Verne Grant died 24 Aug 200718 Sep 2017 I’m very late to this, but one of the significant figures in the synthesis, Verne Grant, died in May. Grant’s book The Origin of Adaptations (1963) was one that influenced a lot of theorising about evolution. His essay on species concepts in 1957 pointed out that botanical notions of species had to be very different to the reigning Mayrian biospecies concept. Grant, Verne. 1957. The Plant Species in Theory and Practice. In The Species Problem, edited by E. Mayr. Washington DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science. ———. 1963. The origin of adaptations. New York: Columbia University Press. Evolution History Species and systematics
History On the origins of syphillis 14 Aug 2009 A nice historical review by Thony Christie on syphillis and comets. Read More
Book Books 25 Aug 2008 In addition to Fuller’s Science versus Religion, I also received my copy of Phil Dowe’s Galileo, Darwin and Hawking last week, and today arrives Roy Davies’ The Darwin Conspiracy (thanks, Roy; I will be as even handed as I can be), and Frank Schaeffer’s Crazy for God. So I am… Read More
Ecology and Biodiversity Primate researcher in Brazil gets 14 years for a permit problem 7 Jul 2007 Naturalised Brazilian, Dutch biologist Marc van Roosmalen, has been sentenced to 14 years jail in Brazil for running a monkey refuge without a permit from Ibama, the local environmental agency. Not that he didn’t apply, mark you, but Ibama didn’t respond, and the received local wisdom is that if they don’t within 45 days, it’s approved. Read More
I haven’t read the Origins of Adaptations for years, but Grant’s point about the difference between the way plants and animals evolve has shaped my thinking about evolution and, more generally, about science ever since I first encountered his book.