Presented By: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
EEB Thursday Seminar Series - Why Did Darwin Change His Mind About Sex Ratio?
Elliott Sober, University of Wisconsin
This event is part of our ongoing Thursday Seminar Series.
About the seminar: Drawing on Chapter 3 of my book Did Darwin write the Origin Backwards? I analyze the model of sex ratio evolution that Darwin presents in the 1st edition of Descent of Man. I’ll then describe Darwin’s mysterious retraction of that model in the 2nd edition. Darwin’s 1st edition argument traces back to John Arbuthnot’s 1710 article “An argument for divine providence, taken from the constant regularity observed in the births of both sexes.” There is no evidence that Darwin read Arbuthnot’s article, but Darwin probably read about Arbuthnot’s argument in William Paley’s The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy. As for the retraction, I’ll argue that Darwin used a style of phylogenetic reasoning in the Origin that would have allowed him to see the error in his earlier argument. There’s a second possible explanation that I’ll also describe.
About the seminar: Drawing on Chapter 3 of my book Did Darwin write the Origin Backwards? I analyze the model of sex ratio evolution that Darwin presents in the 1st edition of Descent of Man. I’ll then describe Darwin’s mysterious retraction of that model in the 2nd edition. Darwin’s 1st edition argument traces back to John Arbuthnot’s 1710 article “An argument for divine providence, taken from the constant regularity observed in the births of both sexes.” There is no evidence that Darwin read Arbuthnot’s article, but Darwin probably read about Arbuthnot’s argument in William Paley’s The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy. As for the retraction, I’ll argue that Darwin used a style of phylogenetic reasoning in the Origin that would have allowed him to see the error in his earlier argument. There’s a second possible explanation that I’ll also describe.
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