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Articles 1 - 30 of 57
Full-Text Articles in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 30. Wallace A Theist? Part I., Charles H. Smith
Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 30. Wallace A Theist? Part I., Charles H. Smith
Faculty/Staff Personal Papers
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823−1913) has been portrayed as a ‘theist’ on a large number of occasions from his own time on to the present. In this, the first of a two part work, this assessment is questioned. In part one, the matter of Wallace’s personal philosophy and spiritual orientation is explored, the conclusion being that Wallace was a lifelong agnostic who can hardly be aligned with theism.
Machine Kinship: The Impossible Duet, Diana Sanchez
Machine Kinship: The Impossible Duet, Diana Sanchez
Masters Theses
Machine Kinship: The impossible duet What does it mean to vanish from earth when you are the last of your kind? In 1987 the Kauai OO was recorded singing his final song. It was meant to be a duet, but as the last of his kind his song hangs in the air, unanswered. The other half of the duet is forever lost. Built to sing at dawn, birds must wake up earlier to hear each other before human chaos interferes. So here, it is always almost sunrise. As a parallel past-future response, the last birdsong was fed into a machine …
The Biological Influence Of Stories & The Importance Of Reading Fiction, Elise N. Good, Katharine Schaab
The Biological Influence Of Stories & The Importance Of Reading Fiction, Elise N. Good, Katharine Schaab
The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research
Fictional narratives and stories have persisted throughout human history. However, perhaps due to a bias that stories offered nothing more than entertainment for the reader or perhaps that they are not useful outside of the realm of academia, the research within science academia has been lacking in literature on why these narratives have endured. Unfortunately, due to the lack of conversation across disciplines, particularly those of science and literature, this subject has not been thoroughly investigated through an interdisciplinary lens. Within this paper, the goal is to analyze the benefits of fictional narratives through biological, evolutionary, and neuropsychological perspectives. Research …
Empathy And Fairness In Nonhuman Primates: Evolutionary Bases Of Human Morality, Colt Halter
Empathy And Fairness In Nonhuman Primates: Evolutionary Bases Of Human Morality, Colt Halter
Intuition: The BYU Undergraduate Journal of Psychology
Darwin offered an evolutionary perspective on the origins of human morality, suggesting that humans share a biological foundation with nonhuman primates. This paper reviews the current literature on moral and prosocial behaviors of nonhuman primates, specifically examining whether nonhuman primates exhibit behaviors that are typical of empathy and fairness. The literature documents that nonhuman primates exhibit empathetic behaviors regarding emotional contagion and sympathetic concern. There is also evidence that nonhuman primates have a sense of fairness, seen in their reciprocal behaviors and aversion to inequity. Taken together, this suggests that there are evolutionary roots of morality, lending empirical support to …
Martin Luther King Jr. And Ernest Everett Just - On Evolution Of Ethical Behavior, Theodore Walker
Martin Luther King Jr. And Ernest Everett Just - On Evolution Of Ethical Behavior, Theodore Walker
Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. prescribed an evolutionary advance in ethical behavior: the total “abolition of poverty” and the abolition of war throughout “the world house.” Cell biologist Ernest Everett Just advanced the idea that human ethical behavior evolved from cellular origins.
Also, astrobiologists Chandra Wickramasinghe and Sir Fred Hoyle advanced the idea of cosmic biology, including stellar evolution and cosmic evolution. From cells to humans to stars and cosmology, evolutionary natural science converges with natural theology.
The Bioethical Significance Of “The Origin Of Man’S Ethical Behavior” (October 1941, Unpublished) By Ernest Everett Just And Hedwig Anna Schnetzler Just, Theodore Walker Jr.
The Bioethical Significance Of “The Origin Of Man’S Ethical Behavior” (October 1941, Unpublished) By Ernest Everett Just And Hedwig Anna Schnetzler Just, Theodore Walker Jr.
Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science
Abstract –
E. E. Just (1883-1941) is an acknowledged “pioneer” in cell biology, and he is perhaps the pioneer in study of egg cell fertilization. Here we discover that Just also made pioneering contributions to general biology and evolutionary bioethics.
Within Just’s published contributions to observational cell biology, there are substantial fragments of his theory of ethical behavior, a theory with roots in cell biology. In addition to such previously available fragments, Just’s fully developed theory is now available. This recently discovered unpublished book-length manuscript argues for the biological origins of ethical behavior (evolving from cells to humans, within a …
Sentience Is The Foundation Of Animal Rights, Michael L. Woodruff
Sentience Is The Foundation Of Animal Rights, Michael L. Woodruff
Animal Sentience
Chapman & Huffman argue that the cognitive differences between humans and nonhuman animals do not make humans superior to animals. I suggest that humans have domain-general cognitive abilities that make them superior in causing uniquely complex changes in the world not caused by any other species. The ability to conceive of and articulate a claim of rights is an example. However, possession of superior cognitive ability does not entitle humans to superior moral status. It is sentience, not cognitive complexity, that is the basis for the assignment of rights and the protections under the law that accompany them.
Octopi-Ing A Unique Niche In Comparative Psychology, Jennifer Vonk
Octopi-Ing A Unique Niche In Comparative Psychology, Jennifer Vonk
Animal Sentience
Mather’s work has been fundamental in informing scientists of the relatively mysterious behavior and cognition of an understudied group of animals – the cephalopods. This work helps to fill a gap in the comparative literature that has historically sought evidence for complex behavior only in species that are closely related to humans or share important ecological features such as social complexity.
Our Brains Make Us Out To Be Unique In Ways We Are Not, Matthew J. Criscione, Julian Paul Keenan
Our Brains Make Us Out To Be Unique In Ways We Are Not, Matthew J. Criscione, Julian Paul Keenan
Animal Sentience
Humans have long viewed themselves in a favorable light. This bias is consistent with a general pattern of self-enhancement. Neural systems in the medial prefrontal cortex underlie this way of thinking, which, even when false, may be beneficial for survival. It is hence not surprising that we often disregard contrary evidence in believing ourselves superior.
Selection Perception: Views On The Theory Of Evolution Among Residents Of Moshi, Tanzania, Robin Waterman
Selection Perception: Views On The Theory Of Evolution Among Residents Of Moshi, Tanzania, Robin Waterman
Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection
The theory of evolution is a major tenet of biological science and has many practical applications, particularly in agriculture, medicine, and conservation. Nevertheless, there is significant opposition to the theory and its incorporation into school curricula, largely on religious grounds. This disconnect between public opinion and scientific opinion has been studied at length in the US and to some extent in other industrialized nations, but little is known about the issue in other communities around the world. This paper will use the town of Moshi, Tanzania as a case study in community views and knowledge about the theory of evolution. …
Can They Suffer?, Todd K. Shackelford
Can They Suffer?, Todd K. Shackelford
Animal Sentience
We should treat sentient nonhuman animals as worthy of moral consideration, not because we share an evolutionary history with them, but because they can suffer. As Chapman & Huffman (2018) argue, humans are not uniquely disconnected from other species. We should minimize the suffering we inflict on sentient beings — whether human or nonhuman — not because they, too, are tool-makers or have sophisticated communication systems, but because they, too, can suffer, and suffering is bad.
Animal Suicide: An Account Worth Giving?, Irina Mikhalevich
Animal Suicide: An Account Worth Giving?, Irina Mikhalevich
Animal Sentience
Peña-Guzmán (2017) argues that empirical evidence and evolutionary theory compel us to treat the phenomenon of suicide as continuous in the animal kingdom. He defends a “continuist” account in which suicide is a multiply-realizable phenomenon characterized by self-injurious and self-annihilative behaviors. This view is problematic for several reasons. First, it appears to mischaracterize the Darwinian view that mind is continuous in nature. Second, by focusing only on surface-level features of behavior, it groups causally and etiologically disparate phenomena under a single conceptual umbrella, thereby reducing the account’s explanatory power. Third, it obscures existing analyses of suicide in biomedical ethics and …
The Solid & The Shifting: Darwinian Time, Evolutionary Form And The Greek Ideal In The Early Works Of Virginia Woolf, Joseph Monroe Kreutziger
The Solid & The Shifting: Darwinian Time, Evolutionary Form And The Greek Ideal In The Early Works Of Virginia Woolf, Joseph Monroe Kreutziger
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION
“The Solid & the Shifting”: Evolutionary Form, Darwinian Time, and the Greek Ideal in the Early Works of Virginia Woolf
By
Joseph Kreutziger
Doctor of Philosophy in English and American Literature
Washington University in St. Louis, 2017
Professors Melanie Micir, Robert Milder, Steven Meyer, Vincent Sherry, Zoe Stamatopoulou
_____________________________________________________________________
“Now is life very solid or very shifting?” Virginia Woolf asks in her diary of 1931, a question she claims haunts her in its contradictions. This dynamism between the solid and the shifting aspects of life and temporality is fundamental to an analysis of Woolf’s writing process. …
Human Evolution And Divine Agency, Alexandra Rakestraw
Human Evolution And Divine Agency, Alexandra Rakestraw
Dialogue & Nexus
Modern Christians often find themselves at a crossroads when confronted with the two predominant understandings of human and universal origins. Plain sense readings of Genesis lead many to believe in a historical six-day creation that occurred in the past ten thousand years while proponents on the other side of the spectrum use current scientific understanding to support a creation that occurs through evolutionary means. How one views human origins has a profound impact on one’s concept of how God works in the cosmos. In this paper, I will lay out a background to better understand the characters of Adam and …
Moral Awareness, Original Sin And The Atonement, Tanner Gregory
Moral Awareness, Original Sin And The Atonement, Tanner Gregory
Dialogue & Nexus
I will explore how evolution impacts the Christian notion of The Fall of man, and, ultimately, the atonement. Various theories of atonement in the Christian tradition generally assume universal and individual sinfulness in humanity. In some cases, this sinfulness is thought to be the result of a distinct moment of rebellion against God, and is transmitted to all of the descendants of Adam. Here, atonement involves Christ’s sacrifice as the means liberate humanity from the bondage of our sinful nature. Evolution collides with these traditional models. Instead of a creation originally void of death and later corrupted by sin, evolution …
Evolution: A Divine Interaction Between God And Creation, Hanna V. Larracas
Evolution: A Divine Interaction Between God And Creation, Hanna V. Larracas
Selected Honors Theses
The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework through relational theology for understanding the randomness evident in genetic variation which is an element within evolution. I propose that evolution can be incorporated into a theology of creation by placing evolution in context of the interaction of love between God and creation when interpreted through a framework of relational theology. Relational theology, as engaging God as primarily self-giving and holistically hospitable (towards God’s self in the Trinity and towards creation), provides space for a theological understanding of randomness genetic variation and mutation within the evolutionary process. Chapter 1 discusses …
The Emotional Brain Of Fish, Sonia Rey Planellas
The Emotional Brain Of Fish, Sonia Rey Planellas
Animal Sentience
Woodruff (2017) analyzes structural homologies and functional equivalences between the brains of mammals and fish to understand where sentience and social cognition might reside in teleosts. He compares neuroanatomical, neurophysiological and behavioural correlates. I discuss current advances in the study of fish cognitive abilities and emotions, and advocate an evolutionary approach to the underlying basis of sentience in teleosts.
Consciousness Is Not Inherent In But Emergent From Life, Jon Mallatt, Todd E. Feinberg
Consciousness Is Not Inherent In But Emergent From Life, Jon Mallatt, Todd E. Feinberg
Animal Sentience
Reber’s theory of the cellular basis of consciousness (CBC) is right to emphasize that we should study consciousness (sentience) in its simplest form, taking its evolution into account. However, not enough evidence is presented to support CBC’s unorthodox claim that even simple, one-celled organisms are conscious. As pointed out by other commentators, the CBC seems to be based on outdated ideas about evolution and does not acknowledge that consciousness could be an evolutionary novel feature. Such emergent features are abundant in living organisms. We review our own emergentist solution, in which consciousness evolved in the elaborating nervous systems of the …
Cognitive Continuity In Cognitive Dissonance, David R. Brodbeck, Madeleine I. R. Brodbeck
Cognitive Continuity In Cognitive Dissonance, David R. Brodbeck, Madeleine I. R. Brodbeck
Animal Sentience
Zentall’s (2016) model of cognitive dissonance is compatible with cognitive continuity between humans and nonhumans. It may help explain cognitive dissonance-like behavior in many species, including humans. It is also consistent with Tinbergen’s (1963) ‘four whys’ in ethological explanation.
Darwinian Evolutionary Theory And Constructions Of Race In Nazi Germany: A Literary And Cultural Analysis Of Darwin’S Works And Nazi Rhetoric, Emily M. Wollmuth
Darwinian Evolutionary Theory And Constructions Of Race In Nazi Germany: A Literary And Cultural Analysis Of Darwin’S Works And Nazi Rhetoric, Emily M. Wollmuth
Departmental Honors Projects
First published in 1856, Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species is one of the most impactful scientific writings in history. While the influence of Darwinian evolutionary theory on historical events has been widely studied, no single work of scholarship has previously combined close reading of Origin’s representations of “race” with analysis of how those constructions of “racial” difference are (mis)translated across the cultural discourses of the eugenics movement and Nazi Germany. Through comparative cultural studies and close literary analysis of Hitler’s Mein Kampf and Darwin’s works—including Origin, Descent of Man, and Voyage of the Beagle, this paper examines how evolutionary …
G:, Taylor Lafe Cantrall
G:, Taylor Lafe Cantrall
Senior Projects Spring 2017
Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.
How Could Consciousness Emerge From Adaptive Functioning?, Max Velmans
How Could Consciousness Emerge From Adaptive Functioning?, Max Velmans
Animal Sentience
The sudden appearance of consciousness that Reber posits in creatures with flexible cell walls and motility rather than non-flexible cells walls and no motility involves an evolutionary discontinuity. This kind of “miracle” is required by all “discontinuity” theories of consciousness. To avoid miraculous emergence, one may need to consider continuity theories, which accept that different forms of consciousness and material functioning co-evolve but assume the existence of consciousness to be primal in the way that matter and energy are assumed to be primal in physics.
“Cellular Basis Of Consciousness”: Not Just Radical But Wrong, Brian Key
“Cellular Basis Of Consciousness”: Not Just Radical But Wrong, Brian Key
Animal Sentience
Reber (2016) attempts to resuscitate an obscure and outdated hypothesis referred to as the “cellular basis of consciousness” that was originally formulated by the author nearly twenty years ago. This hypothesis proposes that any organism with flexible cell walls, a sensitivity to its surrounds, and the capacity for locomotion will possess the biological foundations of mind and consciousness. Reber seeks to reduce consciousness to a fundamental property inherent to individual cells rather than to centralised nervous systems. This commentary shows how this hypothesis is based on supposition, false premises and a misunderstanding of evolutionary theory. The cellular basis of consciousness …
Beginnings: Physics, Sentience And Luca, Carolyn A. Ristau
Beginnings: Physics, Sentience And Luca, Carolyn A. Ristau
Animal Sentience
According to Reber’s model, Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC), sentience had its origins in a unicellular organism and is an inherent property of living, mobile organic forms. He argues by analogy to basic physical forces which he considers to be inherent properties of matter; I suggest that they are instead the stuff of scientific investigation in physics. I find no convincing argument that sentience had to begin in endogenously mobile cells, a criterial attribute of the originator cell(s)for sentience according to CBC. Non-endogenously mobile cells, (i.e., plants or precursors) in a moving environment would suffice. Despite my concerns and the …
Fish Pain: An Inconvenient Truth, Culum Brown
Fish Pain: An Inconvenient Truth, Culum Brown
Culum Brown, PhD
Whether fish feel pain is a hot political topic. The consequences of our denial are huge given the billions of fish that are slaughtered annually for human consumption. The economic costs of changing our commercial fishery harvest practices are also likely to be great. Key outlines a structure-function analogy of pain in humans, tries to force that template on the rest of the vertebrate kingdom, and fails. His target article has so far elicited 34 commentaries from scientific experts from a broad range of disciplines; only three of these support his position. The broad consensus from the scientific community is …
Slavery, Welfare And The Sixth Extinction, Stephen R. Clark
Slavery, Welfare And The Sixth Extinction, Stephen R. Clark
Animal Sentience
Ng’s laudable concern for animal welfare would be welcome to any sensible slave-owner wishing to preserve his investment. What welfarism – for slave-owners and animal husbandmen – fails to call into question is whether we have the right to breed, hold captive and kill animals at all: If it matters, as the widely recognized slogan of ‘Five Freedoms’ suggests, that animals have the chance to live a ‘normal’ life, then more matters than keeping them ‘happy’ in subjection. Their lives – and also the lives of wild things – also deserve respect.
Fish Pain: An Inconvenient Truth, Culum Brown
Fish Pain: An Inconvenient Truth, Culum Brown
Animal Sentience
Whether fish feel pain is a hot political topic. The consequences of our denial are huge given the billions of fish that are slaughtered annually for human consumption. The economic costs of changing our commercial fishery harvest practices are also likely to be great. Key outlines a structure-function analogy of pain in humans, tries to force that template on the rest of the vertebrate kingdom, and fails. His target article has so far elicited 34 commentaries from scientific experts from a broad range of disciplines; only three of these support his position. The broad consensus from the scientific community is …
Pain And Fish Welfare, Eliane Gonçalves-De-Freitas
Pain And Fish Welfare, Eliane Gonçalves-De-Freitas
Animal Sentience
The evolutionary approach of Key’s (2016) target article, generically comparing humans with fish of all kinds, is simplistic. The author ignores published research on structural and molecular aspects of pain in fish. The target article reads more like a selective polemic against fish welfare than an even-handed analysis.
Pain-Capable Neural Substrates May Be Widely Available In The Animal Kingdom, Edgar T. Walters
Pain-Capable Neural Substrates May Be Widely Available In The Animal Kingdom, Edgar T. Walters
Animal Sentience
Neural and behavioral evidence from diverse species indicates that some forms of pain may be generated by coordinated activity in networks far smaller than the cortical pain matrix in mammals. Studies on responses to injury in squid suggest that simplification of the circuitry necessary for conscious pain might be achieved by restricting awareness to very limited information about a noxious event, possibly only to the fact that injury has occurred, ignoring information that is much less important for survival, such as the location of the injury. Some of the neural properties proposed to be critical for conscious pain in mammals …
Conservative Evolution, Sustainability, And Culture, Gábor Náray-Szabó
Conservative Evolution, Sustainability, And Culture, Gábor Náray-Szabó
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "Conservative Evolution, Sustainability, and Culture" Gábor Náray-Szabó argues that evolution is conservative in the sense that throughout the history of the universe old constructs like elementary particles, amino acids, and living cells remained conserved while the world evolved/evolves in complexity. A similar process can be observed in cultural evolution as components of society and culture continue to evolve. Considering the increasing pressure on natural resources by material consumption, a close alliance between past, present, and future generations is unavoidable and thus Náray-Szabó posits that concepts of conservative evolution and sustainability are related. However, in order to avoid …