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STS.003 the Rise of Modern Science Spring 2008 MIT OpenCourseWare http://ocw.mit.edu STS.003 The Rise of Modern Science Spring 2008 For information about citing these materials or our Terms of Use, visit: http://ocw.mit.edu/terms. STS.003 Spring 2008 Keywords for Week 6 Lecture 10: Darwin and Natural Selection Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) Systema Naturae (1735) Binomial nomenclature Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species Artificial taxonomy Natural taxonomy Mastodon Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) Catastrophism Jean Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) Use and Disuse Inheritance of acquired characteristics Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) Natural theology William Paley (1743-1805) Charles Darwin (1809-1882) H.M.S. Beagle The Voyage of the Beagle (1839) Galapagos Islands Thomas Malthus (1766-1834), Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) Struggle for existence Artificial selection Natural selection On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859) Quotes: Organic life beneath the shoreless waves Was born and nurs’d in ocean's pearly caves; First forms minute, unseen by spheric glass, Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass; These, as successive generations bloom, New powers acquire and larger limbs assume; Whence countless groups of vegetation spring, And breathing realms of fin and feet and wing. Erasmus Darwin, The Temple of Nature (1802). 2 Design must have had a designer. William Paley Inexplicable and unintelligible, except by … an intelligent author. William Whewell “…most exquisite in their forms and rich colors” Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle (1839) How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man! how short his time! and consequently how poor will his products be compared with those accumulated by nature during whole geological periods. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859) There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859) Lecture 11: Darwinism and Society Charles Darwin (1809-1882) William Thomson, Lord Kelvin (1824-1907) X-Club Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) William Spottiswoode (1825-1883) Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911) Bishop Samuel Wilberforce (1805-1873) Duke of Argyll Sexual selection The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) “Survival of the fittest” Laissez-faire Francis Galton (1822-1911), Hereditary Genius (1869) Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) Prince Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) Mutual Aid Quotes: Much light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859) 3 A system which is repudiated by history, by the traditions of all peoples, by exact science, by the observation of facts, and even by reason itself, would seem to have no need at all of refutation. Pope Pius IX But I cannot conclude without expressing my detestation of the theory, because of its unflinching materialism;—because it has deserted the inductive track, the only track that leads to physical truth;—because it utterly repudiates final causes, and thereby indicates a demoralized understanding on the part of its advocates. Adam Sedgwick [If asked] would I rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessed of great means & influence & yet who employs these faculties & that influence for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape. Thomas Huxley A frill ending in spangles of the emerald is no better in the battle of life than a frill ending in the spangles of the ruby. A tail is not affected for the purposes of flight, whether its marginal or its central feathers are decorated with white. It is impossible to bring such varieties into relation with any physical law known to us. It has relation, however, to a Purpose, which stands in close analogy with our own knowledge of Purpose in the works of Man. Mere beauty and mere variety, for their own sake, are objects which we ourselves seek when we can make the Forces of Nature subordinate to the attainment of them. There seems to be no conceivable reason why we should doubt or question, that these are ends hand aims also in the Forms given to living Organisms, when the facts correspond with this view, and with no other. In this sense, we can trace a creative Law,-that is, we can see that these Forms of Life do fulfill a purpose and intention, which we can appreciate and understand. George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll, The Reign of Law (1867) The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) It is merely a working-out of a law of Nature and a law of God. John D. Rockefeller In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of species live in societies, and that they find in association the best arms for the struggle for life: understood, of course, in its wide Darwinian sense -- not as a struggle for the sheer means of existence, but as a struggle against all natural conditions unfavourable to the species. Prince Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902) .
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