Monday Mix: Darwin Day... Darwin & Evolution (Part 1)
--by Hanje Richards
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Charles Robert Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England on February 12, 1809 and died on April 19, 1882. During those 73 years, he changed the face of life sci
ence forever by establishing that all species of life descended over time from common ancestry and by proposing the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called "natural selection."
ence forever by establishing that all species of life descended over time from common ancestry and by proposing the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called "natural selection."He published his theory with compelling evidence for evolution in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species. The scientific community and much of the general public came to accept evolution as a fact in his lifetime. However, it was not until the emergence of the modern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s that a broad consensus developed that natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution. In modified form, Darwin's scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, explaining the diversity of life.
"Darwin Day" is an international celebration of science and humanity held on or around February 12, the day on which Charles Darwin was born. Specifically, it celebrates the discoveries and life of Charles Darwin – the man who first described biological evolution via natural selection with scientific rigor. More generally, "Darwin Day" expresses gratitude for the enormous benefits that scientific knowledge, acquired through human curiosity and ingenuity, has contributed to the advancement of humanity.
Recognizing science as an international language accessible to all individuals and societies, the International Darwin Day Foundation provides a new global holiday that transcends separate nationalities and cultures. "Darwin Day" can be celebrated in many different ways: civic ceremonies with official proclamations, educational symposia, birthday parties, art shows, book discussions, lobby days, games, protests, and dinner parties. Organizers may include academic societies, science organizations, freethought groups, religious congregations, libraries, museums, galleries, teachers and students, families and friends.
On "Darwin Day," we recognize the diversity among us, celebrate our common humanity and the universal understanding we share… and experience some outstanding life science related books and movies, too! All titles included here are either available at the Copper Queen Library or through Interlibrary Loan.
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Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time (Jonathan Weiner). Rosemary and Peter Grant and those assisting them have spent twenty years on Daphne Major, an island in the Galapagos, studying natural selection. They recognize each individual bird on the island, whether there are four hundred or over a thousand They have observed about twenty generations of finches – continuously – so are uniquely qualified to suggest hypotheses about their survival.
Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time (Jonathan Weiner). Rosemary and Peter Grant and those assisting them have spent twenty years on Daphne Major, an island in the Galapagos, studying natural selection. They recognize each individual bird on the island, whether there are four hundred or over a thousand They have observed about twenty generations of finches – continuously – so are uniquely qualified to suggest hypotheses about their survival.Book of Lif
e: An Illustrated History of Life on Earth (Stephen J. Gould). Gould uses an exemplary fusion of art and science to tell the story of life on earth. The text provides a thorough understanding of the latest research and is accompanied by paintings prepared especially for this book. Never before has our planet's evolution been so clearly, so ingeniously explained..
History is marked by disaster. The Book of Life explains how mammals, having survived at least one of these disasters – the impact of a massive comet – came to inherit the earth. Next came the rise of modern humans, who would shape the world as no creature has. As this fascinating history unfolds, gorgeous illustrations allow readers to observe climate changes, tectonic plate movement, the spread of plant life, and the death of the dinosaurs; to discover the chains of animal survival, the causes and consequences of adaptation and, finally, the environmental impact of human life.
Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History (Stephen J. Gould). These pithy essays focus on evolution and the workings of science. For Gould's fans and other serious readers, these works are fascinating, literate, and often challenging – vintage Gould.
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Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History (Stephen J. Gould). This collection of essays covers a wide range of subjects in natural history, literature, and popular culture – from the wisdom of Charles Darwin to that of the Old Testament Psalms, from the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park to the dinosaurs of the latest scientific theories, from the thwarted humanity of the Frankenstein monster to the inhuman fallacies of eugenics and other pseudoscience.
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Charles Darwi
n: A Biography (E. J. Browne). This is an account of Darwin’s five-year expedition on the Beagle (1831-36), which transformed a seasick, Cambridge-educated science apprentice into a keen observer of nature and an amateur geologist. Drawing on a wealth of new material from family archives, Brown masterfully recreates the personal, cultural and intellectual matrix out of which Darwin's evolutionary theory took shape. We glimpse many facets of Darwin: the failed medical student; the laid-back undergraduate; the impassioned abolitionist; the explorer roping cattle with gauchos on the Argentine pampas; the chronically ill country squire; the patriarchal husband and reluctant atheist whose devout Anglican wife, Emma, disapproved of his theory of human origins.
Darwin: The L
ife of a Tormented Evolutionist (Adrian Desmond & James Moore). This monumental biography keenly conveys the English naturalist's struggle to make evolution and natural selection acceptable by presenting them as the bedrock of Victorian middle-class values. The authors illuminate Darwin as a freethinking agnostic fearful of being labeled an anarchist, a scientific titan trapped on a literary treadmill, a voyager on the Beagle appalled at "low" races of savages, and a paterfamilias who subordinated women but was completely dependent on his wife. Above all, the authors plunge readers into the controversies of the era as parson-hating biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, socialist Alfred Russell Wallace, free-market capitalists, and radical atheists bent Darwinism to their own purposes.
Darwin’s Ghos
t: The Origin of Species Updated (Steve Jones). Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species is probably one of the world's best-known, yet least-read, books. One of the most important achievements of the past millennium, it did for biology what Galileo did for astronomy: made it into a single science rather than a collection of unrelated facts. Important though Origin remains, its examples and intricate Victorian prose are now a century and a half old. They are ripe for renewal and reaffirmation. Writing as "Darwin's ghost," eminent geneticist Steve Jones updates this seminal work – and restates evolution's case for the 21st century.
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Charles Darwi
n: A Biography (E. J. Browne). This is an account of Darwin’s five-year expedition on the Beagle (1831-36), which transformed a seasick, Cambridge-educated science apprentice into a keen observer of nature and an amateur geologist. Drawing on a wealth of new material from family archives, Brown masterfully recreates the personal, cultural and intellectual matrix out of which Darwin's evolutionary theory took shape. We glimpse many facets of Darwin: the failed medical student; the laid-back undergraduate; the impassioned abolitionist; the explorer roping cattle with gauchos on the Argentine pampas; the chronically ill country squire; the patriarchal husband and reluctant atheist whose devout Anglican wife, Emma, disapproved of his theory of human origins.Darwin: The L
ife of a Tormented Evolutionist (Adrian Desmond & James Moore). This monumental biography keenly conveys the English naturalist's struggle to make evolution and natural selection acceptable by presenting them as the bedrock of Victorian middle-class values. The authors illuminate Darwin as a freethinking agnostic fearful of being labeled an anarchist, a scientific titan trapped on a literary treadmill, a voyager on the Beagle appalled at "low" races of savages, and a paterfamilias who subordinated women but was completely dependent on his wife. Above all, the authors plunge readers into the controversies of the era as parson-hating biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, socialist Alfred Russell Wallace, free-market capitalists, and radical atheists bent Darwinism to their own purposes.Darwin’s Ghos
t: The Origin of Species Updated (Steve Jones). Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species is probably one of the world's best-known, yet least-read, books. One of the most important achievements of the past millennium, it did for biology what Galileo did for astronomy: made it into a single science rather than a collection of unrelated facts. Important though Origin remains, its examples and intricate Victorian prose are now a century and a half old. They are ripe for renewal and reaffirmation. Writing as "Darwin's ghost," eminent geneticist Steve Jones updates this seminal work – and restates evolution's case for the 21st century..
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A Devil’s Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love (Richard Dawkins). The first colle
ction of essays from renowned scientist and best-selling author Richard Dawkins is an enthusiastic declaration, a testament to the power of rigorous scientific examination to reveal the wonders of the world. In these essays, Dawkins revisits the meme, the unit of cultural information that he named and wrote about in his groundbreaking work The Selfish Gene. Here also are moving tributes to friends and colleagues, including a eulogy for novelist Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; correspondence with the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould; and visits with the famed paleoanthropologists Richard and Maeve Leakey at their African wildlife preserve. The collection ends with a vivid note to Dawkins' ten-year-old daughter, reminding her to remain curious, to ask questions, and to live the examined life.
ction of essays from renowned scientist and best-selling author Richard Dawkins is an enthusiastic declaration, a testament to the power of rigorous scientific examination to reveal the wonders of the world. In these essays, Dawkins revisits the meme, the unit of cultural information that he named and wrote about in his groundbreaking work The Selfish Gene. Here also are moving tributes to friends and colleagues, including a eulogy for novelist Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; correspondence with the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould; and visits with the famed paleoanthropologists Richard and Maeve Leakey at their African wildlife preserve. The collection ends with a vivid note to Dawkins' ten-year-old daughter, reminding her to remain curious, to ask questions, and to live the examined life.
Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History (Stephen J. Gould). This collection of essays covers a wide range of subjects in natural history, literature, and popular culture – from the wisdom of Charles Darwin to that of the Old Testament Psalms, from the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park to the dinosaurs of the latest scientific theories, from the thwarted humanity of the Frankenstein monster to the inhuman fallacies of eugenics and other pseudoscience..
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Eight Little Pi
ggies: Reflections in Natural History (Stephen J. Gould). This work collects 31 engaging essays on the disparate but related issues of time, change, and organic evolution. Gould critically explores a cascade of ideas that shed new light on ecology, human nature, vertebrate anatomy, neo-Darwinism, and mass extinctions; he even includes personal musings. Of special interest are the essays that deal with William Paley's natural theology, Archbishop James Ussher's Biblical chronology, Miocene fossil apes, the Darwinian interpretation of life's struggle for existence, and a reexamination of the Cambrian onychophoran Hallucigenia.
ggies: Reflections in Natural History (Stephen J. Gould). This work collects 31 engaging essays on the disparate but related issues of time, change, and organic evolution. Gould critically explores a cascade of ideas that shed new light on ecology, human nature, vertebrate anatomy, neo-Darwinism, and mass extinctions; he even includes personal musings. Of special interest are the essays that deal with William Paley's natural theology, Archbishop James Ussher's Biblical chronology, Miocene fossil apes, the Darwinian interpretation of life's struggle for existence, and a reexamination of the Cambrian onychophoran Hallucigenia. .
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Evoluti
on by Association: A History of Sybiosis (Jan Sapp). In this comprehensive history of symbiosis theory, Sapp masterfully traces its development from modest beginnings in the late nineteenth century to its current status as one of the key conceptual frameworks for the life sciences. The symbiotic perspective on evolution, which argues that "higher species" have evolved from a merger of two or more different kinds of organisms living together, is now clearly established with definitive molecular evidence demonstrating that mitochondria and chloroplasts have evolved from symbiotic bacteria. In telling the exciting story of an evolutionary biology tradition that has effectively challenged many key tenets of classical neo-Darwinism, Sapp sheds light on the phenomena, movements, doctrines, and controversies that have shaped attitudes about the scope and significance of symbiosis.
Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives (David Sloan Wilson). What is the biological reason for gossip? For laughter? For the creation of art? Why do dogs have curly tails? What can mic
robes tell us about morality?
Evoluti
on by Association: A History of Sybiosis (Jan Sapp). In this comprehensive history of symbiosis theory, Sapp masterfully traces its development from modest beginnings in the late nineteenth century to its current status as one of the key conceptual frameworks for the life sciences. The symbiotic perspective on evolution, which argues that "higher species" have evolved from a merger of two or more different kinds of organisms living together, is now clearly established with definitive molecular evidence demonstrating that mitochondria and chloroplasts have evolved from symbiotic bacteria. In telling the exciting story of an evolutionary biology tradition that has effectively challenged many key tenets of classical neo-Darwinism, Sapp sheds light on the phenomena, movements, doctrines, and controversies that have shaped attitudes about the scope and significance of symbiosis.Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives (David Sloan Wilson). What is the biological reason for gossip? For laughter? For the creation of art? Why do dogs have curly tails? What can mic
robes tell us about morality? .
These and many other questions are tackled by renowned evolutionist David Sloan Wilson in this witty and groundbreaking new book. With stories that entertain as much as they inform, Wilson outlines the basic principles of evolution and shows how, properly understood, they can illuminate the length and breadth of creation, from the origin of life to the nature of religion. 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. For 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.
Full House: The
Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin (Stephen J. Gould). Gould shows why a more accurate way of understanding our world (and the history of life) is to look at a given subject within its own context, to see it as a part of a spectrum of variation rather than as an isolated "thing," and then to reconceptualize trends as expansion or contraction of this "full house" of variation, and not as the progress or degeneration of an average value, or single thing. When approached in such a way, the disappearance of .400 hitting becomes a cause for celebration, signaling not a decline in greatness but instead an improvement in the overall level of play in baseball; trends become subject to suspicion, and, too often, only a tool of those seeking to advance a particular agenda; and the "Age of Man" (a claim rooted in hubris, not in fact) more accurately becomes the "Age of Bacteria."
Galapagos: The
Islands That Changed the World - The inspiration for Darwin's theory of evolution, the Galapagos Islands, are a living laboratory, a geological conveyor belt that has given birth to and seen the death of many species of plants and animals. As the western islands rise up from the sea offering a chance of life, the eastern islands sink back beneath the waves, guaranteeing only death. Between the two are the middle islands – fertile, lush land in its prime that contains an incredible diversity of life. Nowhere else on the Earth are the twin processes of creation and extinction of species so starkly apparent... See it all unfold before your eyes in this stunning series filmed entirely in high definition from the BBC and the National Geographic Channel. [DVD]
Greatest Show
on Earth: Evidence for Evolution (Richards Dawkins). This book is a stunning counterattack on advocates of "Intelligent Design," explaining the evidence for evolution while exposing the absurdities of the creationist "argument." Dawkins sifts through rich layers of scientific evidence: from living examples of natural selection to clues in the fossil record; from natural clocks that mark the vast epochs wherein evolution ran its course to the intricacies of developing embryos; from plate tectonics to molecular genetics. Combining these elements and many more, he makes the airtight case that "we find ourselves perched on one tiny twig in the midst of a blossoming and flourishing tree of life and it is no accident, but the direct consequence of evolution by non-random selection." [book, audiobook]
Inherit T
he Wind - Spencer Tracy and Fredric March go toe-to-toe in this thrilling re-creation of the most titanic courtroom battle of the century. Garnering four Academy Award nominations, including Best Actor (Tracy), and featuring Gene Kelly in a rare, critically-acclaimed dramatic role, Inherit the Wind is powerful, provocative cinema. The controversial subject of evolution versus creation causes two polar opposites to engage in one explosive battle of beliefs. Attorney Clarence Darrow (Tracy) faces off against fundamentalist leader William Jennings Bryan (March) in a small Tennessee town where a teacher has been brought to trial for teaching Darwinism. Let the trial begin... and watch the sparks fly! [DVD]
These and many other questions are tackled by renowned evolutionist David Sloan Wilson in this witty and groundbreaking new book. With stories that entertain as much as they inform, Wilson outlines the basic principles of evolution and shows how, properly understood, they can illuminate the length and breadth of creation, from the origin of life to the nature of religion. 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. For 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.
Full House: The
Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin (Stephen J. Gould). Gould shows why a more accurate way of understanding our world (and the history of life) is to look at a given subject within its own context, to see it as a part of a spectrum of variation rather than as an isolated "thing," and then to reconceptualize trends as expansion or contraction of this "full house" of variation, and not as the progress or degeneration of an average value, or single thing. When approached in such a way, the disappearance of .400 hitting becomes a cause for celebration, signaling not a decline in greatness but instead an improvement in the overall level of play in baseball; trends become subject to suspicion, and, too often, only a tool of those seeking to advance a particular agenda; and the "Age of Man" (a claim rooted in hubris, not in fact) more accurately becomes the "Age of Bacteria."Galapagos: The
Islands That Changed the World - The inspiration for Darwin's theory of evolution, the Galapagos Islands, are a living laboratory, a geological conveyor belt that has given birth to and seen the death of many species of plants and animals. As the western islands rise up from the sea offering a chance of life, the eastern islands sink back beneath the waves, guaranteeing only death. Between the two are the middle islands – fertile, lush land in its prime that contains an incredible diversity of life. Nowhere else on the Earth are the twin processes of creation and extinction of species so starkly apparent... See it all unfold before your eyes in this stunning series filmed entirely in high definition from the BBC and the National Geographic Channel. [DVD]Greatest Show
on Earth: Evidence for Evolution (Richards Dawkins). This book is a stunning counterattack on advocates of "Intelligent Design," explaining the evidence for evolution while exposing the absurdities of the creationist "argument." Dawkins sifts through rich layers of scientific evidence: from living examples of natural selection to clues in the fossil record; from natural clocks that mark the vast epochs wherein evolution ran its course to the intricacies of developing embryos; from plate tectonics to molecular genetics. Combining these elements and many more, he makes the airtight case that "we find ourselves perched on one tiny twig in the midst of a blossoming and flourishing tree of life and it is no accident, but the direct consequence of evolution by non-random selection." [book, audiobook]Inherit T
he Wind - Spencer Tracy and Fredric March go toe-to-toe in this thrilling re-creation of the most titanic courtroom battle of the century. Garnering four Academy Award nominations, including Best Actor (Tracy), and featuring Gene Kelly in a rare, critically-acclaimed dramatic role, Inherit the Wind is powerful, provocative cinema. The controversial subject of evolution versus creation causes two polar opposites to engage in one explosive battle of beliefs. Attorney Clarence Darrow (Tracy) faces off against fundamentalist leader William Jennings Bryan (March) in a small Tennessee town where a teacher has been brought to trial for teaching Darwinism. Let the trial begin... and watch the sparks fly! [DVD]
posted by msbw @ 11:45 AM
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