Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Evolutionary theory ranks as one of the most powerful concepts of modern civilization. Its effects on our view of life have been wide and deep. One of the most world-shaking books ever published, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, first appeared in print over 130 years ago, and it touched off a debate that rages to this day.

Every modern evolutionist turns to Darwin's work again and again. Current controversies in the life sciences very often have as their starting point some vagueness in Darwin's writings or some question Darwin was unable to answer owing to the insufficient biological knowledge available during his time. Despite the intense study of Darwin's life and work, however, many of us cannot explain his theories and the evidence and reasoning behind them, nor do we appreciate the modifications of the Darwinian paradigm that have kept it viable throughout the twentieth century.

Who could elucidate the subtleties of Darwin's thought and that of his contemporaries and intellectual heirs--A. R. Wallace, T. H. Huxley, August Weismann, Asa Gray--better than Ernst Mayr, a man considered by many to be the greatest evolutionist of the century? In this gem of historical scholarship, Mayr has achieved a remarkable distillation of Charles Darwin's scientific thought and his enormous legacy to twentieth-century biology. Here we have an accessible account of the revolutionary ideas that Darwin thrust upon the world. Describing his treatise as "one long argument," Darwin definitively refuted the belief in the divine creation of each individual species, establishing in its place the concept that all of life descended from a common ancestor. He proposed the idea that humans were not the special products of creation but evolved according to principles that operate everywhere else in the living world; he upset current notions of a perfectly designed, benign natural world and substituted in their place the concept of a struggle for survival; and he introduced probability, chance, and uniqueness into scientific discourse.

This is an important book for students, biologists, and general readers interested in the history of ideas--especially ideas that have radically altered our worldview. Here is a book by a grand master that spells out in simple terms the historical issues and presents the controversies in a manner that makes them understandable from a modern perspective.

Language: English

Pages: 224

Format: Paperback

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Release: March 15, 1993

ISBN: 0674639065

ISBN 13: 9780674639065

One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Evolutionary theory ranks as one of the most powerful concepts of modern civilization. Its effects on our view of life have been wide and deep. One of the most world-shaking books ever published, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, first appeared in print over 130 years ago, and it touched off a debate that rages to this day.

Every modern evolutionist turns to Darwin's work again and again. Current controversies in the life sciences very often have as their starting point some vagueness in Darwin's writings or some question Darwin was unable to answer owing to the insufficient biological knowledge available during his time. Despite the intense study of Darwin's life and work, however, many of us cannot explain his theories and the evidence and reasoning behind them, nor do we appreciate the modifications of the Darwinian paradigm that have kept it viable throughout the twentieth century.

Who could elucidate the subtleties of Darwin's thought and that of his contemporaries and intellectual heirs--A. R. Wallace, T. H. Huxley, August Weismann, Asa Gray--better than Ernst Mayr, a man considered by many to be the greatest evolutionist of the century? In this gem of historical scholarship, Mayr has achieved a remarkable distillation of Charles Darwin's scientific thought and his enormous legacy to twentieth-century biology. Here we have an accessible account of the revolutionary ideas that Darwin thrust upon the world. Describing his treatise as "one long argument," Darwin definitively refuted the belief in the divine creation of each individual species, establishing in its place the concept that all of life descended from a common ancestor. He proposed the idea that humans were not the special products of creation but evolved according to principles that operate everywhere else in the living world; he upset current notions of a perfectly designed, benign natural world and substituted in their place the concept of a struggle for survival; and he introduced probability, chance, and uniqueness into scientific discourse.

This is an important book for students, biologists, and general readers interested in the history of ideas--especially ideas that have radically altered our worldview. Here is a book by a grand master that spells out in simple terms the historical issues and presents the controversies in a manner that makes them understandable from a modern perspective.

Language: English

Pages: 224

Format: Paperback

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Release: March 15, 1993

ISBN: 0674639065

ISBN 13: 9780674639065

More books from Ernst W. Mayr

What Evolution Is

This is Biology: The Science of the Living World

4.1/5 ( ratings)

The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance

4.3/5 ( ratings)

What Makes Biology Unique?: Considerations on the Autonomy of a Scientific Discipline

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist

4.2/5 ( ratings)

The Birds of Northern Melanesia: Speciation, Ecology & Biogeography

3.4/5 ( ratings)

Populations, Species, and Evolution: An Abridgment of Animal Species and Evolution

Evolution and the Diversity of Life: Selected Essays

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Computational Graph Theory

Computer Algebra in Scientific Computing: 10th International Workshop, Casc 2007, Bonn, Germany, September 16-20, 2007, Proceedings

Computer Algebra in Scientific Computing: CASC 2000

Uma Ampla Discussão: Charles Darwin e a Gênese do Moderno Pensamento Evolucionário

Systematics and the Origin of Species from the Viewpoint of a Zoologist

Histoire de la biologie : Diversité, évolution et hérédité, tome 2 : De Darwin à nos jours

Die Hauptbücherei Wien / The Main City Library Vienna: Ein Bau von Ernst Mayr / A Building by Ernst Mayr (German and English Edition)

Una larga controversia: Darwin y el darwinismo

Principles of Systematic Zoology

Evoluzione e varietà dei viventi

Birds of the Philippines

Lectures on Proof Verification and Approximation Algorithms (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)

Rate this book!

Write a review?