Darwin's Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution
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品牌: Rebecca Stott
基本信息出版社:Spiegel & Grau (2012年6月12日)精装:416页正文语种:英语ISBN:1400069378条形码:9781400069378商品重量:753 gASIN:1400069378亚马逊热销商品排名:图书商品里排第898,477名 (查看图书商品销售排行榜)您想告诉我们您发现了更低的价格?
商品描述内容简介Christmas, 1859. Just one month after the publication ofOn the Origin of Species,Charles Darwin received an unsettling letter. He had expected criticism; in fact, letters were arriving daily, most expressing outrage and accusations of heresy. But this letter was different. It accused him of failing to acknowledge his predecessors, of taking credit for a theory that had already been discovered by others. Darwin realized that he had made an error in omitting fromOrigin of Speciesany mention of his intellectual forebears. Yet when he tried to trace all of the natural philosophers who had laid the groundwork for his theory, he found that history had already forgotten many of them.
Darwin’s Ghoststells the story of the collective discovery of evolution, from Aristotle, walking the shores of Lesbos with his pupils, to Al-Jahiz, an Arab writer in the first century, from Leonardo da Vinci, searching for fossils in the mine shafts of the Tuscan hills, to Denis Diderot in Paris, exploring the origins of species while under the surveillance of the secret police, and the brilliant naturalists of the Jardin de Plantes, finding evidence for evolutionary change in the natural history collections stolen during the Napoleonic wars. Evolution was not discovered single-handedly, Rebecca Stott argues, contrary to what has become standard lore, but is an idea that emerged over many centuries, advanced by daring individuals across the globe who had the imagination to speculate on nature’s extraordinary ways, and who had the courage to articulate such speculations at a time when to do so was often considered heresy.
With each chapter focusing on an early evolutionary thinker,Darwin’s Ghostsis a fascinating account of a diverse group of individuals who, despite the very real dangers of challenging a system in which everything was presumed to have been created perfectly by God, felt compelled to understand where we came from. Ultimately, Stott demonstrates, ideas—including evolution itself—evolve just as animals and plants do, by intermingling, toppling weaker notions, and developing over stretches of time. Darwin’s Ghostspresents a groundbreaking new theory of an idea that has changed our very understanding of who we are.媒体推荐“Charles Darwin provided the mechanism for the evolution of the exquisite adaptations found in plants and animals, but the awareness that species can change had been growing long before him. With wonderful clarity Rebecca Stott traces how ideas about biological evolution themselves evolved in the minds of great biologists from Aristotle onward. Darwin would have loved this brilliant book—and so do I.”—Sir Patrick Bateson, president of the Zoological Society of London
“Clever, compassionate, and compellingly written,Darwin’s Ghostsinterweaves history and science to enchanting effect. The evolution of the theory of evolution is a brilliant idea for a book, and Rebecca Stott has realized it wonderfully.”—Tom Holland, author ofRubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic
“From Aristotle onward, evolutionists have—thank God—always been a quarrelsome lot, and not much has changed. Rebecca Stott shows how dispute, prejudice, and rage have accompanied their science from the very beginning.Darwin’s Ghostsis a gripping history of the history of life and of those who have studied it, with plenty of lessons for today—perhaps for today’s biologists most of all.”—Steve Jones, author ofDarwin’s Ghost: The Origin of Species Updated
“The concept of evolution was not created fully formed and placed in the garden one day for our delight and terror but, as Rebecca Stott demonstrates in her inspiring book, evolved as much as we did.Darwin’s Ghostsis a beautiful tribute to the buried tradition of curious, courageous observers who, before Darwin explainedhowevolution worked, witnessed the mutability of species for themselves and recorded what they saw.”—Jonathan Rosen, author ofThe Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature
“A lively account of the ‘pathfinders, iconoclasts, and innovators’ who were Darwin’s spiritual kin . . . Stott masterfully shows how Darwin, by discovering the mechanism of natural selection, made a unique contribution, but he did not stand alone—nor did he claim to.”—Kirkus Reviews(starred review)
