Name: Not by Design: Retiring Darwin's Watchmaker
Price: 38.30 EUR
Availability: InStock
Author: Reiss, John
ISBN: 9780520271296

portada Not by Design: Retiring Darwin's Watchmaker

Not by Design: Retiring Darwin's Watchmaker

Type

Physical Book

Author

John Reiss

Publisher

University of California Press

Year

2011

Language

English

Pages

440

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

21.8 x 14.7 x 2.8 cm

Weight

0.64 kg.

ISBN13

9780520271296

Synopsis "Not by Design: Retiring Darwin's Watchmaker"

More than two centuries ago, William Paley introduced his famous metaphor of the universe as a watch made by the Creator. For Paley, the exquisite structure of the universe necessitated a designer. Today, some 150 years since Darwin's On the Origin of Species was published, the argument of design is seeing a revival. This provocative work tells how Darwin left the door open for this revival--and at the same time argues for a new conceptual framework that avoids the problematic teleology inherent in Darwin's formulation of natural selection. In a wide-ranging discussion of the historical and philosophical dimensions of evolutionary theory from the ancient Greeks to today, John Reiss argues that we should look to the principle of the conditions for existence, first formulated before On the Origin of Species by the French paleontologist Georges Cuvier, to clarify the relation of adaptation to evolution. Reiss suggests that Cuvier's principle can help resolve persistent issues in evolutionary biology, including the proper definition of natural selection, the distinction between natural selection and genetic drift, and the meaning of genetic load. Moreover, he shows how this principle can help unite diverse areas of biology, ranging from quantitative genetics and the theory of the levels of selection to evo-devo, ecology, physiology, and conservation biology.

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Not by Design: Retiring Darwin's Watchmaker - Reiss, John

Synopsis "Not by Design: Retiring Darwin's Watchmaker"

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