Sorry, no results... Try modifying your search: |
Darwin as mentor
Summary
Darwin provided advice, encouragement and praise to his fellow scientific 'labourers' of both sexes. Selected letters Letter 2234 - Darwin to Unidentified, [5 March 1858] Darwin advises that Professor C. P. Smyth’s observations are not…
Matches: 1 hits
- … plants; he has recommended that she send her manuscript to Nature for publication. …
Interview with Emily Ballou
Summary
Emily Ballou is a writer of novels and screenplays, and a prize-winning poet. Her book The Darwin Poems, which explores aspects of Darwin’s life and thoughts through the medium of poetry, was recently published by the University of Western Australia Press.…
Matches: 8 hits
- … having himself influenced Wordsworth’s approach to nature. And also, Mary Shelley was influenced by …
- … although Darwin clearly has this Wordsworthian vision of nature as full of wonder and awe and …
- … I think Darwin clearly was grappling with the malevolence of nature as well, and the danger inherent …
- … to survive. All these things were part of the way he saw nature, so it was never just like [in] …
- … of my ideas, maybe not about Darwin, over time, but about nature, in the sense that I probably …
- … striking me as I wrote them was how often an evocation of nature within the poem would quickly turn …
- … but brutality in almost a non-plus sort of fashion. So nature just continues on doing as it does, …
- … into Darwin’s life much later than he questioned the nature or the existence of [a] Christian god, I …
Vivisection: Darwin's testimony to the Royal Commission
Summary
Wednesday, 3rd November 1875. Mr. Charles Darwin called in and examined. 4661. (Chairman.) We are very sensible of your kindness in coming at some sacrifice to yourself to express your opinions to the Commission. We attribute it to the great…
Matches: 1 hits
- … to hesitate to perform experiments, though painful in their nature, when the animal was rendered …
Darwin in public and private
Summary
Extracts from Darwin's published works, in particular Descent of man, and selected letters, explore Darwin's views on the operation of sexual selection in humans, and both his publicly and privately expressed views on its practical implications…
Darwin on race and gender
Summary
Darwin’s views on race and gender are intertwined, and mingled also with those of class. In Descent of man, he tried to explain the origin of human races, and many of the differences between the sexes, with a single theory: sexual selection. Sexual…
Darwin in letters, 1869: Forward on all fronts
Summary
At the start of 1869, Darwin was hard at work making changes and additions for a fifth edition of Origin. He may have resented the interruption to his work on sexual selection and human evolution, but he spent forty-six days on the task. Much of the…
Dramatisation script
Summary
Re: Design – Adaptation of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin, Asa Gray and others… by Craig Baxter – as performed 25 March 2007
Matches: 13 hits
- … opposed to this, said he did not believe it, for ‘Nature never lied’. I am just in this predicament …
- … from imperfect or conjectural data, confident that he reads Nature through and through, and without …
- … therefore they ought, if they behaved properly – and as ‘nature does not lie’ – to go together. …
- … had shown me several of your letters (not of a private nature) and these gave me the warmest feeling …
- … There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical. A man who denies this is deep …
- … grade must ensue, which… may be likened to the conflict in Nature among races in the struggle for …
- … a public statement. GRAY: 89 Organic Nature abounds with unmistakable and …
- … contented to view this wonderful universe and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that …
- … 100 It is very easy to assume that, because events in Nature are in one sense accidental, and …
- … 102 So long as gradatory, orderly, and adapted forms in Nature argue design – and at least while …
- … ordained. 183 The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed …
- … operation of, an intelligent First Cause. The Ordainer of Nature. Darwin and Gray have for …
- … horrid scare 10 days ago, in the form of a Telegram from ‘Nature’ to the effect that Asa Gray was …
2.23 Hope Pinker statue, Oxford Museum
Summary
< Back to Introduction Henry Richard Hope Pinker’s life-size statue of Darwin was installed in the Oxford University Museum on 14 June 1899. It was the latest in a series of statues of great scientific thinkers, the ‘Founders and Improvers of Natural…
Matches: 1 hits
- … Deane and Woodward (London: Phaidon, 1992). Carla Yanni, Nature’s Museums: Victorian Science and …
Survival of the fittest: the trouble with terminology Part II
Summary
The most forceful and persistent critic of the term ‘natural selection’ was the co-discoverer of the process itself, Alfred Russel Wallace. Wallace seized on Herbert Spencer’s term ‘survival of the fittest’, explicitly introduced as an alternative way of…
Darwin in letters, 1858-1859: Origin
Summary
The years 1858 and 1859 were, without doubt, the most momentous of Darwin’s life. From a quiet rural existence filled with steady work on his ‘big book’ on species, he was jolted into action by the arrival of an unexpected letter from Alfred Russel Wallace…
Matches: 6 hits
- … been celebrated as a classic example of divine design in nature. Darwin hypothesised that the …
- … work that related to his chapter on variation under nature. Having learned in the summer of 1857 …
- … could be trusted as evidence for what actually occurred in nature ( see letter to Asa Gray, 4 April …
- … , pp. 163–7, as examples of the occurrence of reversion in nature. Alfred Russel Wallace and …
- … abstract dealt with the subject of cross-fertilisation in nature. For several years, Darwin had …
- … belief that occasional cross-fertilisation was a ‘law of nature’ and described the role of bees in …
Wearing his knowledge lightly: From Fritz Müller, 5 April 1878
Summary
Darwin received letters from so many people and wrote so many fascinating letters himself, that it’s hard to choose from many letters that stand out, but one of this editor’s favourites, that always brings a smile, is a letter from Fritz Müller written 5…
Matches: 1 hits
- … in irregular postal service, so that his copies of Nature arrived at random times and out of …
Hermann Müller
Summary
Hermann (Heinrich Ludwig Hermann) Müller, was born in Mühlberg near Erfurt in 1829. He was the younger brother of Fritz Müller (1822–97). Following the completion of his secondary education at Erfurt in 1848, he studied natural sciences at Halle and Berlin…
Matches: 1 hits
- … (his teaching plan had been praised in the pages of Nature , 27 April 1876, p. 531), he became a …
Books on the Beagle
Summary
The Beagle was a sort of floating library. Find out what Darwin and his shipmates read here.
Matches: 4 hits
- … of those records may be helpful in understanding the nature of the evidence they provide. For the …
- … the voyage. These titles are designated by symbol *. The nature of the evidence is noted in each …
- … clearly in a text written during the voyage and of such a nature (e.g., passages quoted or …
- … John. Humboldt, Alexander von. Tableaux de la nature. Translation by J. B. B. Eyriès of …
Darwin in letters, 1864: Failing health
Summary
On receiving a photograph from Charles Darwin, the American botanist Asa Gray wrote on 11 July 1864: ‘the venerable beard gives the look of your having suffered, and … of having grown older’. Because of poor health, Because of poor health, Darwin…
Matches: 4 hits
- … the relationship between species and varieties, and the nature of hybridity. Darwin noticed that the …
- … to confirm the statement in his 1862 book on orchids that nature ‘abhors self-fertilisation’ ( …
- … 1864 ). Theological statements of a more public nature captured the attention of Darwin and …
- … publication of Huxley’s Evidence as to man’s place in nature and Lyell’s Antiquity of man , …
Eliza Burt Gamble
Summary
Women have interpreted and applied evolutionary theory in arguments about women’s nature for over a century. Eliza Burt Gamble (1841-1920) was a pioneer in this endeavor. Gamble was an advocate of the Woman Movement, a mother, a writer, and a teacher from…
Letters as a Primary Source
Summary
Introduction: Why study Darwin’s letters? Courses about Darwin usually focus on the Origin of Species, widely regarded as one of the most important books ever written in the history of science. Yet as a starting point for understanding Darwin’s theory,…
Letters as a Primary Source
Summary
Introduction: Why study Darwin’s letters? Courses about Darwin usually focus on the Origin of Species, widely regarded as one of the most important books ever written in the history of science. Yet as a starting point for understanding Darwin’s theory,…
Interview with Simon Conway Morris
Summary
Simon Conway Morris is professor of evolutionary paleobiology at the University of Cambridge and the author of books on early evolution (The Crucible of Creation, 1998) and evolutionary convergence (Life’s Solution, 2003). He discusses a wide range of…
Matches: 1 hits
- … a wide range of issues, from the evidence of design in nature, to the status of Darwinism in modern …
Darwin in letters,1866: Survival of the fittest
Summary
The year 1866 began well for Charles Darwin, as his health, after several years of illness, was now considerably improved. In February, Darwin received a request from his publisher, John Murray, for a new edition of Origin. Darwin got the fourth…
Matches: 4 hits
- … discovery in the intellectual field of the contemplation of nature that you have newly opened up for …
- … and had previously translated Huxley’s Man’s place in nature , was settled upon. Carus …
- … for inconsistencies with respect to the role of design in nature. A similar criticism had been made …
- … had encouraged readers to attribute intelligent choice to nature. Wallace also pointed out passages …
Natural selection
Summary
How do new species arise? This was the ancient question that Charles Darwin tackled soon after returning to England from the Beagle voyage in October 1836. Darwin realised a crucial (and cruel) fact: far more individuals of each species were born than…
