Nash, Richard (Author)
William Keith Brooks was an American zoologist at Johns Hopkins University from 1876 until his death in 1908. Over the course of his career, Brooks staunchly defended Darwinism, arguing for the centrality of natural selection in evolutionary theory at a time when alternative theories, such as neo-Lamarckism, grew prominent in American biology. In his book The Law of Heredity (1883), Brooks addressed problems raised by Darwin's theory of pangenesis. In modifying and developing Darwin's pangenesis, Brooks proposed a new theory of heredity that sought to avoid the pitfalls of Darwin's hypothesis. In so doing he strengthened Darwin's theory of natural selection by undermining arguments for the inheritance of acquired characteristics. In later attacks on neo-Lamarckism, Brooks consistently defended Darwin's theory of natural selection on logical grounds, continued to challenge the idea of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, and argued that natural selection best explained a wide range of adaptations. Finally, he critiqued Galton's statistical view of heredity and argued that Galton had resurrected an outmoded typological concept of species, one which Darwin and other naturalists had shown to be incorrect. Brooks's ideas resemble the “biological species concept” of the twentieth century, as developed by evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr and others. The late-nineteenth century was not a period of total “eclipse” of Darwinism, as biologists and historians have hitherto seen it. Although the “Modern Synthesis” refers to the reconciliation of post-Mendelian genetics with evolution by natural selection, we might adjust our understanding of how the synthesis developed by seeing it as the culmination of a longer discussion that extends back to the late-nineteenth century.
...More
Chapter
Massimo Bernardi;
Adriana Bellati;
Michele Menegon;
(2015)
La specie tra evoluzione e conservazione
(/isis/citation/CBB690125746/)
Article
Mallet, James;
(2010)
Why Was Darwin's View of Species Rejected by Twentieth Century Biologists?
(/isis/citation/CBB001252809/)
Article
Hall, Brian K.;
(2006)
“Evolutionist and Missionary,” the Reverend John Thomas Gulick (1832--1923). Part II. Coincident or Ontogenetic Selection---The Baldwin Effect
(/isis/citation/CBB001230143/)
Thesis
Pearce, Trevor Richard;
(2010)
“A Perfect Chaos”: Organism-Environment Interaction and the Causal Factors of Evolution
(/isis/citation/CBB001562740/)
Article
Hall, Brian K.;
(2006)
“Evolutionist and Missionary,” the Reverend John Thomas Gulick (1832--1923). Part I: Cumulative Segregation---Geographical Isolation
(/isis/citation/CBB001230142/)
Book
Jones, Jeannette Eileen;
Sharp, Patrick B.;
(2010)
Darwin in Atlantic Cultures: Evolutionary Visions of Race, Gender, and Sexuality
(/isis/citation/CBB001033825/)
Article
Richards, Robert J.;
(2012)
Darwin's Principles of Divergence and Natural Selection: Why Fodor Was Almost Right
(/isis/citation/CBB001221609/)
Article
Haufe, Chris;
(2012)
Darwin's Laws
(/isis/citation/CBB001221610/)
Article
Bowler, Peter J.;
(2014)
Francis Galton's Saltationism and the Ambiguities of Selection
(/isis/citation/CBB001421642/)
Article
Schuller, Kyla;
(2012)
Taxonomies of Feeling: The Epistemology of Sentimentalism in Late-Nineteenth-Century Racial and Sexual Science
(/isis/citation/CBB001201815/)
Article
Marina Mogilner;
(2020)
The Science of Empire: Darwinism, Human Diversity, and Russian Physical Anthropology
(/isis/citation/CBB533688273/)
Chapter
Engels, Eve-Marie;
(2009)
Charles Darwins geheimnisvolle Revolution
(/isis/citation/CBB001023713/)
Book
Ruse, Michael;
Travis, Joseph;
(2009)
Evolution: The First Four Billion Years
(/isis/citation/CBB001232307/)
Book
Stott, Rebecca;
(2003)
Darwin and the Barnacle
(/isis/citation/CBB000320242/)
Book
Gardiner, Brian;
Milner, Richard;
Morris, Mary;
(2008)
Survival of the Fittest: A Special Issue of the Linnean Celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the Darwin-Wallace Theory of Evolution
(/isis/citation/CBB001035140/)
Book
Brzezinski Prestes, Maria Elice;
Martins, Lilian Al-Chueyr Pereira;
Stefano, Waldir;
(2006)
Filosofia e História da Biologia 1
(/isis/citation/CBB000820181/)
Article
Daniel J. Molter;
(2022)
Bivalent Selection and Graded Darwinian Individuality
(/isis/citation/CBB094549170/)
Article
Adam Krashniak;
Ehud Lamm;
(2021)
Francis Galton’s Regression Towards Mediocrity and the Stability of Types
(/isis/citation/CBB928770929/)
Article
John Beatty;
(2019)
The Creativity of Natural Selection? Part II: The Synthesis and Since
(/isis/citation/CBB067118452/)
Book
Brush, Stephen G.;
(2009)
Choosing Selection: The Revival of Natural Selection in Anglo-American Evolutionary Biology, 1930--1970
(/isis/citation/CBB001020903/)
Be the first to comment!