Download or read book The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin s Theory written by Kenny Fries and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin's Theory, Kenny Fries tells us two stories: the development of the theory of "survival of the fittest," as articulated by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace; and the history of his ever-changing, made-to-order, orthopedic shoes.The famously important first story, as told by Fries, is a colorful account of the race between Darwin and Wallace to formulate their groundbreaking theories. At the same time, Fries tells a deeply personal story of the evolving consciousness of his own "adaptations," as represented by his shoes.Although only the "fittest' may survive, Fries learns that adaptation and variation are critical to survival. What is deemed normal, or even perfect, are passing phases of the ever-changing embodiment of nature in our world. In the end, Darwin and Wallace's discoveries resonate with Fries's own story, inextricably leading us into a new world where variety and difference are not only "normal," but are the ingenious origins of survival itself.
Download or read book The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin s Theory written by Fries Kenny and published by Da Capo Press, Incorporated. This book was released on 2007-04-26 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A searing, imaginative memoir that pairs two stories, the author's budding self-realization and the race to formulate the theory of evolution.
Download or read book Evolution for Everyone written by David Sloan Wilson and published by Delacorte Press. This book was released on 2007-03-27 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With stories that entertain as much as they inform, renowned evolutionist David Sloan Wilson outlines the basic principles of evolution and shows how, when properly understood, they can illuminate the length and breadth of creation, from the origin of life to the nature of religion. What is the biological reason for gossip? For laughter? For the creation of art? Why do dogs have curly tails? What can microbes tell us about morality? These and many other questions are tackled by Wilson in this witty and groundbreaking new book. Now everyone can move beyond the sterile debates about creationism and intelligent design to share Darwin’s panoramic view of animal and human life, seamlessly connected to each other. Evolution, as Wilson explains, is not just about dinosaurs and human origins, but about why all species behave as they do—from beetles that devour their own young, to bees that function as a collective brain, to dogs that are smarter in some respects than our closest ape relatives. And basic evolutionary principles are also the foundation for humanity’s capacity for symbolic thought, culture, and morality. In example after example, Wilson sheds new light on Darwin’ s grand theory and how it can be applied to daily life. By turns thoughtful, provocative, and daringly funny, Evolution for Everyone addresses some of the deepest philosophical and social issues of this or any age. In helping us come to a deeper understanding of human beings and our place in the world, it might also help us to improve that world.
Download or read book Darwin s First Theory written by Rob Wesson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-04-11 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everybody knows—or thinks they know—Charles Darwin, the father of evolution and the man who altered the way we view our place in the world. But what most people do not know is that Darwin was on board the HMS Beagle as a geologist—on a mission to examine the land, not flora and fauna.Tracing Darwin’s footsteps in South America and beyond, geologist Rob Wesson sets out on a trek across the Andes, repeating the nautical surveys made by the Beagle’s crew, hunting for fossils in Uruguay and Argentina, and explores traces of long vanished glaciers in Scotland and Wales. By following Darwin’s path literally and intellectually, Rob experiences the landscape that absorbed Darwin, followed his reasoning about what he saw, and immerses himself in the same questions about the earth. Upon Darwin’s return from the five-year journey, he conceived his theory of tectonics—his first theory. These concepts and attitudes—the vastness of time; the enormous cumulative impact of almost imperceptibly slow change; change as a constant feature of the environment—underlie his subsequent discoveries in evolution. And this peculiar way of thinking remains vitally important today as we enter the Anthropocene.
Download or read book What Darwin Didn t Know written by Geoffrey Simmons and published by Harvest House Publishers. This book was released on with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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 Darwin and Design written by Michael RUSE and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The intricate forms of living things bespeak design, and thus a creator: nearly 150 years after Darwin's theory of natural selection called this argument into question, we still speak of life in terms of design--the function of the eye, the purpose of the webbed foot, the design of the fins. Why is the "argument from design" so tenacious, and does Darwinism--itself still evolving after all these years--necessarily undo it? The definitive work on these contentious questions, Darwin and Design surveys the argument from design from its introduction by the Greeks, through the coming of Darwinism, down to the present day. In clear, non-technical language Michael Ruse, a well-known authority on the history and philosophy of Darwinism, offers a full and fair assessment of the status of the argument from design in light of both the advances of modern evolutionary biology and the thinking of today's philosophers--with special attention given to the supporters and critics of "intelligent design." The first comprehensive history and exposition of Western thought about design in the natural world, this important work suggests directions for our thinking as we move into the twenty-first century. A thoroughgoing guide to a perennially controversial issue, the book makes its own substantial contribution to the ongoing debate about the relationship between science and religion, and between evolution and its religious critics. Table of Contents: Preface Introduction 1. Two Thousand Years of Design 2. Paley and Kant Fight Back 3. Sowing the Seeds of Evolution 4. A Plurality of Problems 5. Charles Darwin 6. A Subject Too Profound 7. Darwinian against Darwinian 8. The Century of Evolutionism 9. Adaptation in Action 10. Theory and Test 11. Formalism Redux 12. From Function to Design 13. Design as Metaphor 14. Natural Theology Evolves 15. Turning Back the Clock Sources and Suggested Reading Illustration Credits Acknowledgments Index Reviews of this book: Ruse examines the concept of 'design' in nature, explaining why it still remains a strong influence despite the scientific revolution, and historically, how it dominated Western thought from ancient Greece (Plato) to the advent and predominance of Christianity...A rich and compelling book. --J. S. Schwartz, Choice Reviews of this book: Anyone who is interested in the 'science wars' controversy or the history of evolutionary thought will find this book fascinating and rewarding. The prose is masterfill--relaxed, colloquial, rich in information, and suffused with flashes of malicious wit and delicious historical tidbits. --Matt Cartmill, Reports of the National Center for Science Education Reviews of this book: To anyone interested in the evolution of evolution, I recommend this book. --John Tyler Bonner, Natural History Reviews of this book: This has to be the best of Ruse's many books, and it is hard to imagine how a better one could be written on this subject. With an understanding erudition spiced with good-natured wit and occasional sly ribaldry, Ruse moves easily and assuredly among biology, philosophy, history, and theology. --Robert T. Pennock, Science Reviews of this book: Michael Ruse's latest book, Darwin and Design, is an intellectual history of the design argument and its Darwinian solution...His story is a fascinating one, enlivened especially by his accounts of various imaginative attempts before Darwin to solve the design problem without recourse to a deity. --Daniel W. McShea, American Scientist
Download or read book Darwin s Fossils written by Adrian Lister and published by Smithsonian Institution. This book was released on 2018-04-24 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reveals how Darwin's study of fossils shaped his scientific thinking and led to his development of the theory of evolution. Darwin's Fossils is an accessible account of Darwin's pioneering work on fossils, his adventures in South America, and his relationship with the scientific establishment. While Darwin's research on Galápagos finches is celebrated, his work on fossils is less well known. Yet he was the first to collect the remains of giant extinct South American mammals; he worked out how coral reefs and atolls formed; he excavated and explained marine fossils high in the Andes; and he discovered a fossil forest that now bears his name. All of this research was fundamental in leading Darwin to develop his revolutionary theory of evolution. This richly illustrated book brings Darwin's fossils, many of which survive in museums and institutions around the world, together for the first time. Including new photography of many of the fossils--which in recent years have enjoyed a surge of scientific interest--as well as superb line drawings produced in the nineteenth century and newly commissioned artists' reconstructions of the extinct animals as they are understood today, Darwin's Fossils reveals how Darwin's discoveries played a crucial role in the development of his groundbreaking ideas.
Download or read book The Evolution of Beauty written by Richard O. Prum and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2017-05-09 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, SMITHSONIAN, AND WALL STREET JOURNAL A major reimagining of how evolutionary forces work, revealing how mating preferences—what Darwin termed "the taste for the beautiful"—create the extraordinary range of ornament in the animal world. In the great halls of science, dogma holds that Darwin's theory of natural selection explains every branch on the tree of life: which species thrive, which wither away to extinction, and what features each evolves. But can adaptation by natural selection really account for everything we see in nature? Yale University ornithologist Richard Prum—reviving Darwin's own views—thinks not. Deep in tropical jungles around the world are birds with a dizzying array of appearances and mating displays: Club-winged Manakins who sing with their wings, Great Argus Pheasants who dazzle prospective mates with a four-foot-wide cone of feathers covered in golden 3D spheres, Red-capped Manakins who moonwalk. In thirty years of fieldwork, Prum has seen numerous display traits that seem disconnected from, if not outright contrary to, selection for individual survival. To explain this, he dusts off Darwin's long-neglected theory of sexual selection in which the act of choosing a mate for purely aesthetic reasons—for the mere pleasure of it—is an independent engine of evolutionary change. Mate choice can drive ornamental traits from the constraints of adaptive evolution, allowing them to grow ever more elaborate. It also sets the stakes for sexual conflict, in which the sexual autonomy of the female evolves in response to male sexual control. Most crucially, this framework provides important insights into the evolution of human sexuality, particularly the ways in which female preferences have changed male bodies, and even maleness itself, through evolutionary time. The Evolution of Beauty presents a unique scientific vision for how nature's splendor contributes to a more complete understanding of evolution and of ourselves.
Download or read book Symbolism 2018 written by Rüdiger Ahrens and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2018-10-08 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This special issue of Symbolism: An International Annual of Critical Aesthetics explores the various functions of metaphor in life writing. Looking at a range of autobiographical subgenres (pathography, disability narratives, memoirs of migration, autofiction) and different kinds of metaphors, the contributions seek to ‘map’ the possibilities of metaphor for narratively framing an individual life and for constructing notions of selfhood.
Download or read book Darwin s God written by Cornelius G. Hunter and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Cornelius Hunter brilliantly supports his thesis that Darwinism is a mixture of metaphysical dogma and biased scientific observation, that at its core, evolution is about God, not science."--Phillip E. Johnson, author, Darwin on Trial"Biophysicist Cornelius Hunter argues perceptively that the main supporting pole of the Darwinian tent has always been a theological assertion: 'God wouldn't have done it that way.' Rather than demonstrating that evolution is capable of the wonders they attribute to it, Darwinists rely on a man-made version of God to argue that He never would have made life with the particular suite of features we observe. In lucid and engaging prose, Hunter shines a light on Darwinian theology, making plain what is too often obscured by technical jargon."--Michael J. Behe, Lehigh University"This wonderfully insightful book will prove pivotal in the current reassessment of Darwinian evolution. Darwinists argue that evolution has to be true because no self-respecting deity would have created life the way we find it. Hunter unmasks this theological mode of argumentation and argues convincingly that it is not merely incidental but indeed essential to how Darwinists justify evolution."--William A. Dembski, Baylor University"A fascinating study of a much overlooked aspect of the origins controversy."--Stephen C. Meyer, Whitworth College
Download or read book The Evolution Delusion written by Bart Rask and published by Universal-Publishers. This book was released on 2021-09-01 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does the field of evolution differ from other sciences? The author, a reviewer for a major medical journal, scrutinized hundreds of scientific references in evolutionary literature, adopting the same standards used for studies submitted for medical publication. The data show that there are two types of evolution, microevolution and macroevolution, with a clear boundary between them based upon the presence and absence of empirical evidence, respectively. The surprising results show that there is a universal disconnect between the data and the conclusions that claim to show the larger changes of macroevolution. The author reveals patterns of deviations from standard scientific methods in these studies. For the first time, evolutionary data have been summarized to describe both what evolution can and cannot accomplish. The author shows the reader how to recognize the different ways in which the evidence for microevolution within and between some species differs from the unsupported macroevolution of most species. Previous critiques of macroevolution have been debunked by advocates who have cited a multitude of scientific studies. This book goes beyond previous critiques by directly addressing the data from these studies to see if they do, in fact, support macroevolution-focused conclusions. Many expert counterarguments against this book’s thesis are presented and examined in the context of scientific research to reassure the reader that the author has left no stone unturned in the macroevolution debate. A theory is proposed as to why there may be no empirical evidence for macroevolution. The book concludes with a section entitled “What we see differently.” There, the author shows the reader the differences in perspective between the evolutionist and macroevolution critic as they look at and interpret the very same set of data.
Download or read book Darwin His Daughter and Human Evolution written by Randal Keynes and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2002-11-05 with total page 533 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a chest of drawers bequeathed by his grandmother, author Randal Keynes discovered the writing case of Charles and Emma Darwin’s beloved daughter Annie Darwin, who died at the age of ten. He also found the notes Darwin kept throughout Annie's illness, the eulogy he delivered at her funeral—and provocative new insights into Darwin’s views on nature, evolution, and the human condition. In Darwin, His Daughter & Human Evolution, Keynes shows that Darwin was not "a cold intellect with no place for love in his famous 'struggle for existence,' [but]...a man of uncommon warmth" (Scientific American). Creation: The True Story of Charles Darwin is now a major motion picture and the movie tie-in paperback is also available from Riverhead Books.
Download or read book Alfred Russel Wallace s Theory of Intelligent Evolution written by Michael A. Flannery and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), co-discoverer of natural selection, was second only to Charles Darwin as the 19th century's most noted English naturalist. Yet his belief in spiritualism caused him to be ridiculed and dismissed by many. Though based upon very different formulations of natural selection, the Wallace/Darwin dispute as presented by Flannery shows a metaphysical clash of worldviews coextensive with modern evolutionary theory itself.
Download or read book Darwin and Evolution for Kids written by Kristan Lawson and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2003-10-01 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Darwin and Evolution for Kids traces the transformation of a privileged and somewhat scatterbrained youth into the great thinker who proposed the revolutionary theory of evolution. Through 21 hands-on activities, young scientists learn about Darwin's life and work and assess current evidence of evolution. Activities include going on a botanical treasure hunt, keeping field notes as a backyard naturalist, and tying knots for ship sails like those on the HMS Beagle. Children also learn how fossils are created, trace genetic traits through their family trees, and discover if acquired traits are passed along to future generations. By encouraging children, parents, and teachers to define the differences between theories and beliefs, facts and opinions, Darwin and Evolution for Kids does not shy away from a theory that continues to spark heated public debate more than a century after it was first proposed.
Download or read book How Evolution Explains Everything About Life written by New Scientist, and published by Nicholas Brealey. This book was released on 2017-11-14 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did we get here? All cultures have a creation story, but a little over 150 years ago Charles Darwin introduced a revolutionary new one. We, and all living things, exist because of the action of evolution on the first simple life form and its descendants. We now know that it has taken 3.8 billions of years of work by the forces of evolution to turn what was once a lump of barren rock into the rich diversity of into plants, animals and microbes that surround us. In the process, evolution has created all manner of useful adaptions, from biological computers (brains) to a system to capture energy from the sun (photosynthesis). But how does evolution actually work? In How Evolution Explains Everything, leading biologists and New Scientist take you on a journey of a lifetime, exploring the question of whether life is inevitable or a one-off fluke, and how it got kick-started. Does evolution have a purpose or direction? Are selfish genes really the driving force of evolution? And is evolution itself evolving?
Download or read book Arts and Humanities written by Brenda Jo Brueggemann and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2012-08-02 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume in The SAGE Reference Series on Disability explores the arts and humanities within the lives of people with disabilities. It is one of eight volumes in the cross-disciplinary and issues-based series, which incorporates links from varied fields making up Disability Studies as volumes examine topics central to the lives of individuals with disabilities and their families. With a balance of history, theory, research, and application, specialists set out the findings and implications of research and practice for others whose current or future work involves the care and/or study of those with disabilities, as well as for the disabled themselves. The presentational style (concise and engaging) emphasizes accessibility. Taken individually, each volume sets out the fundamentals of the topic it addresses, accompanied by compiled data and statistics, recommended further readings, a guide to organizations and associations, and other annotated resources, thus providing the ideal introductory platform and gateway for further study. Taken together, the series represents both a survey of major disability issues and a guide to new directions and trends and contemporary resources in the field as a whole.
