Word: darwins
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Apes, Angels and Victorians, by William Irvine, succeeded remarkably well in bringing to life the whole controversy that followed Darwin's announcement of his theory of evolution. Better still, it produced a fine portrait of crotchety, brilliant Charles Darwin himself. One of the year's most readable books in any category...
...Freud as "among the greatest who have contributed to thought," not so long ago President Garfield was having his "head read" and Walt Whitman was proudly reciting a poet's phrenological endowments in the preface to Leaves of Grass. Karl Marx took phrenology seriously, as did Bismarck and Darwin...
...Natural Sciences 111," alias "Know Your Ancestors," holds forth in the Biology Labs Lecture Room with a thorough but non-technical treatment of organic evolution. Beginning with a history of evolutionary thought, Professor Romer proceeds to the genetic background of the subject, the work of Darwin, and finally a detailed explanation of how a fish got to be an ape, and how an ape got to wear tweed jackets and flannel pants...
Undeniably the book contains much technical exposition of both the scientific and intellectual uproar which evolution provoked--a discussion necessary because it would be impossible and undesirable to separate Huxley and Darwin from the idea which motivated their lives. The general reader will probably find the book most compelling when the author moves from intellectual controversy to concentrate specifically on the human qualities in his subjects...
...discoverer" of evolution, Darwin, surprisingly enough, lacked Huxley's brilliance and his ability to reason quickly. Yet Darvin's own slowness and tenacity were qualities admirably suited to the task of gradually, almost unconsciously, developing an idea. Huxley's more piercing intellect moved from subject to subject, a versatility which would have made him incapable of discovering anything except by sudden inspiration. Such inspiration, at least in the case of evolution, never came. The notion of evolution, of course, was centuries old. But to Darwin goes the credit of introducing the principle of natural selection--an el- of the unfinished...