Evolution: Genesis and Revelations: With Readings from Empedocles to Wilson

Front Cover
SUNY Press, 1981 M01 1 - 339 pages
In this comprehensive history of evolutionism, C. Leon Harris has combined primary source readings with clear, pertinent background information, to provide a solid basic understanding of the ways scientists have arrived at today's views of evolution.

Harris describes the major contributors to the theory of evolutionism, placing each in the context of the general cultural influences to which he was exposed. Each chapter also contains an explanation of the philosophical basis of the scientific approach of the period in question.

A lengthy bibliography provides direction for further reading on this important and timely subject.
 

Contents

Prescientific Concepts of the Origin of Species Genesis
6
The Evolution Of Genesis
8
Genesis Chapters 1 and 2
11
The Origin of Specious Arguments
16
The Origin of Science Ancient Greece
29
The PreSocratic PhilosopherScientists
30
Socrates
33
Plato
34
The Illusion Of Method In Scientific Creativity
120
The Genesis of Evolutionism The British Phase
124
Wells
128
Matthew
129
Other PreDarwinian Evolutionists
132
E Darwin from Zoonomia
134
Wells from Account of a Female of the White Race of Mankind
138
Matthew from On Naval Timber and Aboriculture
140

Aristotle
35
Epicurus
41
Lucretius
42
Empedocles six fragments
43
Aristotle from History of Animals
45
Lucretius from On the Nature of Things
48
Instructions For The Postscientific Age
52
The Infanticide of Science Rome and the Middle Ages
57
Augustine And The Dark Ages
60
Thomas Aquinas And The Late Middle Ages
62
Augustine from The City of God
65
Thomas Aquinas from Summa Theologica
67
Close Encounters Of The Absurd Kind
72
Born Again the Revival of Science in the Renaissance
80
Bacon
82
Descartes
84
Redi
86
Bacon from Novum Organum
87
Descartes from Discourse on Method
90
Redi from Experiments on the Generation of Insects
93
The Uses And Limitations Of Scientific Methods
96
The Genesis of Evolutionism The French Phase
103
Maupertuis
105
Diderot
107
Lamarck
109
Maupertuis from the Earthly Venus
113
Diderot from Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature
115
Lamarck from Zoological Philosophy
116
Rhyme And Reason
144
Darwin and Wallace Evolutionary Convergence
152
Childhood
153
Education
154
Voyages
156
The Conception Of Evolution By Natural Selection
160
Darwin and Wallace On the Tendency of Species to Form Varieties and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection
171
An Axiom To Grind
188
Darwinism is Dead Long Live NeoDarwinism
193
Weismann
195
Mendel
197
Haldane
202
Darwin from The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication
207
Weismann from Essays upon Heredity and Kindred Biological Problems
209
Mendel from Experiments on Plant Hybrids
212
Haldane from The Causes of Evolution
224
The Art Of Science
228
Modern Times Marxism Lysenkoism and Sociobiology
232
Lysenko
236
Wilson
241
Lysenko from The Science of Biology Today
251
Wilson from Sociobiology
258
Getting Bad Marx In Science
262
Notes
266
Bibliography
302
Index
331
Copyright

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About the author (1981)

C. Leon Harris is Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at the State University of New York College, Plattsburgh.

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