Author: Marsha Driscoll Publisher: UNC Press Books ISBN: 1469683520 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 350
Book Description
The 1859 publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species evoked a spectrum of responses, from fervent endorsement to vehement opposition, because of the theory of natural selection's implications for Western theological and cultural orthodoxy. During the 1860 Oxford gathering of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Thomas Huxley and Samuel Wilberforce engaged in a riveting and widely publicized debate, dissecting the merits and drawbacks of Darwin's theory. Their clash ignited a multifaceted discourse that reverberated through the intellectual circles of Victorian Britain, culminating in the Royal Society's deliberations over whether to bestow upon Darwin the esteemed Copley Medal, its highest honor. In this second edition of Charles Darwin, the Copley Medal, and the Rise of Naturalism, 1861–1864, students engage in debates within the Royal Society that navigate the tension between natural and teleological views. The student roles delve into topics like inductive reasoning, science in industrial society, social reform, and women's rights, all centered around the Copley deliberations and the societal impact of Darwin's evolutionary theory.
Author: Marsha Driscoll Publisher: Prentice Hall ISBN: Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 180
Book Description
Charles Darwin, the Copley Medal, and the Rise of Naturalism, 1862—1864,thrusts students into the intellectual ferment of Victorian England just after publication ofThe Origin of Species. Part of the “Reacting to the Past” series, this text consists of a game in which students experience firsthand the tension between natural and teleological views of the world--manifested especially in reconsideration of the design argument commonly known through William Paley’sNatural Theology or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity(1802). Note: Reacting to the Past has been developed under the auspices of Barnard College. It won the Theodore Hesburgh Award (2004), funded by the TIAA-CREF, for pedagogical innovation, and it has also received substantial support from the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE) of the U.S. Department of Education. With this support, Barnard College hosts a series of conferences throughout the nation at which interested faculty and administrators learn about “Reacting” by playing miniversions of the games.
Author: Marsha Driscoll Publisher: UNC Press Books ISBN: 1469672286 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 331
Book Description
Since its appearance in 1859, Darwin's long-awaited treatise in "genetic biology" had received reviews both favorable and damning. Thomas Huxley and Samuel Wilberforce presented arguments for and against the theory in a dramatic and widely publicized face-off at the 1860 meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Oxford. Their encounter sparked a vigorous, complex debate that touched on a host of issues and set the stage for the Royal Society's consideration of whether they ought to award Darwin the Copley Medal, the society's most prestigious prize. While the action takes place in meetings of the Royal Society, Great Britain's most important scientific body, a parallel and influential public argument smolders over the nature of science and its relationship to modern life in an industrial society. A significant component of the Darwin game is the tension between natural and teleological views of the world, manifested especially in reconsideration of the design argument, commonly known through William Paley's Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity(1802) and updated by Wilberforce. But the scientific debate also percolated through a host of related issues: the meaning and purposes of inductive and hypothetical speculation in science; the professionalization of science; the implications of Darwinism for social reform, racial theories, and women's rights; and the evolving concept of causation in sciences and its implications for public policy. Because of the revolutionary potential of Darwin's ideas, the connections between science and nearly every other aspect of culture became increasingly evident. Scientific papers and laboratory demonstrations presented in Royal Society meetings during the game provide the backdrop for momentous conflict, conflict that continues to shape our perceptions of modern science.
Author: Susan Scott Parrish Publisher: UNC Press Books ISBN: 0807838896 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 342
Book Description
Colonial America presented a new world of natural curiosities for settlers as well as the London-based scientific community. In American Curiosity, Susan Scott Parrish examines how various peoples in the British colonies understood and represented the natural world around them from the late sixteenth century through the eighteenth. Parrish shows how scientific knowledge about America, rather than flowing strictly from metropole to colony, emerged from a horizontal exchange of information across the Atlantic. Delving into an understudied archive of letters, Parrish uncovers early descriptions of American natural phenomena as well as clues to how people in the colonies construed their own identities through the natural world. Although hierarchies of gender, class, institutional learning, place of birth or residence, and race persisted within the natural history community, the contributions of any participant were considered valuable as long as they supplied novel data or specimens from the American side of the Atlantic. Thus Anglo-American nonelites, women, Indians, and enslaved Africans all played crucial roles in gathering and relaying new information to Europe. Recognizing a significant tradition of nature writing and representation in North America well before the Transcendentalists, American Curiosity also enlarges our notions of the scientific Enlightenment by looking beyond European centers to find a socially inclusive American base to a true transatlantic expansion of knowledge.
Author: Jennifer Frick-Ruppert Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press ISBN: 0807898260 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 257
Book Description
The Southern Appalachians are home to a breathtakingly diverse array of living things--from delicate orchids to carnivorous pitcher plants, from migrating butterflies to flying squirrels, and from brawny black bears to more species of salamander than anywhere else in the world. Mountain Nature is a lively and engaging account of the ecology of this remarkable region. It explores the animals and plants of the Southern Appalachians and the webs of interdependence that connect them. Within the region's roughly 35 million acres, extending from north Georgia through the Carolinas to northern Virginia, exists a mosaic of habitats, each fostering its own unique natural community. Stories of the animals and plants of the Southern Appalachians are intertwined with descriptions of the seasons, giving readers a glimpse into the interlinked rhythms of nature, from daily and yearly cycles to long-term geological changes. Residents and visitors to Great Smoky Mountains or Shenandoah National Parks, the Blue Ridge Parkway, or any of the national forests or other natural attractions within the region will welcome this appealing introduction to its ecological wonders.
Author: Carolyn Merchant Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press ISBN: 0807899623 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 425
Book Description
With the arrival of European explorers and settlers during the seventeenth century, Native American ways of life and the environment itself underwent radical alterations as human relationships to the land and ways of thinking about nature all changed. This colonial ecological revolution held sway until the nineteenth century, when New England's industrial production brought on a capitalist revolution that again remade the ecology, economy, and conceptions of nature in the region. In Ecological Revolutions, Carolyn Merchant analyzes these two major transformations in the New England environment between 1600 and 1860. In a preface to the second edition, Merchant introduces new ideas about narrating environmental change based on gender and the dialectics of transformation, while the revised epilogue situates New England in the context of twenty-first-century globalization and climate change. Merchant argues that past ways of relating to the land could become an inspiration for renewing resources and achieving sustainability in the future.
Author: Reinaldo Funes Monzote Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press ISBN: 0807888869 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 378
Book Description
In this award-winning environmental history of Cuba since the age of Columbus, Reinaldo Funes Monzote emphasizes the two processes that have had the most dramatic impact on the island's landscape: deforestation and sugar cultivation. During the first 300 years of Spanish settlement, sugar plantations arose primarily in areas where forests had been cleared by the royal navy, which maintained an interest in management and conservation for the shipbuilding industry. The sugar planters won a decisive victory in 1815, however, when they were allowed to clear extensive forests, without restriction, for cane fields and sugar production. This book is the first to consider Cuba's vital sugar industry through the lens of environmental history. Funes Monzote demonstrates how the industry that came to define Cuba--and upon which Cuba urgently depended--also devastated the ecology of the island. The original Spanish-language edition of the book, published in Mexico in 2004, was awarded the UNESCO Book Prize for Caribbean Thought, Environmental Category. For this first English edition, the author has revised the text throughout and provided new material, including a glossary and a conclusion that summarizes important developments up to the present.
Author: Lawrence S. Earley Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com ISBN: 1442996978 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 590
Book Description
Covering 92 million acres from Virginia to Texas, the longleaf pine ecosystem was, in its prime, one of the most extensive and biologically diverse ecosystems in North America. Today these magnificent forests have declined to a fraction of their original extent, threatening such species as the gopher tortoise, the red-cockaded woodpecker, and the Venus fly-trap. Lawrence S. Earley explores the history of these forests and the astonishing biodiversity within them, drawing on extensive research and telling the story through first-person travel accounts and interviews with foresters, ecologists, biologists, botanists, and landowners. The compelling story Earley tells here offers hope that with continued human commitment, the longleaf pine might not just survive, but once again thrive.
Author: Stan Ulanski Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press ISBN: 0807887102 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 229
Book Description
Coursing through the Atlantic Ocean is a powerful current with a force 300 times that of the mighty Amazon. Ulanski explores the fascinating science and history of this sea highway known as the Gulf Stream, a watery wilderness that stretches from the Caribbean to the North Atlantic. Spanning both distance and time, Ulanski's investigation reveals how the Gulf Stream affects and is affected by every living thing that encounters it--from tiny planktonic organisms to giant bluefin tuna, from ancient mariners to big-game anglers. He examines the scientific discovery of ocean circulation, the role of ocean currents in the settlement of the New World, and the biological life teeming in the stream.
Author: Marsha Driscoll
Author: Marsha Driscoll
Author: Marsha Driscoll
Author: Susan Scott Parrish
Author: Jennifer Frick-Ruppert
Author: Carolyn Merchant
Author: Reinaldo Funes Monzote
Author: Lawrence S. Earley
Author: Kathryn Steen
Author: Stan Ulanski