Alfred Russel Wallace's North American tour: transatlantic evolutionism

Evolutionary theory aroused vigorous debate in the late-19th century, regarding both its scientific status and its sociocultural implications. Alfred Russel Wallace's lecture tour of North America, during 1886-1887, affords a striking insight into his particular interpretation of evolution and reveals the depth of his conviction that science was inseparable from ethical and political realities. Wallace's views on matters scientific and cultural were as controversial and significant in North America as they were in Great Britain and Europe.     

Alfred Wallace and the anthropology of sound in Victorian culture

In the years after the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, Alfred Russel Wallace became a prominent critic of the argument that evolution provided a sufficient account of human origins. Unbeknownst to many historians of science, Wallace partly based his case on his belief that man's musical sense and aesthetic powers could not have evolved by natural selection. Although he witnessed a variety of musical practices during his travels abroad, Wallace, like many contemporaries in Victorian England, assumed that music uniquely belonged to the ‘civilized’ world he inhabited. In the late 19th century, some evolutionists would challenge this view by reconceiving the nature of music itself.     

Spirited dispute: the secret split between Wallace and Romanes

Alfred Russel Wallace's role in prompting the original publication of "On the Origin of Species" is now generally acknowledged. Wallace is now widely recognised as 'Darwin's co-discoverer', but the role that he played in the development and promotion of Darwinism is more often overlooked. From the very beginning of their collaboration in 1858, there were important differences between the works of Wallace and Darwin. Within Darwin's lifetime, the two men also disagreed over several significant evolutionary debates, most notably the role that Natural Selection might play in evolution. Following Darwin's death in 1882, Wallace set about promoting his own version of 'Darwinism', but not without opposition. A rather ungentlemanly debate between Wallace and Darwin's chief disciple George John Romanes throws light on the contested nature of what it meant to be a Darwinian in the late nineteenth century.     

Computing controversy: Formal model and algorithms for detecting controversy on Wikipedia and in search queries

Controversy is a complex concept that has been attracting attention of scholars from diverse fields. In the era of Internet and social media, detecting controversy and controversial concepts by the means of automatic methods is especially important. Web searchers could be alerted when the contents they consume are controversial or when they attempt to acquire information on disputed topics. Presenting users with the indications and explanations of the controversy should offer them chance to see the “wider picture” rather than letting them obtain one-sided views. In this work we first introduce a formal model of controversy as the basis of computational approaches to detecting controversial concepts. Then we propose a classification based method for automatic detection of controversial articles and categories in Wikipedia. Next, we demonstrate how to use the obtained results for the estimation of the controversy level of search queries. The proposed method can be incorporated into search engines as a component responsible for detection of queries related to controversial topics. The method is independent of the search engine’s retrieval and search results recommendation algorithms, and is therefore unaffected by a possible filter bubble.Our approach can be also applied in Wikipedia or other knowledge bases for supporting the detection of controversy and content maintenance. Finally, we believe that our results could be useful for social science researchers for understanding the complex nature of controversy and in fostering their studies.     

Girdle round the earth

Puck, in a Shakespearean comedy set in Athens, boasted: ‘I'll put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes’. His claim was never realised, but today—thanks to submarine cable technology—the human voice can make this long journey in a tenth of a second. This article reviews the present state of submarine cable technology; its relationship to communication by satellite; and the implications of optical fibre systems.     

Scientific conviction amidst scientific controversy in the transatlantic livestock and meat trade

A century before the outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), Great Britain and North America grappled with pleuro-pneumonia - a disease in cattle that had equally maddening consequences. Towards the end of the 19th century, this condition was at the heart of a transatlantic trade dispute that lasted for decades and attracted the attention of livestock farmers, diplomats, shipping moguls, veterinarians, public health regulators and journalists the world over. Scientific controversy aggravated the situation when there were doubts about the scientific judgment of Privy Council veterinary officials, who were simultaneously conducting disease-diagnosis activities and pushing for tighter regulations at British ports. At this point, William Williams, principal of the New Veterinary College in Edinburgh, waded into this troubled arena. His strong convictions spawned a long-running disagreement with the British Government over the diagnoses of pleuro-pneumonia in cattle imported from the USA and Canada.     

华莱士与达尔文的分歧

华莱士与达尔文在性别二态性、杂交与杂种不育及人类的起源问题上存有分歧：达尔文采取多元论,在自然选择学说中引入性选择与相关律的解释,华莱士则坚持适应主义的自然选择一元论,但在人类进化问题上引入了唯灵论的超自然解释。分歧反映出达尔文主义在“非达尔文革命”中的困境：遗传学的不足与进步主义的盛行使神学进化论与科学进化论妥协的可能依然存在。,