A Street Called Darwin


Book Description

A Street Called Darwin is based on a real individual: Charles Darwin Foard. This man grew up in southwestern Wisconsin, was drafted into the United States Army in 1941. He applied for and was accepted into the Army Air Corps, the forerunner of the present day United States Air Force. Darwin trained in Texas, learning how to fly a B-24 bomber. His first assignments were long-range bombing missions in the South Pacific against Japanese-held installations. He was killed in a tragic runway crash on Biak Island in 1944. While this book is about the military life of this remarkable young man, it also reveals his very human side as he interacts with family and acquaintances. The basis for this biography of Darwin is a collection of letters, photos and documents which were kept by his parents and relatives. The author came into their possession in 2007 and quickly discovered that there was a story that just had to be told.




A Cat Named Darwin


Book Description

The author describes his detachment from animals before meeting a cat whose failing health and winning personality shifted his scientific perspectives and brought about his understanding of the evolutionary significance of kinship.




Darwin: A Companion - With Iconographies By John Van Wyhe


Book Description

'This is a book that required a great many research hours, the kind of volume you may be glad someone took the time to compile.'The Quarterly Review of Biology This is the ultimate guide to the life and work of Charles Darwin. The result of decades of research through a vast and daunting literature which is hard for beginners and experts alike to navigate, it brings together widely scattered facts including very many unknown to even the most ardent Darwin aficionados. It includes hundreds of new discoveries and corrections to the existing literature. It provides the most complete summaries of his publications, manuscripts, lifetime itinerary, finances, personal library, friends and colleagues, opponents, visitors to his home, anniversaries, hundreds of flora, fauna, monuments and places named after him and a host of other topics. Also included are the most complete lists (iconographies) ever created of illustrations of the Beagle, over 1000 portraits of Darwin, his wife and home as well as all known Darwin photographs, stamps and caricatures. The book is richly illustrated with 350 images, most previously unknown.




Darwin’S Racism


Book Description

Throughout the 19th century in the British Empire, parallel developments in science and the law were squeezing Aborigines everywhere into nonexistence. Charles Darwin took part in this. Again and again, he expressed his approval of the extermination of the native lower races. The more interesting part of the story is that there were plenty of voices, albeit a minority and mostly forgotten now, who objected on humanitarian grounds (and sometimes scientific grounds as well). Europeans, they said, were becoming polished savages and dehumanizing the Other. Darwin was very aware of this criticism and cared not one whit. As he said in a letter to Charles Lyell, I care not much whether we are looked at as mere savages in a remotely distant future. But he well knew it was not a remote future. He had read several writers who accused Europeans of being the real savages. For a brief moment in his youth in his Diary, he himself dabbled in such criticism, even though he already believed in the inferiority of indigenous peoples. That belief grew firmer as he matured. Darwin did not dispute humanitarians so much as he ignored them. Its a sad story. But oh those humanitarians, how they inspire.




Charles Darwin in Shrewsbury


Book Description

A fascinating exploration of the many local places around Shrewsbury associated with Charles Darwin.




Why Darwin Matters


Book Description

A creationist-turned-scientist demonstrates the facts of evolution and exposes Intelligent Design's real agenda Science is on the defensive. Half of Americans reject the theory of evolution and "Intelligent Design" campaigns are gaining ground. Classroom by classroom, creationism is overthrowing biology. In Why Darwin Matters, bestselling author Michael Shermer explains how the newest brand of creationism appeals to our predisposition to look for a designer behind life's complexity. Shermer decodes the scientific evidence to show that evolution is not "just a theory" and illustrates how it achieves the design of life through the bottom-up process of natural selection. Shermer, once an evangelical Christian and a creationist, argues that Intelligent Design proponents are invoking a combination of bad science, political antipathy, and flawed theology. He refutes their pseudoscientific arguments and then demonstrates why conservatives and people of faith can and should embrace evolution. He then appraises the evolutionary questions that truly need to be settled, building a powerful argument for science itself. Cutting the politics away from the facts, Why Darwin Matters is an incisive examination of what is at stake in the debate over evolution.




Charles Darwin


Book Description




A Cat Named Darwin


Book Description

A scientist contemplates his bond with a sick stray cat in this “gripping and powerful” memoir (The San Diego Union-Tribune). Bill Jordan’s life changed forever the day a stray cat nesting under his bougainvillea bit him on the hand. Trained in biology, Jordan had no particular love for animals and felt vaguely contemptuous of those who did—until the cat, beckoning with a wink and a yawn, led him on a journey to exotic lands, strange cultures, and fascinating discoveries. As their bond deepened and the cat’s health began to fail, Jordan was forced into a commitment more devoted and sincere than any he had known before. Puzzling through his own feelings, Jordan came to some remarkable conclusions: that those we love live in the synapses and molecules of memory, and that as long as we exist, they exist as part of our brain. In this recollection of the relationship, he meditates on the nature of humans and animals, and the scientific truths about solitude, communication, and companionship.




Life of Charles Darwin


Book Description