Life Sciences

Richard Dawkins was educated at Oxford University and has taught zoology at the universities of California and Oxford. He is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. His books about evolution and science include The Selfish Gene, The Extended Phenotype, The Blind Watchmaker, River Out of Eden, Climbing Mount Improbable, and most recently, Unweaving the Rainbow

In recent years, scholarly work in the history of twentieth-century life science has increased dramatically. This development represents a break in two traditions within the field of history of science: first, from the dominating influence of the history of the physical sciences and mathematics; and second, from the focus on the period before the twentieth century.

Human Nature Review is a significant source of analysis and commentary for readers at leading universities and research institutes in over one hundred and sixty countries and is one of the most popular sites on the whole world wide web.Our goal is to bring into communication the variety of approaches to understanding human nature which have a regrettable tendency to be less in touch with one another than they might. We aim to act as host to original work and to seek to create an enabling space, a forum for constructive (including constructively critical) discussion and critiques of the terms of reference and assumptions of various approaches to the understanding of people as individuals, in groups, in institutions, in societies and as political and ideological beings.

The project goal is to build a web-based collaborative system and digital library for the history of five contemporary technical fields. To that end, we are adapting and integrating the ArsDigita Collaborative System (specifically, its cousin openACS), and the Perseus digital library system. We gratefully acknowledge ArsDigita and Perseus, as well as the larger open source community, for making their software available to projects like ours.

Human populations through time have often flourished near the sea, partly because of the food resources that can be found there, but also because of the ease of transportation of people and cargo by boats. Observations about various organisms and environments were of course a major part of human activities since the earliest times, since the very survival of early Homo sapiens depended on this knowledge to obtain food and provide defense against dangerous plants and animals.

This is an informal and incomplete guide to the history of evolutionary biology from about 1800 to about 1950. It is maintained by John Alroy. Its main emphases are on the late 19th century and on paleontology. However, I hope to see the coverage become more comprehensive in the near future. If you have any comments or suggestions or wish to contribute to the site, I strongly encourage you to do so; please write me. The only limits on contributions are that they must follow the site's format and carry your byline. Contributors to date include Mark Largent.

Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) was born on Feb. 12, 1809 in Shrewsbury, England, the son of Robert Waring Darwin (1766-1848) and Susannah Wedgwood (1765-1817). Robert Waring was a well-to-do country physician, whose father, Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) was himself a physician and writer on biological topics. His writings included epic poems and a treatise on zoology which contained speculations concerning evolutionary ideas. Susannah Wedgwood was the daughter of Josiah Wedgwood, one of the founders of the Wedgwood pottery works known for its "blue china" and a supporter of the movement to abolish slavery in the British Empire. Susannah Wedgwood attended the Unitarian Chapel in Shrewsbury located on High Street and conducted by Rev. G. Case

The paper deals with some of the scientific research of Charles R. Darwin (1809-1882), specifically his monumental 1859 publication entitled On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. This paper also points out the "human" side of this most noted of human beings and Darwin's ideas are presented in the context of his times. Today, Darwin's theory of "natural selection" is hopefully well known but how did the culture of his times influence his ideas and the development and acceptance of his theory? What happened before Darwin published Origin and what came after his numerous other publications? Charles Darwin was an extremely important individual for a variety of reasons: the data he collected, the experiments he conducted, and the theories he proposed influenced a variety of disciplines, from anthropology to zoology as well as ecology, geology, and the general social sciences. His influence continues to be condemned, supported, and debated after almost 150 years. [168 words]

The Darwin Correspondence Project exists to publish the definitive edition of letters to and from Charles Darwin, the most influential naturalist of the 19th century: when complete the series will comprise approximately 30 volumes.

During these two years[1] I was led to think much about religion. Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers (though themselves orthodox) for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality. I suppose it was the noveltry of the argument that amused them.