geografia: On the Origin of Species

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life is a work of scientific literature by the English naturalist Charles Darwin that is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. It was published on 24 November 1859. Darwin's book introduced the scientific theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection, although Lamarckism was also included as a mechanism of lesser importance. The book presented a body of evidence that the diversity of life arose by common descent through a branching pattern of evolution. Darwin included evidence that he had collected on the…

Evidence: 43 • authority: 92

HENRY H. CHEEK AND TRANSFORMISM: NEW LIGHT ON CHARLES DARWIN'S EDINBURGH BACKGROUND.. Evidence for the transformist ideas espoused by Henry H. Cheek (1807-33), a contemporary of Charles Darwin's at the University of Edinburgh, sheds new light on the intellectual environment of Edinburgh in the late 1820s and early 1830s. Cheek was the author of several papers dealing with the transmutation of species influenced by the theories of Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844), Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) and the Comte de Buffon (1707-88). Some of these were read to student societies, others appeared in the Edinburgh Journal of Natural and Geographical Science, which Cheek edited between 1…

Evidence: 43 • authority: 72

The Transmutation of species and transformism are 18th and early 19th-century ideas about the change of one species into another that preceded Charles Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection. The French Transformisme was a term used by Jean Baptiste Lamarck in 1809 for his theory, and other 18th and 19th century proponents of pre-Darwinian evolutionary ideas included Denis Diderot, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Erasmus Darwin, Robert Grant, and Robert Chambers, the anonymous author of the 1844 book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Such ideas were associated with 18th century ideas of Deism and human progress. Opposition in the scientific community to these early…

Evidence: 37 • authority: 72

Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be scientific but are inherently incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claims; reliance on confirmation bias rather than rigorous attempts at refutation; lack of openness to evaluation by other experts; absence of systematic practices when developing hypotheses; and continued adherence long after the pseudoscientific hypotheses have been experimentally discredited. It is not the same as junk science, which is spurious or fraudulent scientific work. The demarcation between science and pseudoscience has scientific, philosophical, and…

Evidence: 37 • authority: 92

Historiographical approaches to biogeography: a critical review.. We performed a critical review of the historiographical studies on biogeography. We began with the pioneering works of Augustin and Alphonse de Candolle. Then, we analyzed the historical accounts of biogeography developed by (1) Martin Fichman and his history on the extensionism-permanentism debate; (2) Gareth Nelson and his critique of the Neo-Darwinian historiography of biogeography; (3) Ernst Mayr, with his dispersalist viewpoint; (4) Alan Richardson, who wrote a microhistory on the biogeographic model constructed by Darwin; (5) Michael Paul Kinch and the ideas discussed in the 19th century about the geographical distribut…

Evidence: — • authority: 88

The Unchanging Word vs. Evolving Science: The Trial of Human Belief. This research paper advocates for the Islamic perspective of creationism, asserting that all life is intentionally designed by Allah (SWT), in direct contrast to Darwinian evolutionary theory, which erroneously proposes that life arises from random processes and natural selection. The Quranic narrative provides comprehensive insights into the creation of human beings and the universe, with multiple verses explicitly detailing the divine process of creation. While contemporary scientific methodologies offer insights into biological mechanisms, they fundamentally fail to explain the profound metaphysical dimensions of life's…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Polygenism is a theory of human origins which posits the view that humans are of different origins (polygenesis). This view is opposite to the idea of monogenism, which posits a single origin of humanity. Modern scientific views find little merit in any polygenic model due to an increased understanding of speciation in a human context, with the monogenic "Out of Africa" hypothesis and its variants being the most widely accepted models without supporting evidence of later archaeological sites for human origins. Polygenism has historically been heavily used in service of white supremacist ideas and practices, disproving a common origin between European and non-European peoples by considering…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

A species (pl. species) is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. It can be defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. Other ways of defining species include their karyotype, DNA sequence, morphology, behaviour, or ecological niche. In addition, palaeontologists use the concept of the chronospecies since fossil reproduction cannot be examined. The most recent rigorous estimate for the total number of species of eukaryotes is between 8 and 8.7 million. About 14% of these had been described by 20…