Life Sciences Commons^™

The Folklore Of Flowers, Lisa Karen Miller

DLPS Faculty Publications

This presentation was prepared for WKU's Society for Lifelong Learning. It relates history and folklore of a variety of flowers, including their use in folk medicine, as food, and other stories and beliefs.

Natural Gardening, Lisa Karen Miller

DLPS Faculty Publications

This presentation features methods of natural and organic gardening that preclude the use of harmful pesticides and herbicides.

The Folklore Of Herbs, Lisa Karen Miller

DLPS Faculty Publications

Take a walk through the herb gardens of history and find out what our ancestors knew (and thought they knew) about herbs and their uses for medicine, beauty, and even love. The presentation compares ancient beliefs to current scientific evidence and reveals the places where they intersect.

'In' Or 'As' Space?: A Model Of Complexity, With Philosophical, Simulatory, And Empirical Ramifications, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

A General Systems model based on ideas originating with the writings of Benedict de Spinoza is described, starting with its philosophical underpinnings, and proceeding on to its relation to modern systems concepts, including attempts to simulate the relationships posed, and measure real world structures. Central to the idea is the notion that spatial extension may not have a prior existence, but emerges only through an entropy maximization process in which information and energy exchange is balanced among some limited number of subsystems that in sum comprise any given functioning complex system. Related published empiricism concerning geographical/geological systems – the hypsometry …

Genetic Genealogy: What Every Librarian Should Know, Rosemary L. Meszaros, Katherine Pennavaria

DLPS Faculty Publications

The past few years television, podcasts, and blogs across the Internet promoted the role of DNA testing in genealogy. But what do you really get, and is it worth the price? We discuss the logistics of DNA testing as it relates to genealogy and take a hard look at the legal issues involved in genealogy’s hottest topic.

Wallace And Incipient Structures: A World Of "More Recondite" Influences, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

Alfred Russel Wallace is well-known for his co-discovery of the principle of natural selection. Natural selection is usually considered a process, but it is not clear that Wallace regarded it in exactly these terms. In fact he more likely thought of the relationships involved as representing what we would now term a “state space,” a negative feedback loop wherein populations are maintained at healthy levels through elimination of the unfit. Both before and after the advent of natural selection Wallace clung to the idea that “more recondite forces” were shaping the nature and direction of evolution; this is especially evident …

Early Humboldtian Influences On Alfred Russel Wallace's Scheme Of Nature [Presented At The Alfred Russel Wallace And His Legacy Royal Society Of London Meeting, 21 October 2013], Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

Alfred Russel Wallace’s 1858 Ternate paper on natural selection is a famous work in the history of science. Beyond his co-discovery of the principle, moreover, Wallace is known for a large number of early applications of the idea, both to biological and biogeographical subjects. Yet how much do we really know about Wallace’s own evolution of thought, and his actual intentions before his views were swallowed up by the inertia of Darwin’s revolution? A number of differences between Wallace’s and Darwin’s views are apparent and have been much treated over the years, but related discussions dwell more on effects than …

Wallace On Natural Selection: What Did He Really Have In Mind?, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Further Look At The 1858 Wallace-Darwin Mail Delivery Question, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

Recent investigations have led to a conclusion that Alfred Russel Wallace probably mailed his ‘Ternate’ paper on natural selection to Darwin a month later than some have thought, thus freeing Darwin from possible accusations of plagiarism. Further examination of the question suggests this conclusion is premature, as the evidence in favor of the later mailing date appears to be shakier than first thought.

Wallace: The Review, And Wallace: The Preview, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

In this essay commemorating the one hundred year anniversary of his death, Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) is remembered for his main contributions to biogeography, and pointed to as a possible source of inspiration for future work in that field. As one of the science’s “fathers,” Wallace established both methods for study and a long-lived geographical systemization of animal distribution patterns. His efforts, moreover, may yet have the potential to inspire further new studies in the subject.

"In Space" Or "As Space"?: A New Model, Charles H. Smith, Megan Derr

DLPS Faculty Publications

In this analysis natural systems are posed to subsystemize in a manner facilitating both structured information/energy sharing and an entropy maximization process projecting a three-dimensional, spatial, outcome. Numerical simulations were first carried out to determine whether n × n input-output matrices could, once entropymaximized, project a three-dimensional Euclidean metric. Only 4 × 4 matrices could; a small proportion passed the test. Larger proportions passed when grouped random patterns on and within two- and three-dimensional forms were tested. Topographical patterns within 31 stream basin systems in the state of Kentucky, USA, were then similarly investigated, anticipating that the spatial configuration of …

Some Biogeographers, Evolutionists And Ecologists: Chrono-Biographical Sketches, Charles H. Smith, Joshua Woleben, Carubie Rodgers

DLPS Faculty Publications

Each name in the following list of naturalists is linked to a corresponding capsule "chrono-biographical" sketch of that individual prepared by the authors. Coverage extends from approximately 1950 backward in time as far as the eighteenth century; figures from all over the world are included (though there is admittedly a decided Anglo-American bias). The target subject here is biogeography, but this being a broad field there are many persons on the list who are better known as climatologists, zoologists, botanists, ecologists, oceanographers, paleontologists, etc.--in other words, who made their main reputations in cognate disciplines.

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Natural Selection: A Concept In Need Of Some Evolution?, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

In some respects natural selection is a quite simple theory, arrived at through the logical integration of three propositions (the presence of variation within natural populations, an absolutely limited resources base, and procreation capacities exceeding mere replacement numbers) whose individual truths can hardly be denied. Its relation to the larger subject of evolution, however, remains problematic. It is suggested here that a scaling-down of the meaning of natural selection to “the elimination of the unfit,” as originally intended by Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), might ultimately prove a more effective means of relating it to larger-scale, longer-term, evolutionary processes.

Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 3: Two Early Publications, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 4: Contributions To The Garden, 1875-1912, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Profiles In Science For Science Librarians: "What Lives Where, And Why": Alfred Russel Wallace, And The Field Of Biogeography, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

Biogeography, the study of animal and plant distribution, has a history extending back to at least the eighteenth century. But it was not until the work of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in the mid-nineteenth century that it really came into its own as a science. Darwin’s importance notwithstanding, it was really Wallace who put the field on the map, and many of today’s research threads can be traced back to his influence. This article provides a summary review of Wallace’s life and work and biogeography as a field of study, including Wallace’s role in its development.

Alfred Russel Wallace, Geographer, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

Among the great explorers and thinkers who advanced geography in the nineteenth century and helped it evolve into the subject that exists today is a man who is not always connected with the field, Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913). Most commonly recognized as ‘the other man’ in the history of the discovery of the principle of natural selection, Wallace’s commitment to the study of landscape and its physical, biological, and human elements was lifelong, and resulted in a wide range of contributions to biogeography, physical geography, human geography, and ethnography. In this year of the double anniversaries of Charles Darwin’s birth …

Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 2 : The Spelling "Russel", And Wallace's Date Of Birth, Charles H. Smith, James Williams, Jonathan Stephens, George Beccaloni

DLPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 1 : Authorship Of Two Early Works, Charles H. Smith, Michael Taylor, Gerrell M. Drawhorn

DLPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

What's In A Word? On Reading--And Misreading--Alfred Russel Wallace, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Alfred Russel Wallace, Journalist, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

'Hussel,' 'Bussel' And 'Kussel,' Or, Using Google Books To Stalk The Elusive Alfred Russel Wallace, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Wallace, Spiritualism, And Beyond: "Change," Or "No Change"?, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Reflections On Wallace, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

An unpublished paper has recently come to light, which shows that even at an early age, Alfred Russel Wallace was bold enough to approach the scientific establishment with his ideas.

Alfred Russel Wallace: Past And Future [Guest Editorial], Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

The naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) has for many years been standing in the shadow of his more famed co-discoverer of the principle of natural selection, Charles Darwin. Despite outward similarities between the two men’s formulation of the principle, Wallace had fit his appreciation of natural selection into views on evolution that were quite different from Darwin’s. A closer examination of what Wallace had in mind suggests a model of process in which natural selection per se acts as the negative feedback mechanism (actually, a ‘statespace’) in the relation between population and environment, and environmental engagement as made possible by …

Alfred Russel Wallace: A Capsule Biography, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Further Additions To The Bibliography Of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Wallace, Alfred Russel (1823-1913), Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Introduction (To Volume One Of Alfred Russel Wallace: Writings On Evolution, 1843-1912)*, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Biodiversity: The World Of Life, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.