Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T17:14:30.837Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 9 - Darwin’s cyclopean architect

from Part IV - Function, adaptation, and design

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2014

R. Paul Thompson
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Denis Walsh
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Get access

Summary

The main point of the architect analogy was to emphasize the importance of natural selection relative to the production of variation. Some of Darwin's otherwise staunchest supporters felt he had, in the Origin, given short shrift to variation as a factor in evolutionary change. This chapter concerned with the development of the architect analogy, and with the alternative conceptions of evolution suggested by the different versions. Michael Ruse has long insisted that Darwinian evolutionary theory is a design theory through and through. Following the publication of the Origin, Charles Darwin took the opportunity to clear up some issues left unclear in the book, including his position on the importance of selection relative to the production of variation. Darwin himself had focused on the ways in which particular outcomes of evolution can be due to particular, happenstance courses of variation in his book on orchid evolution, published immediately after the Origin.
Type
Chapter
Information
Evolutionary Biology
Conceptual, Ethical, and Religious Issues
, pp. 175 - 192
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×