Natural Selection and Differential Reproduction
Philosopher Daniel Dennett talks about differential reproduction, which he says is the key idea of natural selection. With differential reproduction, some copies of the original are a little less perfect than others. Those that are less perfect tend...
What is Human Nature?: Biology's Challenge to Traditional Western View of Human Nature
In the 17th and 18th centuries, scientists are fascinated with collecting specimens and classifying species. However, It will be Charles Darwin who creates a new picture of nature. In the 1830s he travels to the Galapagos Islands to research both li...
Building Blocks: Mass Extinctions
The ultimate example of an environmental change leading to the termination of a species is what's known as a mass extinction.
Building Blocks: Ancient Fossils, Modern Technology
As scientists work to answer vexing questions about the origins of life, they examine the fossilized remains of the primitive life forms which at one time populated early Earth. The challenge in doing this is not only a function of the age of the fo...
What is Real?: Arguments Against Metaphysical Speculation
Some philosophers object to the idea that there is a spiritual reality different from the physical world as mere metaphysical speculation. As one group contends anything we cannot perceive with our senses or prove scientically should not be conside...
Charles Darwin and the Problem of Continuity
Philosopher Daniel Dennett talks about the Darcy Thompson statement that "everything is the way it is because it got that way." Calling that a very fundamental Darwinian idea, Professor Dennett explains that it means everything either was something ...
The Learning Machine: Persistence of Snake Fear, The
Evolution appears to have equipped us to learn some lessons more quickly than others. Human subjects who weren't afraid of snakes or spiders or flowers were presented with slides of spiders and snakes accompanied by a mild electric shock. Humans sub...
Building Blocks: Role of Evolution in Early Life
The ability to adapt to changing or difficult conditions is clearly necessary if an organism is to be biologically successful.
Darwin's Dangerous Idea
Philosopher Daniel Dennett discusses the impact of Charles Darwin on not only modern views of biological evolution and nature, but on the evolution of thought and ideas, culture and science. According to Professor Dennett, all design processes have ...
Survivors: Early Invertebrates
The first animals on Earth were invertebrates-animals without backbones-and they diversified rapidly in the geologic period known as the Cambrian.