Darwin’s Arguments in Favour of Natural Selection and Against Special Creationism

In many places in The Origin of Species, Darwin compares his own theory of Natural Selection favourably with Special Creationism which comes off as a bad second best. He does this using some version of the argument form known as ‘Inference to the Best Explanation’. The first part of this paper is methodological. It considers Whewell’s notion of consilience, that is, the way in which theories can get additional confirmation through unifying otherwise disparate and independent facts. Then it considers various forms of inference to the best explanation. The second part of the paper applies these methodological considerations to an analysis of some of the many passages in Origin where Darwin presents his case in favour of Natural Selection. This gives a far superior explanation of biological facts compared with Special Creationism which provides either an inferior explanation or no explanation at all. Contrary to the view that Creationism should not be taught, the passages from Darwin show at least that it should be understood if only to show that it offers no explanation of a wide range of obvious biological facts. As such the passages in Origin in which Darwin presents his case against Creationism can serve as a series of excellent exercises in getting students to think about Natural Selection as opposed to Creationism. For this reason alone they ought to be better known. In addition, Darwin’s point in these passages can only be understood using principles of scientific method, such as inference to the best explanation, which are essential in showing that Natural Selection is to be preferred to Creationism.     

Darwin’s Book: On the Origin of Species

This essay is an interpretation of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. It focuses on the contents of the Origin as Darwin intended them to be understood and the background to the work, thus revealing the originality (or otherwise) of the work.     

Making Sense of Place: Sarah’s Story

Written from the vantage point of both a mother and teacher educator, the author recounts the journey taken by Sarah, her 4-year old daughter, as she is introduced to and explores map making as a means of representing and making sense of familiar and unfamiliar places. Offering Sarah’s experience as context, the author offers both a practical and theoretical discussion of children’s emerging geographic literacy, its relationship to identity development and the importance of understanding children’s experience and socio-emotional development to inform pedagogy.

School’s out: a comprehensive follow-up study on parents’ perceptions of their child’s school

This longitudinal study set out to examine the changes that took place in parents’ evaluations of their child’s school in the course of the child’s complete 9-year-long compulsory education. Over the follow-up period, academically educated and vocationally educated mothers and fathers (N = 326) were asked to indicate their degree of satisfaction with aspects of their child’s school every 2 years. It was found that the level of parental satisfaction was fairly high at the start, that the general decreasing trend was gradual rather than abrupt, and that the proportion of dissatisfied parents remained low and stable. A pattern of differences emerged to suggest that the parents’ perceptions were structured by their social-psychological distance from the school as measured by their social positions; for instance, the vocationally educated parents, fathers in particular, displayed less satisfaction than the academically educated ones.     

Making testers out of teachers: the work of a Swedish State Research Institute 1946–1956

Between 1946 and 1956, the Swedish Psychological and Pedagogical Institute (SPPI) organised several summer courses for the purpose of training teachers in intelligence testing. The aim of the courses was to make these teachers the first gatekeepers who would meet and direct the youngest pupils into ordinary classes or into special classes. This paper investigates the course leaders and the participants in these courses, as well as the content taught. It is argued that these testing courses are examples of a shift in assessment in education from trusting teachers’ ‘judgements’ of pupils’ skills and abilities to externally standardising the ‘measure’ of these merits. It is also argued that researchers and teachers were part of a larger change in the politics of IQ. SPPI’s role within this process was that of a new and modern institution serving society: making IQ testing a public familiarity and the stratification of children that often followed from it.     

Gálapagos Islands and Darwin’s Theory of Evolution

The Gálapagos Islands are closely associated with Darwin’s name because the animals and plants living on these islands provided clues to Darwin to formulate his theory of evolution by means of natural selection. Gálapagos is a group of 19 volcanic, Pacific islands on the equator, about 1000 km west of Ecuador of South America. Being volcanic, there was no life on them when they were formed; all organisms presently living on the islands are the descendants of those that came from the South American mainland. Darwin visited these islands in 1835 during his voyage around the world in HMS Beagle and stayed for five weeks, studying and collecting plants, animals, and rock samples from the islands. His detailed studies of the collections upon his return to London, particularly on tortoises, mockingbirds, and finches, revealed that all these species living on the Gálapagos were endemic to the island and did not occur anywhere else in the world, but all of them closely resembled the species present on the South American mainland. This realization made him speculate that the Gálapagos inhabitants, after they arrived from the mainland, evolved into different species over the years, shaped by the environment of the islands. He visualized evolutionary changes as a result of the competition amongst individuals under changed environmental conditions, which acted as a selective agent. Under such selection, those individuals possessing favorable variations survived and reproduced, passing on their variations to their offspring, and those without them were eliminated. Over the years, the concept of evolution has become one of the most important, powerful and unifying concepts in biology.     

On the Hypothetico-Deductive Nature of Science—Darwin’s Finches

Allchin (2006) has misinterpreted a classic case of hypothetico-deductive (HD) science in terms of his preferred ‘let’s-gather-some-data-and-see-what-emerges’ view. The misrepresentation concerns the research program of Peter and Rosemary Grant on Darwin’s finches. The present essay argues that the Grants’ research is HD in nature and includes a statement by Peter Grant to that effect.

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Darwin’s Other Bulldog: Charles Kingsley and the Popularisation of Evolution in Victorian England

The nineteenth-century Anglican Priest Charles Kingsley (1819?C1875) was a significant populariser of Darwin??s theory of evolution by natural selection. Kingsley was successful in this regard because he developed such diverse connections throughout his career. In the 1840s he associated with Chartists and radical journalists; in the 1850s and 1860s he moved freely in scientific circles and was elected Fellow of the Linnean Society of London in 1856 and Fellow of the Geological Society of London in 1863. In 1859 he was appointed Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen. In 1860 the Prince Consort was willing and able to secure Kingsley appointment as the Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University and he subsequently became tutor to the Prince of Wales. Thereafter he was frequently invited into high Victorian Society. A friend of ??Darwin??s Bulldog?? Thomas Huxley, of the eminent geologist Charles Lyell and a correspondent of Darwin, at every turn he sought to promote Darwin??s ideas as theologically orthodox, a life-long campaign in which he was eminently successful.     

‘A Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven’: His Dark Materials, Inverted Theology, and the End of Philip Pullman’s Authority

This article argues that Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials may be read as a series which attempts to assault the Christian doctrine of God. We believe that this demonstrably accords with Pullman’s personal views, and that, through his story, he seeks to foster such views in his readership. However, the accuracy of his attack falls short of its intended mark when it is examined alongside classical Christian theology. The Authority which Pullman’s narrative destroys is actually more akin to the Christian view of the devil than he is the divine, and the victories of Will and Lyra—as a new Adam and Eve—have strong resemblances to the victories which Christianity claims for Christ and Mary. Pullman’s narrative, therefore, becomes an inversion of his deicidal intention rather than an inverting and revolutionary destruction of theology.

It’s About Making Surfaces Invisible

Antireflection is an essential requirement for certain optoelectronic devices. Antireflective surfaces can be generated by different methods. One method mimics the nanofeatures on the moth eye surface. This can be done by ‘soft lithography’ (SL), where nanofeatures are created on an elastomeric stamp. This stamp is then used for imprinting the pattern on other surfaces.     

Making a manly teacher’s career in Australia: Victor Pavia, 1856–1934

This paper highlights ways in which understandings about masculinity intersected with concepts of vocation, career and character in the life and work of an Australian teacher, Victor Pavia. Firstly, it outlines his vertical career path from teacher to headmaster and then inspector, made possible in a bureaucratised state school system that institutionalised the patriarchal dividend. Secondly, it shows how his manly character was forged in social relationships with men and women. Thirdly, there was his vocational commitment to associational activity where he consolidated his position among men. However, Pavia’s ascendance to the top of his profession was by no means assured for there were many tensions along with expanded opportunities at each stage of his career.     

Spinoza’s proposal for a doctrine of children’s education

Abstract

The main objective of this article is to analyze the conceptual connection between the Doctrine of Children’s Education, briefly mentioned in Spinoza’s Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione (TIE), and the concept of emendation present at the very center of this Treatise’s title. A close textual exegesis of the opening paragraphs of TIE reveals why such a doctrine cannot be the ascetic renunciation of the content of ordinary life. We shall see instead that a new institution of life shall be possible only through a deep plunge into the understanding of ordinary confused life. A Spinozan Doctrine of Children’s Education shall then be conceived as a pedagogy guided by an error mapping principle, i.e., a pedagogy capable of amending the mistaken beliefs of students through their understanding of the way these are produced as real events in the world. This would be an immanent pedagogy, which could be relevant to any form of contemporary thought that seeks a truly liberating education.     

Ted Hughes: The Development of a Children’s Poet

This article looks at how Ted Hughes’ poetry for children developed over more than 30 years of publication. It traces the movement from his earlier, more conventional rhyming poems, such as Meet My Folks! (1961) and Nessie the Mannerless Monster (1964), to the mature, free verse “animal poems” for older readers of Season Songs (1976c), Under the North Star (1981) and the “farmyard fable” What is the Truth? (1984). The article argues that the later lyrical poems for younger readers where Hughes returned to rhyme, The Cat and the Cuckoo (1987) and The Mermaid’s Purse (1993), represent an undervalued final phase of Hughes’ work for children which is rarely discussed by critics. The discussion considers Hughes’ changing attitude to the concept of the “children’s poet” at different periods of his career. Reference is made throughout to Hughes’ own writing about children and poetry, such as Poetry in the Making (1967), and to parallel developments in his poetry for adults.     

‘The city snuffs out nature’: young people’s conceptions of and relationship with nature

This paper reports a study of 384 13–14-year olds’ written responses to open-ended questions about their understanding of and relationship with ‘nature’. Using constant comparative method the responses were coded, categorised and themed. Most students held scientific conceptions of nature (excluding humans) and a utilitarian relationship with nature, a predominantly anthroprocentric worldview. A small number held aesthetic conceptualisations and an intrinsic value relationship: an ecocentric worldview. A substantial number of students however were neither anthroprocentric or ecocentric but rather expressed a conception of and relationship with nature which reflected aspects of Bonnett’s ‘human-related’ relationship (Bonnett, M. 2004. Retrieving Nature: Education for a Post-humanist Age. Oxford: Blackwell). The findings from this study challenge a simple binary approach in which students’ environmental worldviews would be analysed as either predominantly anthroprocentric or ecocentric. Bonnett’s ‘human-related’ relationship to nature reflects a more complex view of the world. Analysis revealed interesting differences, however, between students according to their urban/rural location, gender and school type.     

Lessons from a master: Montaigne’s pedagogy of conversation

There remains much to be learned from searching exploration of the great authors who have meditated on education. Montaigne is one such thinker and this essay endeavors to draw together the strands of his pedagogy and to demonstrate how they gain purchase in the business of teaching and learning. The article also proposes to supplement his vision with practical examples from fiction and autobiography. Perhaps the most striking theme is the need to be able to decentre from the comfort zone of acquired beliefs and convictions and the crucial role played by conversation in cultivating the intellectual and moral openness in order to do so. At the heart of Montaigne’s writing on education is what can be called a pedagogy of conversation.