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This book aims to encourage the reading of On the Origin of Species and to include it in the teaching of evolution. With a comprehensive overview of the development of Darwin's theory, the volume provides relevant aspects of Darwin's life and work in connection with the broader context of his time. The historical and philosophical analysis, mirrored in the socio-cultural scope, enables the diachronic reading of the text. It is built on various sources of historians and philosophers of science and sheds fresh light on them. Its uniqueness is the broad structure that covers four parts: the pre-Darwinian concepts of species changes; some key elements of Darwin's pursuit of the causes of evolution, from his voyage on Beagle to the publication of his groundbreaking work; chapter-by-chapter analysis of the Origin; and subsequent developments in evolutionary thought. This book is of interest to undergraduate and graduate students, scholars in history, philosophy, and sociology of science and science education, as well as the general public.
- Introduction: Why Read the “Origin of Species”? / Maria Elice Brzezinski Prestes
- Debates About Life’s Origin and Adaptive Powers in the Early Nineteenth Century / Pietro Corsi
- The Darwinian Not Too Strictly Balanced Arrangement Between Cuvier and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire / Gustavo Caponi
- An Amazing Journey: Darwin and the Fuegians / Héctor A. Palma
- Darwin’s First Writings: From the Beagle Voyage to His Transmutation Notebooks (1837–1839) and Essay (1844) / Janet Browne
- The Development of Darwin’s Theory: From Natural Theology to Natural Selection / Kostas Kampourakis
- “Great as Immensity, Deep as Eternity”: What Could the Grandeur of Life Say About God’s Existence, According to Darwin? / João F. N. B. Cortese
- Mr. Darwin’s Beloved Barnacles: Using Cirripedes to Understand Evolution in “Origin of Species” / Marsha L. Richmond
- Wallace, Darwin, and the Relationship Between Species and Varieties (1858) / Viviane Arruda do Carmo & Lilian Al-Chueyr Pereira Martins
- There Have Been Few Such Naturalists Before, but Still…: Darwin’s Public Account of Predecessors / Maria Elice Brzezinski Prestes
- You Too Can Find “Grandeur in This View of Life”: A Linguistic Remedy for Resisting the Desire to Abandon Darwin’s Origin of Species / Bárbara Jiménez-Pazos
- Origin’s Chapter I: How Breeders Work Their Magic / Gregory Radick
- Origin’s Chapter II: Darwin’s Ideas on Variation Under the Lens of Current Evolutionary Genetics / Roberto Rozenberg
- Origin’s Chapter III: The Two Faces of Natural Selection / Robert J. Richards
- Origin’s Chapter IV: The Newton of the Blade of Grass / Michael Ruse
- Origin’s Chapter V: How “Random” Is Evolutionary Change? / Sander Gliboff
- Origin’s Chapter VI: The Initial Difficulties of Darwin’s Theory / R. A. Martins
- Origin’s Chapter VII. Darwin and the Instinct: Why Study Collective Behaviors Performed Without Knowledge of Their Purposes? / Nelio Bizzo & Lucas Marino Vivot
- Origin’s Chapter VIII: Darwin for and Against Hybridism / P. Lorenzano
- Origin’s Chapter IX and X: From Old Objections to Novel Explanations: Darwin on the Fossil Record / Charles H. Pence
- Origin’s Chapter XI and XII: “Seed! Seed! Seed!”: Geographical Distribution in on the Origin of Species / Tina Gianquitto
- Origin’s Chapter XIII. The Meaning of Classification, Morphology, Embryology, and Rudimentary Organs to the Theory of Descent with Modifications / Aldo Mellender de Araújo
- Origin’s Chapter XIV: The Good Old Habit of Summarizing / Gerda Maisa Jensen, Bruno F. Lima & Marcelo Monetti Pavani
- Continuities and Ruptures: Comparing Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” and the Modern Synthesis / Susana Gisela Lamas
- From the Modern Synthesis to the Other (Extended, Super, Postmodern…) Syntheses / Thierry Hoquet
- Correction to: Origin’s Chapter VIII: Darwin for and Against Hybridism / P. Lorenzano
Maria Elice Brzezinski Prestes graduated in Biological Sciences at the Pontifical Catholic University of Parana (1983). She worked in marine biology research and as a high school biology teacher, mainly in public schools. She raised her first child during the Specialization in History of Science and Epistemology at the State University of Campinas (1992) and the Master's in Environmental Science at the University of Sao Paulo (1997). She did her PhD at the Faculty of Education at the University of Sao Paulo (2003), with a sandwich Doctorate (CNPq 2002) at the Sphere-REHSEIS at the University of Paris 7 and with the birth of her second child. She is an Associate Professor at the Department of Genetics and Evolutionary Biology of the Institute of Biosciences of the University of Sao Paulo, where she coordinates the Laboratory of History of Biology and Teaching (LaHBE). She is a former president of the Brazilian Association of Philosophy and History of Biology (ABFHiB) and a current editor of the Brazilian journal Filosofia e Historia da Biologia. Her research focuses on the generation of living beings, especially the modes of observation and experiments in the 17th and 18th centuries. Currently, she is developing studies on Darwin's and Aristotle's works.
