Life's Splendid Drama: Evolutionary Biology and the Reconstruction of Life's Ancestry, 1860-1940University of Chicago Press, 15. nov 1996 - 525 pages In 1928, paleontologist William Diller Matthew wrote, "The story of life on earth is a splendid drama". This story has captivated generations of biologists, including those working in the years immediately following publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859. Yet histories of the Darwinian revolution have ignored the main nineteenth-century application of evolution: the attempt to reconstruct the history of life on earth. Now Peter J. Bowler seeks to recover some of this lost history in Life's Splendid Drama, the definitive account of evolutionary morphology and its relationships with paleontology and biogeography. As Bowler tracks major scientific debates over the emergence of the vertebrates, the origins of the main types of living animals, and the rise and extinction of groups such as the dinosaurs, his richly detailed accounts bring to light complex interactions among specialists in various fields of biology. Charting the role of Darwin's ideas and the degree and direction of their influence, Bowler shows how these interactions constituted an interdisciplinary program with a focus on reconstructing the past rather than on mechanisms of evolutionary change. Bowler also examines the socially laden metaphors used by early biologists to describe the history of life, and argues that such usage influenced the development of modern evolutionism by exploiting Darwinian principles outside the context of the genetical theory of natural selection. Much of the rhetoric of "social Darwinism" may thus have been derived not directly from natural selection theory but from the application of Darwinian principles to the rise and fall of different animal groups over time. Bowler's magisterialwork will appeal to historians of science and ideas and also to biologists - particularly those working in evolutionary biology, paleontology, and systematicsinterested in the roots of their disciplines, as well as to the many readers fascinated by Darwin and his influence. |
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Contents
THE FIRST EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY | 1 |
2 | 30 |
ARE THE ARTHROPODA A NATURAL GROUP? | 103 |
5 | 203 |
THE ORIGIN OF BIRDS AND MAMMALS | 259 |
Taking to the Air | 273 |
Monotremes Marsupials and Mammals | 280 |
The Mammallike Reptiles | 297 |
Adaptive Radiation | 328 |
Laws and Trends | 339 |
Rise and Fall | 352 |
Mass Extinctions | 366 |
THE METAPHORS OF EVOLUTION | 419 |
BIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX | 447 |
BIBLIOGRAPHY | 461 |
511 | |
Other editions - View all
Life's Splendid Drama: Evolutionary Biology and the Reconstruction of Life's ... Peter J. Bowler No preview available - 1998 |
Common terms and phrases
accepted adaptive American amphibians Amphioxus anatomy animals annelid arachnids Archaeopteryx argued arthropod ascidians Balanoglossus Balfour biogeography biologists biology birds Bowler branches brates chap characters chordates classification climate common ancestor continent convergence crossopterygians crustaceans Darwin Darwinian debate degenerate dinosaurs Distribution Dohrn early earth echinoderms Embryology environment Ernst evidence evolution evolutionary morphology evolutionism evolutionists evolved extinction fauna fins fish fossil record Gegenbaur Geographical geological Haeckel homologies Huxley Huxley's hypothetical Ibid idea independently insects invertebrate Journal land Lankester later limb Limulus London lungfish major mammal-like reptiles mammalian mammals marsupials Mesozoic metamerism modern monotremes morphology Museum Natural History natural selection Naturalist noted ontogeny organism orthogenesis Osborn ostracoderms Owen paleontologists parallel Peripatus phyla phylogenetic phylogeny phylum placentals postulated primitive problem recapitulation theory reconstruct relationships reptilian Romer Science segmented similar species stage structure suggested tetrapod tion Tracheata transformation tree trends trilobites types vertebrate vertebrate origins Wallace Zoology