Novak, Jakub (Author)
The topic of this dissertation is the work and careers of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823- 1913) and August Weismann (1834-1914). A Briton and a German, they were pre-eminent evolutionary biologists of their generations. Each contributed an accomplishment that became seminal for modern biology: Wallace was a co-discoverer of natural selection, while Weismann pioneered the concept of the "continuity of germ-plasm," a theoretical principle that placed the neo-Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characters out of bounds. This account provides a long biographical view of these accomplishments, examining in detail how Wallace and Weismann worked toward them, and how the principles they discovered affected their subsequent work. However, the story does not end there. Some of Wallace's and Weismann's views departed from the theoretical principles they became famous for, or at least from the way those principles are understood today: in 1868, Wallace proposed that important evolutionary processes were guided by spirit "intelligences;" in 1895, Weismann proposed a supplementary concept of "germinal selection" that re-introduced the inheritance of acquired characters into evolutionary theory. Taking into account these seeming departures, as well as a variety of other projects Wallace and Weismann worked on, makes it possible to define their work in a way that transcends their signature discoveries. Wallace emerges as a biologist whose work amalgamated passions for natural history, natural law, and moral and social philosophy; Weismann as a brilliant speculative thinker intent on precisely calibrating the links between the biological processes of development, heredity, and variation. A special emphasis is placed on Wallace's and Weismann's work with Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), a subject for which they both had a special fondness. They believed Lepidoptera offered an especially suitable material for evolutionary research. As both (coincidentally) expressed it in poetic terms, the story of evolution was "written on butterfly wings." Yet the story, as best they could read it, did not fully conform to a neo-Darwinian script. Butterfly wings were icons less of idealized evolution than of the theoretical challenges the self-avowed "Darwinians" Wallace and Weismann had to meet, sometimes at the cost of exploring and advocating principles that would be later judged un-Darwinian.
...MoreDescription Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 69/10 (2009). Pub. no. AAT 3332427.
Article
Churchill, Frederick B.;
(2010)
August Weismann Embraces the Protozoa
(/isis/citation/CBB001022396/)
Book
Weismann, August;
(2003)
The Germ-Plasm: A Theory of Heredity
(/isis/citation/CBB000330962/)
Chapter
Pereira Martins, Lilian A.-C.;
(2000)
Alguns aspectos da teoria de evolução de August Weismann
(/isis/citation/CBB000101387/)
Article
Canseco, Juan;
(2006)
Conflitto e confronto: l'evoluzionismo materialista di Darwin e l'evoluzionismo spiritualista di Wallace
(/isis/citation/CBB001221434/)
Article
Vetter, Jeremy;
(2010)
The Unmaking of an Anthropologist: Wallace Returns from the Field, 1862--70
(/isis/citation/CBB001022699/)
Book
Flannery, Michael A.;
(2011)
Alfred Russel Wallace: A Rediscovered Life
(/isis/citation/CBB001252218/)
Book
Patrick Armstrong;
(2019)
Alfred Russel Wallace
(/isis/citation/CBB323050340/)
Essay Review
Endersby, Jim;
(2003)
Escaping Darwin's Shadow
(/isis/citation/CBB000340704/)
Book
Fichman, Martin;
(2004)
An Elusive Victorian: The Evolution of Alfred Russel Wallace
(/isis/citation/CBB000330938/)
Book
Benton, Ted;
(2013)
Alfred Russel Wallace: Explorer, Evolutionist, Public Intellectual - a Thinker for Our Own Times?
(/isis/citation/CBB001202298/)
Book
Charles H. Smith;
James T. Costa;
David A. Collard;
(2019)
An Alfred Russel Wallace Companion
(/isis/citation/CBB858645244/)
Book
Raby, Peter;
(2001)
Alfred Russel Wallace: A Life
(/isis/citation/CBB000330247/)
Book
Slotten, Ross A.;
(2004)
Heretic in Darwin's Court: The Life of Alfred Russel Wallace
(/isis/citation/CBB000470191/)
Article
Dröscher, Ariane;
(2015)
Of Germ-Plasm and Zymoplasm: August Weismann, Carlo Emery and the Debate about the Transmission of Acquired Characteristics
(/isis/citation/CBB001510263/)
Article
Kampourakis, Kostas;
(2013)
Mendel and the Path to Genetics: Portraying Science as a Social Process
(/isis/citation/CBB001252323/)
Article
Polizello, Andreza;
Pereira Martins, Lilian Al-Chueyr;
(2012)
Modelos microscópicos de herança no século XIX
(/isis/citation/CBB001212015/)
Chapter
Weissman, Charlotte;
(2011)
Germinal Selection: A Weismannian Solution to Lamarckian Problematics
(/isis/citation/CBB001500085/)
Article
David Ceccarelli;
(2019)
Between Social and Biological Heredity: Cope and Baldwin on Evolution, Inheritance, and Mind
(/isis/citation/CBB525461961/)
Article
Winther, Rasmus G.;
(2001)
August Weismann on Germ-Plasm Variation
(/isis/citation/CBB000100504/)
Article
Weissman, Charlotte;
(2010)
The Origins of Species: The Debate between August Weismann and Moritz Wagner
(/isis/citation/CBB001022395/)
Be the first to comment!