The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin's Theory

The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin's Theory PDF Author: Fries Kenny
Publisher: Da Capo Press, Incorporated
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Get Book Here

Book Description
A searing, imaginative memoir that pairs two stories, the author's budding self-realization and the race to formulate the theory of evolution.

The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin's Theory

The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin's Theory PDF Author: Fries Kenny
Publisher: Da Capo Press, Incorporated
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Get Book Here

Book Description
A searing, imaginative memoir that pairs two stories, the author's budding self-realization and the race to formulate the theory of evolution.

The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin's Theory

The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin's Theory PDF Author: Kenny Fries
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781370373796
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Evolution for Everyone

Evolution for Everyone PDF Author: David Sloan Wilson
Publisher: Delacorte Press
ISBN: 0440336805
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 402

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Darwin's First Theory

Darwin's First Theory PDF Author: Rob Wesson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1681773775
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 419

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

What Darwin Didn't Know

What Darwin Didn't Know PDF Author: Geoffrey Simmons
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers
ISBN: 0736936726
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Get Book Here

Book Description


Darwin's Fossils

Darwin's Fossils PDF Author: Adrian Lister
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution
ISBN: 158834617X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 233

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

The Book That Changed America

The Book That Changed America PDF Author: Randall Fuller
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143130099
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 314

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Darwin and Design

Darwin and Design PDF Author: Michael Ruse
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674016316
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392

Get Book Here

Book Description
In clear, non-technical language, Ruse 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 Evolution of Beauty

The Evolution of Beauty PDF Author: Richard O. Prum
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385537220
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 436

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Charles Darwin and the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection

Charles Darwin and the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection PDF Author: Fred Bortz
Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc
ISBN: 1477718028
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 82

Get Book Here

Book Description
Disciplinary Core Ideas for biological evolution that include evidence of common ancestry and diversity, natural selection, and adaptation are concepts students need to grasp in Common Core State Standards. This volume explains Charles Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection while telling how a hypothesis became not merely a theory but the foundation of an entire science. Darwin saw the importance of this theory and risked controversy and ridicule to bring it to light. Topics include the Beagle's voyage of discovery and Darwin's writings as well as the controversy over teaching evolution, creation science, and intelligent design in biology classrooms today.