionary thinking, his intellectual roots, or even the science he produced. Debating Darwin brings together two leading Darwin scholars—Robert J. Richards and Michael Ruse—to engage in a spirited and insightful dialogue, offering their interpretations of Darwin and their critiques of each other’s thinking. Examining key disagreements about Darwin that continue to confound even committed Darwinists, Richards and Ruse offer divergent views on the man and his ideas. Ruse argues that Darwin was quintessentially British, part of an intellectual lineage tracing back to the Industrial Revolution and thinkers such as Adam Smith and Thomas Robert Malthus. Ruse sees Darwin’s work in biology as an extension of their theories. In contrast, Richards presents Darwin as more cosmopolitan, influenced as much by French and German thinkers. Above all, argues Richards, it was Alexander von Humboldt who gave Darwin the conceptual tools he needed to formulate his evolutionary hypotheses. Together, the authors show how these contrasting views on Darwin’s influences can be felt in theories about the nature of natural selection, the role of metaphor in science, and the place of God in Darwin’s thought. The book concludes with a jointly authored chapter that brings this debate into the present, focusing on human evolution, consciousness, religion, and morality.

Download or read book Louis Agassiz written by Christoph Irmscher and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2013 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative new life restoring Agassiz--America's most famous natural scientist of the 19th century, inventor of the Ice Age, stubborn anti-Darwinist--to his glorious, troubling place in science and culture.

Download or read book The Reluctant Mr Darwin An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution Great Discoveries written by David Quammen and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2007-07-17 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Quammen brilliantly and powerfully re-creates the 19th century naturalist's intellectual and spiritual journey."--Los Angeles Times Book Review Twenty-one years passed between Charles Darwin's epiphany that "natural selection" formed the basis of evolution and the scientist's publication of On the Origin of Species. Why did Darwin delay, and what happened during the course of those two decades? The human drama and scientific basis of these years constitute a fascinating, tangled tale that elucidates the character of a cautious naturalist who initiated an intellectual revolution.

Download or read book Darwinism and the Divine written by Alister E. McGrath and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-02-02 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Darwinism and the Divine examines the implications of evolutionary thought for natural theology, from the time of publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species to current debates on creationism and intelligent design. Questions whether Darwin's theory of natural selection really shook our fundamental beliefs, or whether they served to transform and illuminate our views on the origins and meaning of life Identifies the forms of natural theology that emerged in 19th-century England and how they were affected by Darwinism The most detailed study yet of the intellectual background to William Paley's famous and influential approach to natural theology, set out in 1802 Brings together material from a variety of disciplines, including the history of ideas, historical and systematic theology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, sociology, and the cognitive science of religion Considers how Christian belief has adapted to Darwinism, and asks whether there is a place for design both in the world of science and the world of theology A thought-provoking exploration of 21st-century views on evolutionary thought and natural theology, written by the world-renowned theologian and bestselling author

Download or read book Huxley written by Adrian Desmond and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 1999-03-31 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: T. H. Huxley (1825–1895) was Darwin's bloody-fanged bulldog. His giant scything intellect shook a prim Victorian society; his “Devil's gospel” of evolution outraged. He put “agnostic” into the vocabulary and cave men into the public consciousness. Adrian Desmond's fiery biography with its panoramic view of Dickensian life explains how this agent provocateur rose to become the century's greatest prophet.Synoptic in its sweep and evocative in its details, Desmond's biography reveals the poverty and opium-hazed tragedies of young Tom Huxley's life as well as the accolades and triumphs of his later years. The drug-grinder's apprentice knew sots and scandals and breakdowns that signaled a genius close to madness. As surgeon's mate on the cockroach-infested frigate Rattlesnake, he descended into hell on the Barrier Reef, but was saved by a golden-haired girl in the penal colony.Huxley pulled himself up to fight Darwin's battles in the 1860s, but left Darwin behind on the most inflammatory issues. He devasted angst-ridden Victorian society with his talk of ape ancestors, and tantalized and tormented thousands-from laborers to ladies of society, cardinals to Karl Marx—with his scintillating lectures. Out of his provocations came our image of science warring with theology. And out of them, too, came the West's new faith-agnosticism (he coined the new word).Champion of modern education, creator of an intellectually dominant profession, and president of the Royal Society, in Desmond's hands Huxley epitomizes the rise of the middle classes as the clawed power from the Anglican elite. His modern godless universe, intriguing and terrifying, millions of years in the making, was explored in his laboratory at South Kensington; his last pupil, H. G. Wells, made it the foundation of twentieth-century science fiction.Touching the crowning achievements and the crushing depths of both the man and his times, this is the epic story of a courageous genius whose life summed up the social changes from the Victorian to the modern age. Written with enormous zest and passion, Huxley is about the making of our modern Darwinian world.

Download or read book Darwin s Harvest written by Timothy J. Motley and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2006-01-04 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Darwin's Harvest addresses concerns that we are losing the diversity of crop plants that provide food for most of the world. With contributions from evolutionary biologists, geneticists, agronomists, molecular biologists, and anthropologists, this collection discusses how economic development, loss of heirloom varieties and wild ancestors, and modern agricultural techniques have endangered the genetic diversity needed to keep agricultural crops vital and capable of adaptation. Drawing on the most up-to-date data, the contributors review the utilization of molecular techniques to understand crop evolution. They explore current research on various crop plants of both temperate and tropical origin, including maize, sunflower, avocado, sugarcane, and wheat. The chapters in Darwin's Harvest also provide solid background for understanding many recent discoveries concerning the origins of crops and the influence of human migration and farming practices on the genetics of our modern foods.

Download or read book Ask the Beasts Darwin and the God of Love written by Elizabeth A. Johnson and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-01-16 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For millennia plant and animal species have received little sustained attention as subjects of Christian theology and ethics in their own right. Focused on the human dilemma of sin and redemptive grace, theology has considered the doctrine of creation to be mainly an overture to the main drama of human being`s relationship to God. What value does the natural world have within the framework of religious belief? The crisis of biodiversity in our day, when species are going extinct at more than 1,000 times the natural rate, renders this question acutely important. Standard perspectives need to be realigned; theology needs to look out of the window, so to speak as well as in the mirror. Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love leads to the conclusion that love of the natural world is an intrinsic element of faith in God and that far from being an add-on, ecological care is at the centre of moral life.

Download or read book Was Hitler a Darwinian written by Robert J. Richards and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-11-06 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In tracing the history of Darwin’s accomplishment and the trajectory of evolutionary theory during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, most scholars agree that Darwin introduced blind mechanism into biology, thus banishing moral values from the understanding of nature. According to the standard interpretation, the principle of survival of the fittest has rendered human behavior, including moral behavior, ultimately selfish. Few doubt that Darwinian theory, especially as construed by the master’s German disciple, Ernst Haeckel, inspired Hitler and led to Nazi atrocities. In this collection of essays, Robert J. Richards argues that this orthodox view is wrongheaded. A close historical examination reveals that Darwin, in more traditional fashion, constructed nature with a moral spine and provided it with a goal: man as a moral creature. The book takes up many other topics—including the character of Darwin’s chief principles of natural selection and divergence, his dispute with Alfred Russel Wallace over man’s big brain, the role of language in human development, his relationship to Herbert Spencer, how much his views had in common with Haeckel’s, and the general problem of progress in evolution. Moreover, Richards takes a forceful stand on the timely issue of whether Darwin is to blame for Hitler’s atrocities. Was Hitler a Darwinian? is intellectual history at its boldest.

Download or read book Reinventing the Sacred written by Stuart A. Kauffman and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-11-29 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consider the complexity of a living cell after 3.8 billion years of evolution. Is it more awesome to suppose that a transcendent God fashioned the cell at a stroke, or to realize that it evolved with no Almighty Hand, but arose on its own in the c...

Download or read book Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds written by Phillip E. Johnson and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 1997-07-07 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Phillip E. Johnson provides an easy-to-understand guide on how to effectively engage the debate over creation and evolution.

Download or read book Darwin s Plantation written by Ken Ham and published by New Leaf Publishing Group. This book was released on 2007 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many people do not realize how intimately connected the theory of evolution and the worst racist ideology in history are. Join Crossroads Bible college president Dr. A. Charles ware and Answer in Genesis president ken Ham as they examine the racist historical roots of evolutionary thought and what the Bible has to say about this disturbing issue.