Life's splendid drama : evolutionary biology and the reconstruction of life's ancestry, 1860-1940
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Life's splendid drama : evolutionary biology and the reconstruction of life's ancestry, 1860-1940
（Science and its conceptual foundations）
University of Chicago Press, c1996
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Note
Bibliography: p. 461-510
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Peter J. Bowler seeks to recover some of this lost history in this work, giving an account of evolutionary morphology and its relationships with paleontology and biogeography. He tracks major scientific debates over the origins of the main types of living animals and of extinct forms such as the dinosaurs. Charting the role of Darwin's ideas and the degree of their influence, the author seeks to show how these interactions constituted an interdisciplinary programme in evolutionary biology with a focus on reconstructing the past rather than on the mechanisms of change. Also examined is the rhetoric of "social Darwinism", Bowler arguing that it may have been derived not directly from the theory of natural selection but from the application of Darwinian principles to the rise and fall of different animal groups over time.
Table of Contents
List of Figures Preface Table of Geological Periods and Eras 1: The First Evolutionary Biology A New Biology A Revolution in Science? Transforming Traditions The Professional Framework 2: The Tree of Life Relationships Redefined Form and Function Convergence and Parallelism Ontogeny and Phylogeny The Base of the Tree 3: Are the Arthropoda a Natural Group? The Problem of Arthropod Origins The Genealogy of the Crustacea Peripatus and the Origin of the Tracheata Limulus an Arachnid The Debate Widens The Fossil Record 4: Vertebrate Origins The Ascidian Theory The Annelid Theory The Arthropod Theories Nemertines and the Actinozoa Balanoglossus and the Echinoderms The Environmental Trigger Later Developments 5: From Fish to Amphibian The Origin of Fish The Fin Problem The Origin of the Amphibians From Water to Land 6: The Origin of Birds and Mammals From Reptile to Bird Taking to the Air Monotremes, Marsupials, and Mammals The Mammal-like Reptiles 7: Patterns in the Past Putting Things Together Adaptive Radiation Laws and Trends Rise and Fall Mass Extinctions 8: The Geography of Life Zoological Provinces Lost Worlds Northern Origins Southern Continents 9: The Metaphors of Evolutions Trees and Ladders The Biology of Imperialism? Phylogeny and Modern Darwinism Biographical Appendix Bibliography Index
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