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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Darwinian Controversies: An Historiographical Recounting, David Depew Dec 2009

Darwinian Controversies: An Historiographical Recounting, David Depew

David J Depew

This essay reviews key controversies in the history of the Darwinian research tradition: the Wilberforce-Huxley debate in 1860, early twentieth-century debates about the heritability of acquired characteristics and the consistency of Mendelian genetics with natural selection; the 1925 Scopes trial about teaching evolution; tensions about race, culture, and eugenics at the 1959 centenary celebration Darwin’s Origin of Species; adaptationism and its critics in the Sociobiology debate of 1970s and, more recently, Evolutionary Psychology; and current disputes about Intelligent Design. These controversies, I argue, are etched into public memory because they occur at the emotionally charged boundaries between public-political, technical-scientific, and …


Inheriting Inherit The Wind: Debating The Play As A Teaching Tool, Edward Larson, David Depew, Ronald Isetti Dec 2007

Inheriting Inherit The Wind: Debating The Play As A Teaching Tool, Edward Larson, David Depew, Ronald Isetti

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


Darwinism, Design And Complex Systems Dynamics, David Depew, Bruce Weber Dec 2003

Darwinism, Design And Complex Systems Dynamics, David Depew, Bruce Weber

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


Developmental Systems, Darwinian Evolution,And The Unity Of Science, Bruce Weber, David Depew Dec 2000

Developmental Systems, Darwinian Evolution,And The Unity Of Science, Bruce Weber, David Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


The Baldwin Effect: An Archeology, David Depew Dec 1999

The Baldwin Effect: An Archeology, David Depew

David J Depew

Abstract: “The Baldwin effect” stands for a wide variety of ways in which learn ing can be conceived as guiding adap tive evolution ary change. An analysis of the history of this notion reveals that it does not reliably refer either to a theory-neutral empirical phenomenon or to a single theoretical hypothesis. On the contrary, articulations of the general idea depend on distinctive, but in commensurable, theoretical backgrounds. In reconstructing the conceptual history of the Baldwin effect I hope to support contemporary explorations of idea by encouraging the articulation of new theoretical frameworks in which it might make sense. I …


Darwinism And Developmentalism: Prospects For Convergence, David Depew Dec 1997

Darwinism And Developmentalism: Prospects For Convergence, David Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


Darwinism Evolving: Systems Dynamics And The Genealogy Of Natural Selection, David Depew, Bruce Weber Dec 1994

Darwinism Evolving: Systems Dynamics And The Genealogy Of Natural Selection, David Depew, Bruce Weber

David J Depew

Darwinism Evolving examines the Darwinian research tradition in evolutionary biology from its inception to its turbulent present, arguing that recent advances in modeling the nonlinear dynamics of complex systems may well catalyze the next major phase of Darwinian evolutionism.While Darwinism has successfully resisted reduction to physics, the authors point out that it has from the outset developed and applied its core explanatory concept, natural selection, by borrowing models from dynamics, a branch of physics. The recent development of complex systems dynamics may afford Darwinism yet another occasion to expand its explanatory power.Darwinism's use of dynamical models has received insufficient attention …


Evolution, Ethics, And The Complexity Revolution, David Depew, Bruce Weber Dec 1994

Evolution, Ethics, And The Complexity Revolution, David Depew, Bruce Weber

David J Depew

No abstract provided.


Evolution At A Crossroads: The New Biology And The New Philosophy Of Science, David Depew, Bruce Weber Dec 1984

Evolution At A Crossroads: The New Biology And The New Philosophy Of Science, David Depew, Bruce Weber

David J Depew

No abstract provided.