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Selected Works

Biology

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Full-Text Articles in Intellectual History

From Aristotle’S Teleology To Darwin’S Genealogy: The Stamp Of Inutility, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015 (Pdf: Introduction)., Marco Solinas Apr 2015

From Aristotle’S Teleology To Darwin’S Genealogy: The Stamp Of Inutility, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015 (Pdf: Introduction)., Marco Solinas

Marco Solinas

Starting with Aristotle and moving on to Darwin, Marco Solinas outlines the basic steps from the birth, establishment and later rebirth of the traditional view of living beings, and its overturning by evolutionary revolution. The classic framework devised by Aristotle was still dominant in the 17th Century world of Galileo, Harvey and Ray, and remained hegemonic until the time of Lamarck and Cuvier in the 19th Century. Darwin's breakthrough thus takes on the dimensions of an abandonment of the traditional finalistic theory. It was a transition exemplified in the morphological analysis of useless parts, such as the sightless eyes of …

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The Biological Inferiority Of The Undeserving Poor, Michael B. Katz Dec 2012

The Biological Inferiority Of The Undeserving Poor, Michael B. Katz

Michael B. Katz

This article excavates the definition of poor people as biologically inferior. It not only documents its persistence over time but emphasizes three themes. First, the concept rises and falls in prominence in response to institutional and programmatic failure. It offers a convenient explanation for why the optimism of reformers proved illusory or why social problems remained refractory despite efforts to eliminate them. Second, its initial formulation and reformulation rely on bridging concepts that try to parse the distance between heredity and environment through a kind of neo-Lamarkianism. These early bridges invariably crumble. Third, hereditarian ideas always have been supported by …

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