User:Alba/Workspace/Variation and selection

The only remaining task is integrating references, probably to their own authors' pages. This page is retained for historical interest and to finish small amounts, but for all intents and purposes, this article is merged. I'm taking it off the 1911 list, and thus declaring the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica to be, at first draft level, merged into Wikipedia. Ladies, gentlemen, and algorithms, it's been an honor. Alba 15:21, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

1911 text begins here:

Reviewed content
VARIATION AND SELECTION, in biology.

Since the publication in 1859 of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, the theory of evolution of animals and plants has rested on a linking of the conceptions of variation and selection. Living organisms vary, that is to say, no two individuals are exactly alike; the death rate and the birth rate are to a certain extent selective, that is to say, on the average and in the long run, they favor certain variations and oppress other variations. Co-operation of the two factors appears to supply a causal theory of the occurrence of evolution; the suggestion of their co-operation and the comparison of the possible results with the actual achievements of breeders in producing varieties were the features of Charles Darwins theoretical work which made it a new beginning in the science of biology, and which reduced to insignificance all earlier work on the theory of evolution. P. Geddes, J. H. Stirling, E. Clodd and H. F. Osborn have made careful studies of pre-Darwinian writers on evolution, but the results of their inquiries only serve to show the greatness of the departure made by Darwin.

Pre-Darwinian suggestions of natural selection
Moving content to: History of evolutionary thought

Several of the ancients had a vague belief in continuity between the inorganic and the organic and in the modifying or variation-producing effects of the environment. Medieval writers contain nothing of interest on the subject, and the speculations of the earliest of the modern evolutionists, such as C. Bonnet, were too vague to be of value.

(content moved to History of evolutionary thought)

(Erasmus Darwin quote moved to Zoonomia)

Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus, in the beginning of the 19th century, laid stress on the indefiniteness of variation, but assumed that some of it was adaptive response to the environment, and some due to sexual crossing.

(Wells and Matthew already covered well)

G. St Hilaire and afterwards his son Isodore regarded variation as not indefinite but directly evoked by the demands of the environment.

L. von Buch laid stress on geographical isolation as the cause of production of varieties, the different conditions of the environment and the segregated interbreeding gradually producing local races.

K. E. von Baer and M. J. Schleiden regarded variation and the production of new or improved structures as an unfolding of possibilities latent in the stock.

(Chambers material added to History of evolutionary thought)

In 1852 C. Naudin compared the origin of species in nature with that of varieties under cultivation.

Herbert Spencer from 1852] onwards maintained the principle of evolution and laid special stress on the moulding forces of the environment which called into being primarily new functions and secondarily new structures.

(Moving Huxley summation to History of evolutionary thought)

Darwin's original argument
Material merged to Origin of Species

Wallace and Darwin co-publish
Material covered in its entirety in articles on Alfred Russel Wallace and Publication of Darwin's theory.

Magnitude of Variation
Summarized in History of evolutionary thought, see diff

Variation and Mendelism
Material completely out of date and useless Alba 18:48, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Correlated Variation
Extremely didactic discussion of the fact that children resemble parents, and so any metric correlates between generations. Little here to be salvaged. Alba 18:55, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The statistical investigation of correlations forms a new branch of biological inquiry, generally termed "biometrics", inaugurated by Francis Galton and carried on by Karl Pearson and the late Walter Frank Raphael Weldon.

Causes of Variation
Material summarized at History of evolutionary thought, see diff.

James Cossar Ewart and H. M. Vernon (maybe Vernon Herbert Blackman?) have adduced experimental evidence as to the induction of variation by such causes as difference in the ages of the parents, in the maturity or freshness of the conjugating germ cells, and in the condition of nutrition for the embryos. Such cases show in the plainest way the co-operation of external or environmental and internal or constitutional factors.

Biometrics
We quote from the article Variation and Selection, in the tenth edition of this Encyclopaedia, an exposition of the biometric method by Weldon:

salvaged names into Biometrics. The rest appears to be a bit pedantic. Alba 02:00, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Limitation of Variations; Orthogenesis
Material condensed and moved as a quote to Orthogenesis Alba 15:15, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Selection and Adaptation
Completely obsolete. Alba 15:18, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

References from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

 * 1) W. Bateson, Mendels Principles of Heredity (Cambridge, 1909)
 * 2) E. Clodd, Pioneers of Evolution (London, 1897)
 * 3) Edward Drinker Cope, Origin of the Fittest (London, 1887)
 * 4) Charles Darwin, Origin of Species (London), Variation of Plants and Animals (London)
 * 5) Erasmus Darwin, Zoonomia (London, 1794)
 * 6) J. Cossar Ewart, Variation, Germinal and Environmental, in Trans. Roy. Dublin Society (1901)
 * 7) P. Geddes, Variation and Selection, Encyclopedia Brittanica 9th ed.
 * 8) J. G. von Herder, Ideen zur Phil. d. Geschichte (790)
 * 9) R. H. Lock, Recent Progress in the Study of Variation, Heredity and Evolution (London, 1906)
 * 10) Thomas Morgan, Chance or Purpose in the Origin and Evolution of Adaptation, Science (New York, 1910), p. 201
 * 11) H. F. Oshorn, From the Greeks to Darwin (New York, 1894)
 * 12) E. B. Poulton, Charles Darwin and the Origin of Species (London, 1909)
 * 13) J. H. Stirling, Darwinianism (London, 1894);
 * 14) Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, The New Origin of Species, Nature (1910)
 * 15) H. M. Vernon, Variation in Animals and Plants (London, 1903)
 * 16) Hugo de Vries, Species and Varieties, their Origin by Mutation (Chicago, 1905)
 * 17) The Mutation Theory (London, 1910);
 * 18) Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwinism (1889)
 * 19) August Weismann, The Evolution Theory (London, 1904)
 * 20) Walter Frank Raphael Weldon, Variation and Selection, Ency. Brit. 10th ed.
 * 21) Various Authorities in Fifty Years of Darwinism (New York, 1909).

(P. C. M.)