Niles Eldredge
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231153164
- eISBN:
- 9780231526753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231153164.003.0002
- Subject:
- Biology, Evolutionary Biology / Genetics
This chapter talks about the earliest decades of the scientific study of “transmutation,” previously called evolution, in which early evolutionists focused on the search for a natural causal ...
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This chapter talks about the earliest decades of the scientific study of “transmutation,” previously called evolution, in which early evolutionists focused on the search for a natural causal explanation for the origin of species alive today. The two contrasting positions that have dominated evolutionary thought came from two naturalists who based their theories on empirical data drawn from a comparison of fossil mollusks—Jean Baptiste Lamarck and Giambattista Brocchi. The chapter examines the ideas of both Lamarck and Brocchi, most of which were published in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, which was founded by Robert Jameson. Jameson was Charles Darwin's teacher at the University of Edinburgh. Darwin's exposure to scientific analysis, natural history, and transmutational thinking continued at Cambridge where he read John Herschel's Preliminary Discourse on Natural Philosophy, a book that influenced him to pursue a scientific career.Less
This chapter talks about the earliest decades of the scientific study of “transmutation,” previously called evolution, in which early evolutionists focused on the search for a natural causal explanation for the origin of species alive today. The two contrasting positions that have dominated evolutionary thought came from two naturalists who based their theories on empirical data drawn from a comparison of fossil mollusks—Jean Baptiste Lamarck and Giambattista Brocchi. The chapter examines the ideas of both Lamarck and Brocchi, most of which were published in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, which was founded by Robert Jameson. Jameson was Charles Darwin's teacher at the University of Edinburgh. Darwin's exposure to scientific analysis, natural history, and transmutational thinking continued at Cambridge where he read John Herschel's Preliminary Discourse on Natural Philosophy, a book that influenced him to pursue a scientific career.
Niles Eldredge
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231153164
- eISBN:
- 9780231526753
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231153164.001.0001
- Subject:
- Biology, Evolutionary Biology / Genetics
This book follows the development of evolutionary science over the past two hundred years. It highlights the fact that life endures even though all organisms and species are transitory or ephemeral. ...
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This book follows the development of evolutionary science over the past two hundred years. It highlights the fact that life endures even though all organisms and species are transitory or ephemeral. It goes on to explain that the extinction and evolution of species—interconnected in the web of life as “eternal ephemera”—are key concerns of evolutionary biology. The book begins in France with the naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who in 1801 first framed the overarching question about the emergence of new species. It moves on to the Italian geologist Giambattista Brocchi who brought in ideas from geology and paleontology to expand the question. It details how, in 1825, at the University of Edinburgh, Robert Grant and Robert Jameson introduced the astounding ideas formulated by Lamarck and Brocchi to a young medical student named Charles Darwin and follows Darwin as he sets out on his voyage on the Beagle in 1831. The book revisits Darwin's early insights into evolution in South America and his later synthesis of his knowledge into the theory of the origin of species. It then considers the ideas of more recent evolutionary thinkers, such as George Gaylord Simpson, Ernst Mayr and Theodosius Dobzhansky, as well as Niles Eldredge and Steven Jay Gould, who developed the concept of punctuated equilibria. The book provides many insights into evolutionary biology, and celebrates the organic, vital relationship between scientific thinking and its subjects.Less
This book follows the development of evolutionary science over the past two hundred years. It highlights the fact that life endures even though all organisms and species are transitory or ephemeral. It goes on to explain that the extinction and evolution of species—interconnected in the web of life as “eternal ephemera”—are key concerns of evolutionary biology. The book begins in France with the naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who in 1801 first framed the overarching question about the emergence of new species. It moves on to the Italian geologist Giambattista Brocchi who brought in ideas from geology and paleontology to expand the question. It details how, in 1825, at the University of Edinburgh, Robert Grant and Robert Jameson introduced the astounding ideas formulated by Lamarck and Brocchi to a young medical student named Charles Darwin and follows Darwin as he sets out on his voyage on the Beagle in 1831. The book revisits Darwin's early insights into evolution in South America and his later synthesis of his knowledge into the theory of the origin of species. It then considers the ideas of more recent evolutionary thinkers, such as George Gaylord Simpson, Ernst Mayr and Theodosius Dobzhansky, as well as Niles Eldredge and Steven Jay Gould, who developed the concept of punctuated equilibria. The book provides many insights into evolutionary biology, and celebrates the organic, vital relationship between scientific thinking and its subjects.
David Sepkoski
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780226348612
- eISBN:
- 9780226354613
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226354613.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter begins the story by exploring how the idea of extinction emerged as a biological concept in the nineteenth century. Despite the current ubiquity of the term, extinction challenged ...
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This chapter begins the story by exploring how the idea of extinction emerged as a biological concept in the nineteenth century. Despite the current ubiquity of the term, extinction challenged earlier notions of the stability of nature and the benevolence of a creator god. When naturalists first determined that the geological record revealed that a great many species which had formerly existed have become extinct, new ideas about the "balance of nature" had to be developed that could account for extinction as a process contributing to overall natural stability. Two of the central characters in this chapter are Georges Cuvier, who was responsible for confirming the empirical fact of extinction and who developed a "catastrophic" model of geo-historical change, and Charles Lyell, whose view that extinction is an ordinary feature of natural history had an enormous influence on later understandings of the relationship between extinction and biological diversity.Less
This chapter begins the story by exploring how the idea of extinction emerged as a biological concept in the nineteenth century. Despite the current ubiquity of the term, extinction challenged earlier notions of the stability of nature and the benevolence of a creator god. When naturalists first determined that the geological record revealed that a great many species which had formerly existed have become extinct, new ideas about the "balance of nature" had to be developed that could account for extinction as a process contributing to overall natural stability. Two of the central characters in this chapter are Georges Cuvier, who was responsible for confirming the empirical fact of extinction and who developed a "catastrophic" model of geo-historical change, and Charles Lyell, whose view that extinction is an ordinary feature of natural history had an enormous influence on later understandings of the relationship between extinction and biological diversity.
Niles Eldredge
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226426051
- eISBN:
- 9780226426198
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226426198.003.0001
- Subject:
- Biology, Evolutionary Biology / Genetics
This article reconstructs the history and significance of hierarchical thinking in evolutionary theory, suggesting further development of hierarchical approaches in evolutionary biology. Darwin’s ...
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This article reconstructs the history and significance of hierarchical thinking in evolutionary theory, suggesting further development of hierarchical approaches in evolutionary biology. Darwin’s intellectual background was imbued with ideas on the nature of species and on the causal mechanisms of species origin and extinction. Important in informing Darwin's hierarchical thinking was Giambattista Brocchi's analogy between species and organisms with respect to individuality, birth, and death. This imprint shined through Darwin’s observations on differential extinction rates, geographic replacements, and other biogeographical patterns. Following the discovery of natural selection, Darwin came to consider species as ephemeral entities whose apparent individuality was an artifact of the imperfections of the fossil record. The subsequent gradualist nonhierarchical view of evolution was challenged in the 1930s by Dobzhansky and then Mayr, who resurrected hierarchical thinking by pointing out the reality of species as distinct biological entities. The 1972 punctuated equilibria hypothesis by Eldredge and Gould suggested the connection between the process of allopatric speciation and the pattern of apparent species stability and abrupt origin as documented by the fossil record. Today hierarchy theory accommodates strong empirical evidence for stasis and speciation and against exclusive gradualism, improving our understanding of structure and dynamics of the biological world.Less
This article reconstructs the history and significance of hierarchical thinking in evolutionary theory, suggesting further development of hierarchical approaches in evolutionary biology. Darwin’s intellectual background was imbued with ideas on the nature of species and on the causal mechanisms of species origin and extinction. Important in informing Darwin's hierarchical thinking was Giambattista Brocchi's analogy between species and organisms with respect to individuality, birth, and death. This imprint shined through Darwin’s observations on differential extinction rates, geographic replacements, and other biogeographical patterns. Following the discovery of natural selection, Darwin came to consider species as ephemeral entities whose apparent individuality was an artifact of the imperfections of the fossil record. The subsequent gradualist nonhierarchical view of evolution was challenged in the 1930s by Dobzhansky and then Mayr, who resurrected hierarchical thinking by pointing out the reality of species as distinct biological entities. The 1972 punctuated equilibria hypothesis by Eldredge and Gould suggested the connection between the process of allopatric speciation and the pattern of apparent species stability and abrupt origin as documented by the fossil record. Today hierarchy theory accommodates strong empirical evidence for stasis and speciation and against exclusive gradualism, improving our understanding of structure and dynamics of the biological world.
Niles Eldredge
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231153164
- eISBN:
- 9780231526753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231153164.003.0007
- Subject:
- Biology, Evolutionary Biology / Genetics
This chapter deals with the efforts to reinvent the concepts focusing on the origin of discrete species, which implies that these concepts must be essentially right. The 1970s and 1980s witnessed the ...
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This chapter deals with the efforts to reinvent the concepts focusing on the origin of discrete species, which implies that these concepts must be essentially right. The 1970s and 1980s witnessed the period of “macroevolution”—referring to the rise of theoretical analyses of the nature of species and their supposed roles in an expanded evolutionary theory. Giambattista Brocchi's perception of species as parallel to individuals prompted the discourse in modern evolutionary biology; if species are discrete entities, they themselves can be seen as playing their own roles in evolutionary history. There is a possibility that speciation may be a factor in generating adaptive change—instead of assuming that adaptive change causes speciation, modern biologists speculate that it is the process of speciation that prompts adaptive change. The chapter presents how paleontology had as many real contributions to evolutionary theory as biology does.Less
This chapter deals with the efforts to reinvent the concepts focusing on the origin of discrete species, which implies that these concepts must be essentially right. The 1970s and 1980s witnessed the period of “macroevolution”—referring to the rise of theoretical analyses of the nature of species and their supposed roles in an expanded evolutionary theory. Giambattista Brocchi's perception of species as parallel to individuals prompted the discourse in modern evolutionary biology; if species are discrete entities, they themselves can be seen as playing their own roles in evolutionary history. There is a possibility that speciation may be a factor in generating adaptive change—instead of assuming that adaptive change causes speciation, modern biologists speculate that it is the process of speciation that prompts adaptive change. The chapter presents how paleontology had as many real contributions to evolutionary theory as biology does.