Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology 10/2005

Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology 10/2005
Author:
Publisher: Universitätsverlag Göttingen
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2006
Genre:
ISBN: 3938616393

The name DGGTB (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschichte und Theorie der Biologie; German Society for the History and Theory of Biology) reflects recent history as well as German tradition. The Society is a relatively late addition to a series of German societies of science and medicine that began with the »Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften«, founded in 1910 by Leipzig University's Karl Sudhoff (1853-1938), who wrote: »We want to establish a ,German' society in order to gather German-speaking historians together in our special disciplines so that they form the core of an international society...«. Yet Sudhoff, at this time of burgeoning academic internationalism, was »quite willing« to accommodate the wishes of a number of founding members and »drop the word German in the title of the Society and have it merge with an international society«. The founding and naming of the Society at that time derived from a specific set of historical circumstances, and the same was true some 80 years later when in 1991, in the wake of German reunification, the »Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschichte und Theorie der Biologie« was founded. From the start, the Society has been committed to bringing studies in the history and philosophy of biology to a wide audience, using for this purpose its Jahrbuch für Geschichte und Theorie der Biologie. Parallel to the Jahrbuch, the Verhandlungen zur Geschichte und Theorie der Biologie has become the by now traditional medium for the publication of papers delivered at the Society's annual meetings. In 2005 the Jahrbuch was renamed Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology, reflecting the Society's internationalist aspirations in addressing comparative biology as a subject of historical and philosophical studies.

Darwin's Sacred Cause

Darwin's Sacred Cause
Author: Adrian Desmond
Publisher: HMH
Total Pages: 513
Release: 2014-11-11
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0547527756

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

The Age of Subtlety

The Age of Subtlety
Author: Javier Patiño Loira
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2024-06-14
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1644533464

A craze for intricate metaphors, referred to as conceits, permeated all forms of communication in seventeenth-century Italy and Spain, reshaping reality in highly creative ways. The Age of Subtlety: Nature and Rhetorical Conceits in Early Modern Europe situates itself at the crossroads of rhetoric, poetics, and the history of science, analyzing technical writings on conceits by such scholars as Baltasar Gracián, Matteo Peregrini, and Emanuele Tesauro against the background of debates on telescopic and microscopic vision, the generation of living beings, and the boundaries between the natural and the artificial. It contends that in order to understand conceits, we must locate them within the early modern culture of ingenuity that was also responsible for the engineer’s machines, the juggler’s sleight of hand, the wiles of the statesman, and the discovery of truths about nature.

A Cultural History of Heredity

A Cultural History of Heredity
Author: Staffan Müller-Wille
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 339
Release: 2012-06-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0226545709

Heredity: knowledge and power -- Generation, reproduction, evolution -- Heredity in separate domains -- First syntheses -- Heredity, race, and eugenics -- Disciplining heredity -- Heredity and molecular biology -- Gene technology, genomics, postgenomics: attempt at an outlook.

The Quest for the Historical Adam

The Quest for the Historical Adam
Author: William VanDoodewaard
Publisher: Reformation Heritage Books
Total Pages: 437
Release: 2015-04-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1601783787

Was Adam really a historical person, and can we trust the biblical story of human origins? Or is the story of Eden simply a metaphor, leaving scientists the job to correctly reconstruct the truth of how humanity began? Although the church currently faces these pressing questions—exacerbated as they are by scientific and philosophical developments of our age—we must not think that they are completely new. In The Quest for the Historical Adam , William VanDoodewaard recovers and assesses the teaching of those who have gone before us, providing a historical survey of Genesis commentary on human origins from the patristic era to the present. Reacquainting the reader with a long line of theologians, exegetes, and thinkers, VanDoodewaard traces the roots, development, and, at times, disappearance of hermeneutical approaches and exegetical insights relevant to discussions on human origins. This survey not only informs us of how we came to this point in the conversation but also equips us to recognize the significance of the various alternatives on human origins. It also includes a foreword written by Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. Table of Contents: 1. Finding Adam and His Origin in Scripture 2. The Patristic and Medieval Quest for Adam 3. Adam in the Reformation and Post-Reformation Eras 4. Adam in the Enlightenment Era 5. Adam in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries 6. The Quest for Adam: From the 1950s to the Present 7. What Difference Does It Make? Epilogue: Literal Genesis and Science?

Adam's Ancestors

Adam's Ancestors
Author: David N. Livingstone
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2011-03-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1421400650

Although the idea that all human beings are descended from Adam is a long standing conviction in the West, another version of this narrative exists - humans inhabited the Earth before, or alongside, Adam, and their descendants still occupy the planet. This book traces the history of and debates surrounding the idea of non-Adamic humanity.

Natural Philosophy

Natural Philosophy
Author: Alister McGrath
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2023-02-02
Genre:
ISBN: 0192865730

Recovering the forgotten discipline of Natural Philosophy for the modern world This book argues for the retrieval of 'natural philosophy', a concept that faded into comparative obscurity as individual scientific disciplines became established and institutionalized. Natural philosophy was understood in the early modern period as a way of exploring the human relationship with the natural world, encompassing what would now be seen as the distinct disciplines of the natural sciences, mathematics, music, philosophy, and theology. The first part of the work represents a critical conversation with the tradition, identifying the essential characteristics of natural philosophy, particularly its emphasis on both learning about and learning from nature. After noting the factors which led to the disintegration of natural philosophy during the nineteenth century, the second part of the work sets out the reasons why natural philosophy should be retrieved, and a creative and innovative proposal for how this might be done. This draws on Karl Popper's 'Three Worlds' and Mary Midgley's notion of using multiple maps in bringing together the many aspects of the human encounter with the natural world. Such a retrieved or 're-imagined' natural philosophy is able to encourage both human attentiveness and respectfulness towards Nature, while enfolding both the desire to understand the natural world, and the need to preserve the affective, imaginative, and aesthetic aspects of the human response to nature.

Revisiting the Origin of Species

Revisiting the Origin of Species
Author: Thierry Hoquet
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 413
Release: 2018-08-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0429884192

Contemporary interest in Darwin rises from a general ideal of what Darwin’s books ought to contain: a theory of transformation of species by natural selection. However, a reader opening Darwin’s masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, today may be struck by the fact that this "selectionist" view does not deliver the key to many aspects of the book. Without contesting the importance of natural selection to Darwinism, much less supposing that a fully-formed "Darwinism" stepped out of Darwin’s head in 1859, this innovative volume aims to return to the text of the Origin itself. Revisiting the 'Origin of Species' focuses on Darwin as theorising on the origin of variations; showing that Darwin himself was never a pan-selectionist (in contrast to some of his followers) but was concerned with "other means of modification" (which makes him an evolutionary pluralist). Furthermore, in contrast to common textbook presentations of "Darwinism", Hoquet stresses the fact that On the Origin of Species can lend itself to several contradictory interpretations. Thus, this volume identifies where rival interpretations have taken root; to unearth the ambiguities readers of Darwin have latched onto as they have produced a myriad of Darwinian legacies, each more or less faithful enough to the originator’s thought. Emphasising the historical features, complexities and intricacies of Darwin’s argument, Revisiting the 'Origin of Species' can be used by any lay readers opening Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. This volume will also appeal to students and researchers interested in areas such as Evolution, Natural Selection, Scientific Translations and Origins of Life.

The Present Situation in the Philosophy of Science

The Present Situation in the Philosophy of Science
Author: Friedrich Stadler
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 403
Release: 2010-05-19
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9048191157

This volume is a serious attempt to open up the subject of European philosophy of science to real thought, and provide the structural basis for the interdisciplinary development of its specialist fields, but also to provoke reflection on the idea of ‘European philosophy of science’. This efforts should foster a contemporaneous reflection on what might be meant by philosophy of science in Europe and European philosophy of science, and how in fact awareness of it could assist philosophers interpret and motivate their research through a stronger collective identity.The overarching aim is to set the background for a collaborative project organising, systematising, and ultimately forging an identity for, European philosophy of science by creating research structures and developing research networks across Europe to promote its development.