9 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2020
  2. psychclassics.yorku.ca psychclassics.yorku.ca
    FRANCIS BOWEN
    2
    1. TJADENT2 03 Oct 2020
      Mr. Darwin has invented a new scheme of cosmogony, and finds that, like other cosmogonies, it is a blank hypothesis, not susceptible either of proof or disproof, and needing an eternity for its development. There is nothing new in such a speculation of what is possible in an infinite lapse of years. This latest form of the speculation has no advantage over the one first propounded some three thousand years ago; -- that a chaos of atoms, moving about fortuitously in infinite space, may have happened, in an eternity, to settle into the present kosmos; for the chance of order and fitness is at least one out of an infinite number of chances of disorder and confusion; and in an infinite series of years, this solitary chance must sooner or later be realized....  

      I don't think that Darwin's theory of evolution was proposed in order to track origins of the universe. It was developed as an explanation for the changes in species we see on earth and even if it were to be considered a theory of cosmogony, it would have many advantages over the other theory of cosmogony which was stated.

    2. TJADENT2 03 Oct 2020
      But that it ever plays a corresponding part in the grand contest of Species imagined by Mr. Darwin, is a supposition resting upon no evidence whatever, but only upon the faint presumption afforded by the fact, that certain Species at widely separated times have become extinct, through what causes we know not; and therefore, for all that we know to the contrary, Natural Selection may have had something to do with their disappearance.

      There are many examples of times when natural selection (whether or not it was caused by humans changing the environment) has caused animals to go extinct and we have concrete proof that natural selection was the reason why these animals went extinct. This is important because our modern understanding of evolution allows us to draw very accurate estimations of reasons why many species have gone extinct.

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    psychclassics.yorku.ca/Bowen/development.htm
  3. Sep 2020
  4. psychclassics.yorku.ca psychclassics.yorku.ca
    FRANCIS BOWEN
    7
    1. TJADENT2 30 Sep 2020
      Utter extinction of a Species is one of the rarest of all events; not half a dozen cases can be enumerated which are known to have taken place since man's residence upon the earth.

      This statement is very important in relation to our modern understanding of psychology and different species because today, we can name dozens of species of animals that have gone extinct in the last 150 years alone.

    2. TJADENT2 30 Sep 2020
      Natural Selection, also, as already remarked, has nothing to do with the origin of Species

      I would argue that without the history of the phenotypical changes that a species has undergone due to the adversities that species has faced, we would have a very hard time understanding the true origin of the species.

    3. TJADENT2 30 Sep 2020
      A change in the physical features of a given district may partially or entirely depopulate it, without the necessary introduction of any new-comers.

      This can just as easily happen and produce an opposite effect. For example, there are mice that have changed physiologically to be able to withstand some types of poison that people have been using to kill them off for hundreds of years. Our improved, modern understanding of microbiological and genetic changes allow us to detect this sort of change exhibited by animals.

    4. TJADENT2 30 Sep 2020
      Civilized man also has successfully waged war against many ferocious or noxious animals, and probably exterminated some of them

      Civilized man has waged war against many animals, some of which are not ferocious or noxious. Modern organizations do as much as they can to undo this and to prevent us from eradicating species as we have done in the past. This is one the most important pieces of this article because it pertains so heavily to our modern understanding of how easily we can wipe out a species of animal if we are not careful with how we conduct ourselves.

    5. TJADENT2 30 Sep 2020
      It is not even pretended that we have any direct proof, either from observation or testimony, that two Species so distinct that they will not interbreed have yet sprung from common ancestors.

      The inclusion of "that two Species so distinct that they will not interbreed" here is vital because according to biological species concept, organisms only belong to the same species if they can interbreed. This means that using today's methodology, whether or not two organisms interbreeds is what defines them as one species or two separate species. It is also noteworthy that it is possible for two separate species to interbreed, but because they do not produce fertile offspring, they remain separate species. An example of this is how horses and donkeys are considered two separate species because even though they can breed and produce mules, mules are not fertile organisms.

    6. TJADENT2 30 Sep 2020
      After heaping up as many isolated examples of it as they can gather, they assert the legitimate inference from such cases to be, that the Species tends to vary, leaving out of view the fact that a vastly larger number of individuals of the same Species do not vary, but conform to the general type.

      I believe Bowen should have defined where line between variation and "conforming to the general type" lies. It is entirely possible that given an example of two similar dog breeds or a man with darker skin than the one next to him, someone would determine that there is some variation between the dogs or the men, but they also conform to the general type.

    7. TJADENT2 29 Sep 2020
      Mr. Darwin himself remarks that the distinction between Varieties and Species is "entirely vague and arbitrary";… Fortunately we do not need, so far as our main question is concerned, to enter into the intricacies of this discussion. The advocates of the Development Theory undertake to prove that all Species of animals, even those differing most widely from each other, "have descended from at most four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number." Putting aside altogether, therefore, the much debated question whether the several races of men are only Varieties, or are so many distinct Species, and the same question with respect to dogs

      There is almost certainly some importance of differentiating between variety and species as it would be rare by today's standards to have someone describe the differences in races between men as them being completely different species. I do however, believe it would be common for someone to describe the differences between men as them having variations or variety. The same is true for it to be rare if someone described the differences in breeds of dogs as completely different species, making it obvious why the word breed is synonymous with variety not species.**

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    psychclassics.yorku.ca/Bowen/development.htm