Adaptations: Using Darwin's Origin to teach biology and writing

Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species is at once familiar and unfamiliar. Everyone knows that the Origin introduced the world to the idea of evolution by natural selection, but few of us have actually read it. We suggest that it is worth taking the time not only to read what Darwin had to say, but also to use the Origin to teach both biology and writing. It provides scientific lessons in areas beyond evolutionary biology, such as ecology and biogeography. In addition, it provides valuable rhetorical lessons—how to construct an argument, write persuasively, make use of evidence, know your audience, and anticipate counterarguments. We have been using the Origin in various classes for several years, introducing new generations to Darwin, in his own words.     

Introduction—development and phylogeny of the arthropods: Darwin’s legacy

In the present essay, I first recall the genealogical concept of classification settled by Charles Darwin in the Origin of Species. Darwin tightly linked what we now call phylogeny and development. He often insisted to take into account embryonic and larval characters, most often using as examples his favourite animals, the cirripedes. Then I discuss remaining problems, and also perspectives, to address the link between phylogeny and development in the modern terms of molecular and cladistic phylogenetics and of molecular and genetic developmental biology.     

Hooker and islands1

Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817–1911), friend and scientific confidant of Charles Darwin, lectured in 1866 on ‘Insular floras’ at the Annual Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. His interest and knowledge of islands had been aroused when he travelled to the Antarctic aboard the Erebus under Sir James Clark Ross from 1839–43. On his return, Darwin passed on to Hooker the botanical collections he had made on the Beagle voyage, including those from the Galapagos. Hooker's conclusions from these and from his own material and experiences were important to Darwin as he developed the ideas that culminated in the publication of the Origin of Species. The 1866 lecture provided a focus for subsequent and informative studies on evolution, and islands continue to provide invaluable natural laboratories for evolutionary biology and genetics. © 2009 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2009, 96 , 462–481.     

Charles Darwin,evolutionary physiology,and origin of life

In the first half of the 19th century investigations began in the field of comparative and ontogenetic physiology, and the publication of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin became a further stimulus for the development of problems of evolutionary physiology. The term evolutionary physiology was coined by A.N. Severtzov in 1914, in the early 1930s the USSR created laboratories for the development of problems of evolutionary physiology. In 1956 L.A. Orbeli organized the Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology (Academy of Sciences of the USSR) in Leningrad. This paper discusses the problems of physiological paleontology, principles of the evolution of functions, regularities in functional evolution, and physiologic approaches to the origin of cell and life.     

Darwin as a student of behavior

In The Expression of the Emotions, Charles Darwin documents evolutionary continuity between animals and humans, emphasizing the universality of expressions in man. Most of the book addresses human behavior, and its influence on the study of animal behavior has been weak. The issue of natural selection is remarkably absent from this book, which relies on the inheritance of acquired characters rather than on a genuine Darwinian logic. Yet Konrad Lorenz considered Darwin to be a forerunner of behavioral biology. The reason was to be found in The Descent of Man and chapter VIII of The Origin of Species, where Darwin provides an explanation of behavior through selection, stating that the same mechanisms explaining morphological changes also account for gradual improvements in instincts. He assessed the accuracy of his evolutionary theory by directly studying animal behavior, hence laying the foundations of behavioral research for the next century.     

Why Darwin rejected intelligent design

As a Cambridge University undergraduate Charles Darwin was fascinated and convinced by the argument for intelligent design, as set forth in William Paley’s 1802 classic, Natural Theology. Subsequently, during his five-year voyage on HMS Beagle (1831–1836), Darwin interpreted his biological findings through a creationist lens, including the thought-provoking evidence he encountered during his historic visit to the Galápagos Islands in September and October 1835. After his return to England in 1836 and his subsequent conversion to the idea of organic evolution in March 1837, Darwin searched for a theory that would explain both the fact of evolution and the widespread appearance of intelligent design. His insight into the process of natural selection, which occurred in September 1838, provided this alternative explanation. Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) exemplifies his skillful deployment of the hypothetico-deductive method in testing and refuting the arguments for intelligent design that he had once so ardently admired.     

Darwinian evolution in the light of genomics

Comparative genomics and systems biology offer unprecedented opportunities for testing central tenets of evolutionary biology formulated by Darwin in the Origin of Species in 1859 and expanded in the Modern Synthesis 100 years later. Evolutionary-genomic studies show that natural selection is only one of the forces that shape genome evolution and is not quantitatively dominant, whereas non-adaptive processes are much more prominent than previously suspected. Major contributions of horizontal gene transfer and diverse selfish genetic elements to genome evolution undermine the Tree of Life concept. An adequate depiction of evolution requires the more complex concept of a network or ‘forest’ of life. There is no consistent tendency of evolution towards increased genomic complexity, and when complexity increases, this appears to be a non-adaptive consequence of evolution under weak purifying selection rather than an adaptation. Several universals of genome evolution were discovered including the invariant distributions of evolutionary rates among orthologous genes from diverse genomes and of paralogous gene family sizes, and the negative correlation between gene expression level and sequence evolution rate. Simple, non-adaptive models of evolution explain some of these universals, suggesting that a new synthesis of evolutionary biology might become feasible in a not so remote future.     

Darwin on woman

In his 1871 book The Descent of Man, Darwin exposed the idea of sexual selection as a major principle of human evolution. His main hypothesis, which was already briefly presented in The Origin of Species, is that there exists, besides “natural selection”, another form of selection, milder in its effect, but no less efficient. This selection is operated by females to mate and reproduce with some partners that are gifted with more qualities than others, and more to their taste. At more evolved stages, sexual selection was exerted by men who became able to choose the women most attractive to their taste. However, Darwin insists, sexual selection in the human species is limited by a certain number of cultural practices. If Darwin's demonstration sometimes carried the prejudices of his times regarding gender differences he was the first who took into account the importance of sexual choices in his view on evolution, and who insisted on the evolutionary role of women at the dawn of humanity. Thus, he opened the space for a rich reflection, which after him was widely developed and discussed in anthropological and gender studies.     

Reminiscences from the first curator of the whitney-rothschild collection

Dr Ernst Mayr has been one of the seminal figures of 20th century biology. His essential contributions were in the development of the Modern Synthesis in evolutionary biology. His landmark book Systematics and the Origin of Species, was published in 1942 and has long been acknowledged as one of the key foundations of 20th century evolutionary biology. In many subsequent articles and books on evolution and the history and philosophy of biology during the past half century, he has continued to be a key contributor of ideas and inspiration to successive generations of evolutionary biologists. In the first of two ‘Roots’ articles, he describes the early stages of his career and the serendipitous events that furthered it. This article was first presented as a talk, on October 27, 1993, at the 50 year Jubilee celebration of the founding of the Whitney wing, the ornithological section, of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. In next month's ‘Roots’ article, Dr Mayr will describe the events that led to the founding of the Society for the Study of Evolution in 1946, in St Louis, Missouri.     

Evolution and the Media

Journalists have been writing about evolution since Darwin first published the Origin of Species. Today, news about evolution comes in a dizzying diversity of venues. In this paper, I survey this diversity, observing its strengths and weaknesses for helping students learn about evolution.     

Artificial Selection and Domestication: Modern Lessons from Darwin’s Enduring Analogy

It is clear from his published works that Charles Darwin considered domestication to be very useful in exploring and explaining mechanisms of evolutionary change. Not only did domestication occupy the introductory chapter of On the Origin of Species, but he revisited the topic in a two-volume treatise less than a decade later. In addition to drawing much of his information about heredity from studies of domesticated animals and plants, Darwin saw important parallels between the process of artificial selection by humans and natural selection by the environment. There was resistance to this analogy even among Darwin’s contemporary supporters when it was proposed, and there also has been disagreement among historians and philosophers regarding the role that the analogy with artificial selection actually played in the discovery of natural selection. Regardless of these issues, the analogy between artificial and natural selection remains important in both research and education in evolution. In particular, the present article reviews ten lessons about evolution that can be drawn from the modern understanding of domestication and artificial selection. In the process, a basic overview is provided of current approaches and knowledge in this rapidly advancing field.

Playing Darwin. Part A. Experimental Evolution in Drosophila

In 2009 we celebrate Charles Darwin’s second centenary, and 150 years since the publication of ‘The Origin of Species’. After so many years, what has changed in the way we understand Evolution? Obviously we have now a full understanding of the mechanisms underlying heritability. Many molecular tools are available, allowing among other things to reconstruct more accurately the evolutionary history of species and use a comparative approach to infer evolutionary processes. But we can also study evolution in action. Such studies—Experimental Evolution—help us to characterize in detail the evolutionary processes and patterns as a function of environmental challenges, the previous history and present state of populations, and the interactions between such factors. We have now a wide variety of organisms that have been studied with this approach, exploring a diversity of potentialities, in biological characteristics and genetic tools, and covering a variety of evolutionary questions. In this short article I will illustrate the potentialities of Experimental Evolution, focusing in three studies in Drosophila. These and other studies of Experimental Evolution illustrate that Evolution is often local, involving complex patterns and processes, which lead both to specific adaptations and to biological diversity, as Darwin already stated clearly in ‘The Origin of Species’.     

On Darwin's palaeontology in The Origin of Species

I investigate the role of palaeontology within Darwin's works through an analysis of the two chapters of The Origin of Species most especially devoted to this science. Palaeontology may occupy several places within the structure of the argumentative logic of Darwinism, but these places have remained to some extent ancillary. Indeed, palaeontology could well document evolutionary patterns, showing the actual occurrence of evolution as a general “historical fact”, but it was poorly adapted to demonstrate the main point of Darwinism: the actual evolutionary process: natural selection acting among individuals. I also show, in agreement with Gould, that Darwin had great confidence in the ultimate ability of palaeontology to support his theory, and that in interpreting palaeontological evidence, he expressed a vision of natural selection much wider and more eclectic than that which has generally been ascribed to him.     

Implications of a fossil stickleback assemblage for Darwinian gradualism

Darwin postulated that a complete fossil record would contain numerous gradual transitions between ancestral and descendant species, but 150 years after publication of The Origin of Species, few such transitions have materialized. The fossil stickleback Gasterosteus doryssus and the deposit in which it occurs provide excellent conditions to detect such transitions. Abundant, well‐preserved fossils occur in a stratigraphic setting with fine temporal resolution. The paleoecology of G. doryssus resembles the ecology of modern lakes that harbour the phenotypically similar three‐spined stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus. Gasterosteus aculeatus are primitively highly armoured, but G. doryssus comprised two contemporaneous biological species with relatively weak armour, including a near‐shore, benthic feeder (benthic) and an offshore planktivore (limnetic). The benthic species expanded its range into the limnetic zone of the lake, where it apparently switched to planktivory and evolved reduced armour within c. 5000 years in response to directional selection. Although gradual evolution of mean phenotypes occurred, a single major gene caused much of evolutionary change of the pelvic skeleton. Thus, Darwin's expectation that transitions between species in the fossil record would be gradual was met at a fine time scale, but for pelvic structure, a well‐studied trait, his expectation that gradual change would depend entirely on numerous, small, heritable differences among individuals was incorrect.     

Haeckel,un darwinien allemand ?

German biologist Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) is often considered the most renowned Darwinian in his country since, as early as 1862, he declared that he accepted the conclusions Darwin had reached three years before in On the Origin of Species, and afterwards, he continuously proclaimed himself a supporter of the English naturalist and championed the evolutionary theory. Nevertheless, if we examine carefully his books, in particular his General Morphology (1866), we can see that he carries on a tradition very far from Darwin's thoughts. In spite of his acceptance of the idea of natural selection, that he establishes as an argument for materialism, he adopts, indeed, a conception of evolution that is, in some respects, rather close to Lamarck's views. He is, thus, a good example of the ambiguities of the reception of Darwinism in Germany in the second part of the 19th century. To cite this article: S. Schmitt, C. R. Biologies 332 (2009).     

Darwin,Wallace, and Huxley,and Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation

Conclusion Publication of the Vestiges and the rather primitive theory of evolution it expounded thus played a significant role in the careers of Darwin and Wallace. In addition, in spite of his poor opinion of the Vestiges, it presented Huxley with a convenient topic for critical discussion and the opportunity to focus more attention on the subject of evolution. The dynamic interactions among these leading figures of nineteenth-century natural science helped spur the development of more sophisticated models of evolution.Darwin had a proper appreciation of Chambers's contribution to evolutionary thought, although he fully recognized the shortcomings of this work. He understood the importance of allowing fresh ideas about organic change to be ventilated. However, he was primarily concerned with his own theory and viewed all developments in evolutionary biology from this perspective. If he did not give full consideration to Chambers and his book early on, it was due mainly to his feeling that the concepts in the Vestiges were very different from his own; he was therefore reluctant to embrace them as the forerunners of his own theory. As a scholar, he was also troubled by the scientific errors in the book. However, the record demonstrates that he attempted to make amends for any oversight on his part. His generous letter to Chambers's daughter, and his gracious treatment of Chambers during the brief time the latter lived in London, are ample proof of that.The attacks of Huxley, Sedgwick, and other prominent natural historians and geologists at the time, the problems inherent in Chambers's evolutionary theory, and the publication of the Origin, are the major reasons why the Vestiges became a neglected work. Nevertheless, Chambers's contribution will always stand out because, together with those of other late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century predecessors of Darwin, it laid the foundations of modern evolutionary thought and, more importantly, helped prepare the scientific community for the more fully developed ideas of Darwin and Wallace.     

Darwin,the amphibians,and the natural selection

A critical review of Darwin's publications shows that he did not dissert much about amphibians, in comparison with the other tetrapods. However, in “A Naturalist's Voyage round the World”, Darwin described for the first time several amphibian species and was surprised by their peculiar way of life, terrestrial or euryhaline. These amphibian observations around the world led Darwin to discuss evolutionnary notions, like developmental heterochronies or evolving convergences, and later to illustrate his famous natural selection theory. This is confirmed, for example, by the publication of “On the Origin of Species” where Darwin ironically questioned creation theory, trying to explain the absence of amphibians on oceanic islands. Lamarck also considered amphibians as relevant material to illustrate his theory of acquired character heredity. These historical uses of lissamphibians as evolutionary models have been mostly realized before any amphibian fossil discovery, i.e. out of a palaeontological context.     

Charles Darwin and the Origin of Life

When Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species 150 years ago he consciously avoided discussing the origin of life. However, analysis of some other texts written by Darwin, and of the correspondence he exchanged with friends and colleagues demonstrates that he took for granted the possibility of a natural emergence of the first life forms. As shown by notes from the pages he excised from his private notebooks, as early as 1837 Darwin was convinced that “the intimate relation of Life with laws of chemical combination, & the universality of latter render spontaneous generation not improbable”. Like many of his contemporaries, Darwin rejected the idea that putrefaction of preexisting organic compounds could lead to the appearance of organisms. Although he favored the possibility that life could appear by natural processes from simple inorganic compounds, his reluctance to discuss the issue resulted from his recognition that at the time it was possible to undertake the experimental study of the emergence of life.     

ON THE INDEPENDENCE OF SYSTEMATICS

Abstract— Before the publication of On the Origin of Species the standing patterns of natural history—common plan, homology, ontogenetic parallelism, and the hierarchy of groups — were taken as indications of a biological order that had not yet been understood. Darwin covered all of these in chapter 13 of the Origin , arguing that his theory was the first to provide a reasonable explanation for the existence of such patterns. Since Darwin took these relations to be established by previous biology, and used them as evidence for the explanatory power of his theory, he was clearly of the opinion that they were independent of that theory. Although several modern figures have argued to the contrary, it seems that Darwin was right. The patterns listed above are recoverable from observation without reference to evolutionary theory, which theory may then be applied to provide an account of the processes by which they may have come about. That aspect of systematics concerned with the identification of the empirical patterns evidently constitutes a study prior to and independent of theories of process.