"Darwinism...we mean evolution by (means of) natural selection"

 Darwin replaced earlier belief with at least five theories the last of which is natural selection.

pp. 36-37

 
 Examples:

1    fossils of trilobytes
2    finches (mocking birds) , tortoises, pines
3    manatees, sea turtles, mangrove forests
4    Mt. St. Helens, White Pine Forest succession to beech and maple hardwoods
5    bacterial and insect resistance 

1) -- abundant genetic variation every generation;

2) -- limited survival of the offspring who reproduce.

 "mechanism of adaptive change"

harmony and adaptability of the organic world 68

 Is it "an essentially mechanical explanation." ?

"Yes, in that it is a material and physical examination of natural change and variation and is not metaphysical.
He accounts for variation in terms of "survival of the fortunate."
 

Darwin's idea forms the heart of the modern biological synthesis
 

individuals convey variation +
reproductive success to selection from among the survivors
abundant offspring not all variants are "hardy" in that they reproduce.

69

Population thinking:
 

Analog to animal and plant breeders is:
artificial selection to natural selection
humans select humans do not select
"breeding pairs" are selected vs. Differential survival

Literate

 There is no definitive answer to whether or not Darwin was externally influenced by his times (zeitgeist) and what he read, or was he influenced internally by his method of evaluating evidence he collected by contrasting and comparing his findings with practitioners and writers.

69.

After 1833-36 voyage he was, with some help of ornithologist John Gould in 1837, a determined "evolutionist" .... Gould upon reviewing the mocking birds Darwin had gathered from different islands in the Galapagos concluded that there wer three doifferent species where Darwin had originally conjectured there were only one species with three varieties.
 

What this meant was he had altered the status of human beings in the worldview of creation, natural history and biological thought.

 July, 1837, in Darwin's own mind,nature and human order were altered and thus his personal worldview became out of step with his fellow naturalists (asynchrony):

• Static becomes dynamic and one consequence was that humans were placed "into the stream of animal evolution."
• Nature nolonger needed a creator who intervened to inspire new forms of evolution.

Darwin's five concepts.