#charlesdarwin — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #charlesdarwin, aggregated by home.social.
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Rezultatul practic cel mai important al evoluționismului este credința că viața umană nu este în mod special sacră sau importantă Această credință și-a găsit expresia în uciderile în masă, în bombardarea orașelor, în clinicile de avort 👉 https://c.aparatorul.md/tod8h 👈 #Biologie #CharlesDarwin #comunismul #CredințaCreștină #drepturile #Dumnezeu #embrionuluiuman #Evoluţie #Evoluţionism #Inchiziția #KarlMarx #materialismulateumodern #moralitatea #ndoctrinarealibera...
https://c.aparatorul.md/tod8h -
SIGUE ⬇️
Darwin, aunque seguía teniendo algunos prejuicios típicos de la Inglaterra victoriana, sentía un rechazo visceral hacia la esclavitud.
Y aquello no surgía de la nada.
Su familia llevaba años vinculada al movimiento abolicionista británico.
Los Darwin y los Wedgwood habían criticado públicamente el comercio de esclavos mucho antes de que Charles naciera.
Desde pequeño había crecido escuchando que ninguna persona debía ser propiedad de otra.Con el tiempo, además, sus propias investigaciones científicas reforzarían todavía más esa visión.
La idea de un ancestro común para toda la humanidad chocaba directamente con las teorías raciales que intentaban justificar la superioridad “natural” de unas personas sobre otras.
Por eso Brasil terminó ocupando un lugar tan contradictorio en su memoria.
Era uno de los países más hermosos que había visto.
Y al mismo tiempo uno de los que más dolor le produjo.
Años después escribió una frase demoledora:
“Doy gracias a Dios de que nunca volveré a visitar un país donde exista esclavitud.”
Y hay un detalle histórico especialmente duro: Brasil fue el último país occidental en abolir oficialmente la esclavitud, algo que no ocurrió hasta 1888.
La historia de Darwin en Brasil sigue siendo importante porque recuerda algo incómodo.
La barbarie no siempre aparece lejos de la civilización.
A veces vive dentro de ella. Vestida de religión, educación, riqueza y respetabilidad.
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𝘓𝘢 𝘥𝘶𝘥𝘢 𝘥𝘦 𝘋𝘢𝘳𝘸𝘪𝘯 (𝘊𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 2009): 𝘌𝘴 𝘭𝘢 𝘮𝘢𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘢.
𝘈𝘶𝘯𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘴𝘦 𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘢 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘱𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦 𝘦𝘯 𝘦𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘥𝘦 𝘋𝘢𝘳𝘸𝘪𝘯 (𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘥𝘰 𝘱𝘰𝘳 𝘗𝘢𝘶𝘭 𝘉𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘺) 𝘢𝘭 𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘳 𝘴𝘶 𝘭𝘪𝘣𝘳𝘰, 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘺𝘦 𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘢𝘴 𝘥𝘦 𝘧𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘴 𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘴 𝘥𝘦 𝘴𝘶 𝘷𝘪𝘢𝘫𝘦 𝘦𝘯 𝘦𝘭 𝘉𝘦𝘢𝘨𝘭𝘦.
𝘔𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢 𝘤𝘰́𝘮𝘰 𝘦𝘴𝘰𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘦𝘳𝘥𝘰𝘴 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘰𝘴, 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘺𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘰 𝘭𝘢 𝘮𝘶𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘦 𝘥𝘦 𝘴𝘶 𝘩𝘪𝘫𝘢 𝘺 𝘭𝘢 𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘦𝘭𝘥𝘢𝘥 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘰́, 𝘭𝘰 𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘢𝘯 𝘮𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘣𝘢 𝘴𝘶 𝘵𝘦𝘰𝘳𝘪́𝘢.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxXZ3vqjDRw
#historia #darwin #charlesdarwin #brasil #esclavitud #hmsbeagle #sigloxix #ciencia #historiasreales #curiosidadeshistoricas #evolucion #ecosdelpasado
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SIGUE ⬇️
Darwin, aunque seguía teniendo algunos prejuicios típicos de la Inglaterra victoriana, sentía un rechazo visceral hacia la esclavitud.
Y aquello no surgía de la nada.
Su familia llevaba años vinculada al movimiento abolicionista británico.
Los Darwin y los Wedgwood habían criticado públicamente el comercio de esclavos mucho antes de que Charles naciera.
Desde pequeño había crecido escuchando que ninguna persona debía ser propiedad de otra.Con el tiempo, además, sus propias investigaciones científicas reforzarían todavía más esa visión.
La idea de un ancestro común para toda la humanidad chocaba directamente con las teorías raciales que intentaban justificar la superioridad “natural” de unas personas sobre otras.
Por eso Brasil terminó ocupando un lugar tan contradictorio en su memoria.
Era uno de los países más hermosos que había visto.
Y al mismo tiempo uno de los que más dolor le produjo.
Años después escribió una frase demoledora:
“Doy gracias a Dios de que nunca volveré a visitar un país donde exista esclavitud.”
Y hay un detalle histórico especialmente duro: Brasil fue el último país occidental en abolir oficialmente la esclavitud, algo que no ocurrió hasta 1888.
La historia de Darwin en Brasil sigue siendo importante porque recuerda algo incómodo.
La barbarie no siempre aparece lejos de la civilización.
A veces vive dentro de ella. Vestida de religión, educación, riqueza y respetabilidad.
▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣
𝘓𝘢 𝘥𝘶𝘥𝘢 𝘥𝘦 𝘋𝘢𝘳𝘸𝘪𝘯 (𝘊𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 2009): 𝘌𝘴 𝘭𝘢 𝘮𝘢𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘢.
𝘈𝘶𝘯𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘴𝘦 𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘢 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘱𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦 𝘦𝘯 𝘦𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘥𝘦 𝘋𝘢𝘳𝘸𝘪𝘯 (𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘥𝘰 𝘱𝘰𝘳 𝘗𝘢𝘶𝘭 𝘉𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘺) 𝘢𝘭 𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘳 𝘴𝘶 𝘭𝘪𝘣𝘳𝘰, 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘺𝘦 𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘢𝘴 𝘥𝘦 𝘧𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘴 𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘴 𝘥𝘦 𝘴𝘶 𝘷𝘪𝘢𝘫𝘦 𝘦𝘯 𝘦𝘭 𝘉𝘦𝘢𝘨𝘭𝘦.
𝘔𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢 𝘤𝘰́𝘮𝘰 𝘦𝘴𝘰𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘦𝘳𝘥𝘰𝘴 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘰𝘴, 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘺𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘰 𝘭𝘢 𝘮𝘶𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘦 𝘥𝘦 𝘴𝘶 𝘩𝘪𝘫𝘢 𝘺 𝘭𝘢 𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘦𝘭𝘥𝘢𝘥 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘰́, 𝘭𝘰 𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘢𝘯 𝘮𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘣𝘢 𝘴𝘶 𝘵𝘦𝘰𝘳𝘪́𝘢.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxXZ3vqjDRw
#historia #darwin #charlesdarwin #brasil #esclavitud #hmsbeagle #sigloxix #ciencia #historiasreales #curiosidadeshistoricas #evolucion #ecosdelpasado
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SIGUE ⬇️
Darwin, aunque seguía teniendo algunos prejuicios típicos de la Inglaterra victoriana, sentía un rechazo visceral hacia la esclavitud.
Y aquello no surgía de la nada.
Su familia llevaba años vinculada al movimiento abolicionista británico.
Los Darwin y los Wedgwood habían criticado públicamente el comercio de esclavos mucho antes de que Charles naciera.
Desde pequeño había crecido escuchando que ninguna persona debía ser propiedad de otra.Con el tiempo, además, sus propias investigaciones científicas reforzarían todavía más esa visión.
La idea de un ancestro común para toda la humanidad chocaba directamente con las teorías raciales que intentaban justificar la superioridad “natural” de unas personas sobre otras.
Por eso Brasil terminó ocupando un lugar tan contradictorio en su memoria.
Era uno de los países más hermosos que había visto.
Y al mismo tiempo uno de los que más dolor le produjo.
Años después escribió una frase demoledora:
“Doy gracias a Dios de que nunca volveré a visitar un país donde exista esclavitud.”
Y hay un detalle histórico especialmente duro: Brasil fue el último país occidental en abolir oficialmente la esclavitud, algo que no ocurrió hasta 1888.
La historia de Darwin en Brasil sigue siendo importante porque recuerda algo incómodo.
La barbarie no siempre aparece lejos de la civilización.
A veces vive dentro de ella. Vestida de religión, educación, riqueza y respetabilidad.
▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣
𝘓𝘢 𝘥𝘶𝘥𝘢 𝘥𝘦 𝘋𝘢𝘳𝘸𝘪𝘯 (𝘊𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 2009): 𝘌𝘴 𝘭𝘢 𝘮𝘢𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘢.
𝘈𝘶𝘯𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘴𝘦 𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘢 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘱𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦 𝘦𝘯 𝘦𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘥𝘦 𝘋𝘢𝘳𝘸𝘪𝘯 (𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘥𝘰 𝘱𝘰𝘳 𝘗𝘢𝘶𝘭 𝘉𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘺) 𝘢𝘭 𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘳 𝘴𝘶 𝘭𝘪𝘣𝘳𝘰, 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘺𝘦 𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘢𝘴 𝘥𝘦 𝘧𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘴 𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘴 𝘥𝘦 𝘴𝘶 𝘷𝘪𝘢𝘫𝘦 𝘦𝘯 𝘦𝘭 𝘉𝘦𝘢𝘨𝘭𝘦.
𝘔𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢 𝘤𝘰́𝘮𝘰 𝘦𝘴𝘰𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘦𝘳𝘥𝘰𝘴 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘰𝘴, 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘺𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘰 𝘭𝘢 𝘮𝘶𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘦 𝘥𝘦 𝘴𝘶 𝘩𝘪𝘫𝘢 𝘺 𝘭𝘢 𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘦𝘭𝘥𝘢𝘥 𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘰́, 𝘭𝘰 𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘢𝘯 𝘮𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘣𝘢 𝘴𝘶 𝘵𝘦𝘰𝘳𝘪́𝘢.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxXZ3vqjDRw
#historia #darwin #charlesdarwin #brasil #esclavitud #hmsbeagle #sigloxix #ciencia #historiasreales #curiosidadeshistoricas #evolucion #ecosdelpasado
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https://www.europesays.com/no/231805/ Vi må ikke glemme hvor denne typen språk kan føre oss #BreakingNews #BreakingNews #CharlesDarwin #debatt #FeaturedNews #FeaturedNews #Forskning #Fremskrittspartiet #Fremskrittspartiet(Frp) #Headlines #LatestNews #LatestNews #News #NO #Norge #Norway #Nyheter #Overskrifter #rasisme #Språk #Statistikk #TopStories #TopStories #USA #Vitenskap #Vold
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Embodiment and the (Re)invention of Emoji, from the Aztecs to Humboldt and Darwin to AI
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.themarginalian.org/2026/05/05/aztec-humboldt-darwin-emoji/
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https://www.europesays.com/es/507832/ Cómo la naturaleza sigue haciendo una selección natural con los humanos, según un reciente estudio #CharlesDarwin #Ciencia #ES #España #Estudio #evolución #genes #Health #humanos #LaTercera #Mutaciones #Naturaleza #Salud #SelecciónNatural #Spain #tendencias #TeoríaDeLaEvolución
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Die Bibliothek des Charles Darwin
Vor 144 Jahren starb Charles Darwin am 19. April 1882 in Down House/Grafschaft Kent im Alter von 73 Jahren. Wie arbeitete der weithin bekannte Naturforscher? Welche Bücher hat er gelesen, welche inspirierten ihn zu seinen eigenen Forschungen? Diesen Fragen gehen wir in unserem April-Beitrag der TIB-Blogreihe Wissen verbinden nach. Einen Teil der Recherche hat Martje Majowski im Rahmen ihrer FaMI-Ausbildung übernommmen. Vielen Dank!
Darwins Werdegang und die Entstehung der Arten
Charles Darwin, etwa 1857 (gemeinfrei, Wikipedia)Charles Robert Darwin wurde am 12. Februar 1809 auf dem Anwesen Mount House in Shrewsbury als fünftes von sechs Kindern geboren. Sein Vater war der Arzt Robert Waring Darwin (1766–1848), der für ihn ebenso wie für den fünf Jahre älteren Bruder Erasmus Darwin das Studium der Medizin in Edinburgh vorsah. Nach etwas mehr als zwei Jahren wechselte Charles Darwin von der Medizin in das Studium der Theologie nach Cambridge, das er schließlich 1831 mit dem Bachelor of Arts abschloss. Während der Zeit in Cambridge nahm Darwin regelmäßig an Abendveranstaltungen bei Prof. John Henslow teil, der als Priester, Geologe und Botaniker tätig war. Diese Begegnung war entscheidend für Darwins weiteres Leben, denn Henslow empfahl ihn bei Kapitän Robert FitzRoy als naturwissenschaftlichen Begleiter für die Fahrt der HMS Beagle.
Darwins Weltumsegelung mit der HMS Beagle (gemeinfrei, cc-by-3.0 von Devilm25)Während der fünfjährigen Reise (1831–1836) der HMS Beagle füllte Darwin zahlreiche Notizbücher mit botanischen, zoologischen und geologischen Beobachtungen und schuf damit die Grundlage für sein Werk „Über die Entstehung der Arten“. Bis zu dessen Veröffentlichung verfasste Darwin mehrere Bücher über zoologische und geologische Themen. Durch die Hochzeit mit seiner Cousine Emma Wedgwood und den Vermögen von Vater Robert Darwin sowie des Schwiegervaters Josiah Wedgwood konnte Charles Darwin als Privatier leben und seine Evolutionstheorie immer weiter entwickeln. Im November 1859 erschien schließlich On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life und war aufgrund hoher Vorbestellungen sofort vergriffen.
Laut Kellyanne Burbage ist Darwins „Über die Entstehung der Arten“ das am häufigsten verbotene Wissenschaftsbuch. Bereits kurz nach der Veröffentlichung kam es zu zahlreichen Reaktionen, da Darwins Theorie starke Bezüge zu Theologie und Philosophie aufwies. 1895 wurde das Buch schließlich von Darwins Alma Mater, dem Trinity College in Cambridge, wegen Widerspruchs zu christlichen Glaubensgrundsätzen verboten – später folgten Tennessee (1925–1967), Jugoslawien (1935) und Griechenland (1937).
Die Rekonstruktion von Darwins Bibliothek
Titelblatt der ersten Ausgabe von 1859 (gemeinfrei, Wikipedia)„Über die Entstehung der Arten“ legt den Grundstein für die moderne Evolutionsbiologie. Die Grundlagen zu diesem Werk waren jedoch nicht nur die vielen Notizbücher aus der Zeit auf der HMS Beagle. Darwin verarbeitete darin auch viele weitere Erkenntnisse, die er aus den Bereichen Medizin, Psychologie, Naturwissenschaften, Philosophie, Theologie und politische Ökonomie gewann. Sein Ziel war es, die Entstehung von Arten auf eine breite naturwissenschaftliche Grundlage zu stellen. Dabei konnte er auf eine umfangreiche Bibliothek zurückgreifen.
Lange wurde davon ausgegangen, dass Darwins Bibliothek 1.480 Bücher umfasst hat und sich diese Werke in den beiden verbliebenen Sammlungen in der University of Cambridge und in Down House befinden. Doch nach Darwins Tod sind unzählige Schriften in alle Himmelsrichtungen zerstreut worden, einen vollständigen Katalog gab es nicht.
Erst durch die seit Anfang 2024 fertiggestellte digitale Rekonstruktion von Darwins Bibliothek steht nun fest, dass diese Sammlungen nur etwa 15 Prozent der Schriften enthielten, die Darwin besessen hat. Die nach seinem Tod erstellte Bestandsaufnahme von 2.065 gebundenen Büchern sowie die Auswertung von Referenzen in Darwins Schriften und seiner Korrespondenz, ein 426 Seiten umfassender handgeschriebener Katalog von 1875, Darwins Lesetagebuch sowie Tagebücher seiner Frau Emma Darwin waren die Puzzlesteine zur digitalen Rekonstruktion von Darwins Privatbibliothek.
Diese ist nun auf der Seite Darwin online recherchierbar und umfasst 7.350 Titel in 13.000 Werken. Neben Büchern zu Biologie und Geologie umfasst sie auch Titel über Landwirtschaft, Tierzucht, Tierverhalten und die Verbreitung von Tieren, sowie Philosophie, Psychologie, Religion, Kunst, Geschichte, Reisen und Sprachen. Auch Notizen von Darwins Studienreisen mit der HMS Beagle können auf der Internetseite ebenso eingesehen werden wie private Dokumente und Familienfotos. Das Tagebuch seine Reise auf der HMS Beagle steht auch als Hörbuch zum Download zur Verfügung.
„Diese nie dagewesene, detaillierte Sicht auf Darwins komplette Bibliothek erlaubt mehr denn je die Einsicht, dass er keine isolierte Figur war, die für sich gearbeitet hat, sondern ein Experte seiner Zeit, der auf die fortgeschrittene Wissenschaft, die Studien und andere Kenntnisse Tausender Menschen aufgebaut hat“, sagte John van Wyhe, Wissenschaftshistoriker und Initiator von Darwin online. Darwin hat damit im besten Sinne unserer Blogreihe Wissen verbunden.
Wie kann Darwin online genutzt werden?
Eine Einführung zu Darwin Online und der Entstehungsgeschichte zu dieser Plattform gibt John van Wyhe auf youtube. Die kostenfrei nutzbare Datenbank (nur englischsprachige Rechercheoberfläche) kann mit Hilfe der einfachen oder der erweiterten Suche (advanced search) durchsucht werden. Letzte ermöglicht beispielsweise die gezielte Suche nach deutschsprachigen Texten. Bis auf wenige Ausnahmen sind alle aufgeführten Werke als Image, Text oder PDF online einsehbar.
Darwin, Fachreferat und Open Access
Das erste der sechs strategische Handlungsfelder der TIB ist „OPEN SCIENCE – Wissen offen und nachhaltig zugänglich machen“. Die Kategorie #openness beleuchtet im TIB-Blog diverse Aspekte dieses Themas. Open Science und Open Access sind auch wichtige Aufgabenbereiche der Tätigkeit im Fachreferat. Dazu gehört neben der Unterstützung von Studierenden und Mitarbeitenden der Leibniz Universität Hannover (LUH) bei ihren Publikationstätigkeiten auch die Förderung von Open Access im Kontext Bestandsentwicklung. Gerade am Beispiel Darwins und der „banned books“ wird deutlich, wie wichtig Bibliotheken und der freie Zugang zu Wissen und unserem kulturellen Erbe ist.
Darwin in der TIB
Über das TIB-Portal sind neben dem Zugang zu Darwin online mehr als 900 Treffer zu Titeln von oder über Charles Darwin zu finden. Unter anderem auch die vollständige Neuübersetzung von „Über die Entstehung der Arten“ aus dem Jahr 2025. Das AV-Portal bietet darüber hinaus mit der Suche nach Charles Darwin über 30 Filme, die Darwins Arbeiten thematisieren.
Viele Freude beim Stöbern!
#AusDenFachreferaten #CharlesDarwin #LizenzCCBY40INT #openness -
If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.
-- Charles Darwin (Voyage of the Beagle) -
Cambridge offers botany course that inspired Darwin after rare archive uncovered https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/28/cambridge-university-botany-course-charles-darwin-john-stevens-henslow #Plants #UniversityOfCambridge #CharlesDarwin #Science #Education #HigherEducation #Environment #Biology
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A quotation from Charles Darwin
It has often and confidently been asserted, that man’s origin can never be known: but ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) English naturalist
The Descent of Man, Introduction (1871)More about this quote: wist.info/darwin-charles/44415…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #darwin #charlesdarwin #certainty #confidence #ignorance #knowledge #mystery #science #solution #unknowable
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Happy Darwin Day to all those who celebrate!
February 12, 1809 Charles Robert Darwin, who first described the process of evolution of species in the plant and animal kingdoms through natural selection, was born.
It is now celebrated as Darwin Day, when the common language of science, bridging language and culture, is recognized and appreciated.
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Kannte der Naturforscher Charles Darwin den Mönch Gregor Mendel?
Als Gregor Mendel 1865 in Brünn über seine „Versuche über Pflanzen-Hybriden“ berichtete, war der 13 Jahre ältere Charles Darwin bereits ein berühmter Naturforscher. Heute wird an Darwins Geburtstag am 12. Februar 1809 erinnert. Die fünfjährige Weltreise des jungen Darwin von 1831 bis 1836 auf dem Expeditionsschiff Beagle schufen die Grundlage für seine Theorien über die Entwicklung aller Organismen und die Entstehung der Arten. Darwins Evolutionstheorie 1859 erschien Darwins […]https://www.compgen.de/2026/02/kannte-der-naturforscher-charles-darwin-den-moench-gregor-mendel/
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I met a young man in a floppy hat
who stopped and smiled; he too had charm.
“My finches,” he said, “you are watching my finches.”—Edwin Morgan, “Darwin in the Galapagos (1835 AD)”
published in A BOOK OF LIVES (Carcanet, 2007)Charles Darwin was born #OnThisDay, 12 February, 1809
https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781857549188/a-book-of-lives/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #EdwinMorgan #Darwin #CharlesDarwin #DarwinDay #evolution
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The giant tortoises which thrived on the islands, and the variations in species from island to island were instrumental to his thinking, when he later wrote “On the origin of species” which divulged his understanding of biological evolution.
I like the irreverent image of Darwin on the stately, ancient tortoises, but don’t try this at home kids! Tortoises are not for surfing.
#CharlesDarwin #DarwinDay #tortoise #linocut #printmaking #sciart #biology #evolution 🧵3/3
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Der jährliche "Darwin-Tag" am 12. Februar (seinem Geburtstag) hat laut den Akteuren das Ziel "Menschen auf der ganzen Welt zu inspirieren, über die Prinzipien intellektueller Tapferkeit, ständiger Neugier, wissenschaftlichen Denkens und des Hungers nach Wahrheit zu reflektieren und zu handeln, .."
https://www.baldwald.de/umwelttage/umwelttage-im-februar.html#12
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#charlesdarwin #evolution #naturtage #welttage #umwelttage #baldwald #12februar #february12 #biologie -
Buscando #MiradaMatemática en el #MuseoHistoriaNatural #Oxford q cuenta con 4,5 millones de especímenes, encontré a #CharlesDarwin como eje central entre 2arcos y recordé q dijo Sin #duda no hay #progreso La #ignorancia genera confianza más frecuentemente q el #conocimiento Nació #12Febrero de 1809
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Buscando #MiradaMatemática en el #MuseoHistoriaNatural #Oxford q cuenta con 4,5 millones de especímenes, encontré a #CharlesDarwin como eje central entre 2arcos y recordé q dijo Sin #duda no hay #progreso La #ignorancia genera confianza más frecuentemente q el #conocimiento Nació #12Febrero de 1809
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Buscando #MiradaMatemática en el #MuseoHistoriaNatural #Oxford q cuenta con 4,5 millones de especímenes, encontré a #CharlesDarwin como eje central entre 2arcos y recordé q dijo Sin #duda no hay #progreso La #ignorancia genera confianza más frecuentemente q el #conocimiento Nació #12Febrero de 1809
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Buscando #MiradaMatemática en el #MuseoHistoriaNatural #Oxford q cuenta con 4,5 millones de especímenes, encontré a #CharlesDarwin como eje central entre 2arcos y recordé q dijo Sin #duda no hay #progreso La #ignorancia genera confianza más frecuentemente q el #conocimiento Nació #12Febrero de 1809
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Darwin’s Greatest Regret and His Deathbed Reflection on What Makes Life Worth Living
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.themarginalian.org/2026/02/11/darwin-life/
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From the archive: Do we need a new theory of evolution? – podcast https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2026/feb/11/from-the-archive-do-we-need-a-new-theory-of-evolution-podcast #Evolution #Biology #CharlesDarwin #Physics #Science
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Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.
-- Charles Darwin⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #CharlesDarwin #Confidence #Ignorance #Knowledge
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This week's #NewBooks at the library: I bought second-hand copies of Animal Anomalies: What Abnormal Anatomies Reveal about Normal Development and The Correspondence of #CharlesDarwin, Volume 14: 1866, both from Cambridge University Press. I also adopted a damaged copy of the large-format English/German Elefantenreich: Eine Fossilwelt in Europa from Verlag Beier & Beran, which features some amazing fold-out plates. I hear it is basically out of print now.
#Books #Scicomm #Bookstodon #Evolution #DevelopmentalBiology #EvoDevo #HistoryOfScience #ScienceHistory #HistSci #Fossils #Mammoths #Paleontology #Palaeontology @bookstodon
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The #chemistry of #CharlesDarwin #Galápagos specimens https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/fluids-used-to-preserve-charles-darwins-galapagos-island-specimens-probed-by-raman-spectroscopy/4022823.article I retraced his voyage in #SouthAmerica and wrote 23 articles archive here https://www.nikolaskozloff.com/blog/tags/Charles%20Darwin #darwin #science #evolution #wildlife #Climate #climatechange #conservation #indigenous #volcanoes #earthquakes #glaciers #chile #argentina #uruguay #falklands #rodents #canids #foxes #slavery #slaves #imperialism
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Great story, and it's fascinating to see Darwin's diary next to the captain's.
"The same sea filled our decks so deep, that if another had followed it is not difficult to guess the result." Charles Darwin, Beagle Diary, 13 Jan 1833.
Dry laconic understatement here, beautiful in its rhythm and its trusting collusion with the reader. We can picture such a passage in Daniel Defoe or Laurence Sterne.
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Vielen Dank für das Interesse, @KaiSa - ich hatte wirklich nicht damit gerechnet, als ich die Website vom Netz nehmen, damit Aufwand & Geld sparen wollte.
Aber inzwischen finden auch ältere Paper wie jenes zu #CharlesDarwin vs. #RichardDawkins auch auf neuen Wegen wieder neue Leserinnen & Leser. Und das freut mich sehr!
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"I am almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable.... I think I have found out (here's presumption!) the simple way by which species become exquisitely adapted to various ends."
Darwin, quoted in Roberts, p. 305
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Introduce a couple of line breaks and this could stand on its own as a #FoundPoem!
The full letter is here.
https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-729.xml
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#meeuw en #worm hebben iets met elkaar:
Ze voelen het geluid van stampende meeuwen (en gravende mollen) door de trilling van de grond. Dat ze niet gewoon horen, is vastgesteld door Charles Darwin, die fagot en piano speelde voor een dienblad vol wormen, zonder dat de diertjes daar iets van leken te merken. De regenwormen reageerden pas toen het dienblad op de vleugelpiano stond, waar ze de trilling ook konden voelen.
#readewjirmen #charlesdarwin #worm #trillingen
https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/meeuw-stampt-wormen-komen-naar-boven-en-worden-opgegeten-waarom-trappen-ze-daar-nog-steeds-in~bc20f20e/ | https://archive.ph/oBOUW
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This week's #NewBooks at the library (the last one for 2025!): Three second-hand copies of Atlas of the Galilean Satellites from Cambridge University Press; the absolutely massive Fire and Mud: Eruptions and Lahars of Mount Pinatubo, Philippines from the University of Washington Press; and #CharlesDarwin, Geologist from Cornell University Press which I might well review sometime soon in the new year in light of an upcoming Darwin biography...
#Books #Scicomm #Bookstodon #Astronomy #Cosmology #Volcanoes #Volcanology #Geology #EarthSciences #HistoryOfScience #ScienceHistory #HistSci @bookstodon
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Popular Science: Flip through Charles Darwin’s digitized address book. “If you’ve ever wondered whose addresses Charles Darwin was sure to keep tabs on—or even a few rat poison recipes—you’re in luck. A digitized edition of the famed naturalist’s personal address book is available online for the first time.”
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https://unescowhstamps.blogspot.com
Galapagos Islands, Ecuador – UNESCO World Heritage Site
#UNESCO #PatrimonioMundial #WorldHeritage #Welterbe #Philately #Filatelia #Sellos #Stamps #Timbres #Philatelie #Briefmarken #UNESCOWorldHeritage #Galapagos #IslasGalapagos #GalapagosIslands #IslaIsabela #Darwin #CharlesDarwin -
https://unescowhstamps.blogspot.com
Galapagos Islands, Ecuador – UNESCO World Heritage Site
#UNESCO #PatrimonioMundial #WorldHeritage #Welterbe #Philately #Filatelia #Sellos #Stamps #Timbres #Philatelie #Briefmarken #UNESCOWorldHeritage #Galapagos #IslasGalapagos #GalapagosIslands #IslaIsabela #Darwin #CharlesDarwin -
“No man is an island, / Entire of itself; / Every man is a piece of the continent, / A part of the main.”*…
Individualism has been been a growing force in cultures around the world since the Enlightenment; it picked up momentum in the 20th century (c.f., e.g., Adam Curtis’ masterful Century of Self [and here]); and has become a– if not the— foundational concept in liberalism. But, Nils Gilman argues, the biological discovery of the holobiont gives the lie to “the autonomous individual” in a way that has massive implications not only for how we think about, but also how we govern ourselves…
We like to believe we end at our skin. This is the primary hallucination of modern political philosophy in the West, the foundational axiom upon which we have erected our laws, our economics, and our sense of self-worth. Philosophical liberalism imagines human individuals as discrete, bounded entities — monads moving through space, contained entirely within a fleshy envelope that separates “self” from “other.” This architectural model of the human being underpins the political concept of the autonomous liberal subject, just as it grounds the social scientific commitment to methodological individualism. It asserts that the basic unit of human reality is the singular actor, the “I” that thinks, chooses, and owns.
However, this model is a biological fiction. It is a map that corresponds to no territory found in nature. Over the last three decades the life sciences have undergone a quiet revolution that renders the classical liberal view of the subject not merely philosophical debatable, yet factually incorrect. The concept of the holobiont, coined by Adolf Meyer-Abich in 1943 but popularized in the anglophone world by Lynn Margulis in the 1990s, has shattered the idea of the unitary organism. We now know that every macro-organism is actually a dynamic ecosystem, a chimera composed of a host and billions of symbiotic microbes that function as a distinct, integrated biological unit. You are not a single entity. You are a walking coral reef, a plural assemblage of human and non-human cells negotiating a fragile, continuous existence. Roughly half the cells in your body are not human; they are bacterial, fungal, and viral. They do not merely hitch a ride. They digest your food, regulate your immune system, modulate your mood, and structure the development of your brain.
The implications of this biological reality for political theory are cataclysmic. The entire edifice of Liberalism, from Hobbes and Locke to modern libertarianism, rests on the assumption of the “atomic individual” — a sovereign state of one. This core concept of liberal political theory posits a world of separate, self-governing agents who enter into contracts and demand rights to protect their private sphere from intrusion. The liberal subject claims (and demands) to be walled off, protected, and kept clean of the influence of others.
Biology exposes this desire for total autonomy as not just false, but a death wish. In the logic of the holobiont, absolute immunity is not health; it is starvation. A body hermetically sealed against the “other” dies. Our physical existence requires constant contamination and collaboration with foreign agents. We cannot be “self-made” because we are constitutively “made-with.” Donna Haraway describes this shift as moving from autopoiesis (self-making) to sympoiesis (making-with). We do not precede our relationships; our relationships constitute us. If the political subject is physically constituted by “others,” the concept of self-sovereignty collapses. One cannot be the sole monarch of a kingdom occupied by foreign powers that provide the essential infrastructure for the kingdom’s survival…
[Gilman elaborates on the implications both for our political and management systems and for the social sciences that study them. And he explores why this new perspective is hard to internalize and embrace…]
The resistance to this holobiontic perspective is fierce because it is terrifying. As Rudyard Kipling observed (in a quote often misattributed to Nietzsche), “The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” The autonomous liberal subject offers psychological safety. It promises control. It tells us that we are captains of our souls. Embracing the holobiont requires admitting that we are porous, vulnerable, and inextricably entangled with things we cannot control. It demands that we surrender the fantasy of the impermeable border. The skin is not a wall; it is a heavily trafficked interface. The state is not a fortress; it is a metabolic node in a planetary flow.
We are living through the friction between our laws and our biology. We legislate for individuals, yet we live as assemblages. We worship independence while our bodies are grounded in interdependence. The future of political theory cannot simply be an adjustment of liberal categories. It requires a fundamental ontological revision that starts with relation rather than separation. We must stop trying to protect the self from the world and begin understanding the self as a spatially intensified instantiation of the world.
Clinging to the myth of the autonomous subject is a massive act of collective denial. It represents a refusal to look at the microscope and see the legions teeming inside us. We construct our societies around a myth of being that does not correspond to biogeochemical reality. The cost of this error is everywhere apparent — in the degradation of our ecology, the polarization of our politics, and the isolation of our private lives. We try to seal ourselves off, creating sterile environments that make us sick, physically and politically. The holobiont offers a different path, one that acknowledges that to be one is always to be many. We are not solitary thinkers looking out at nature. We are nature looking at itself, through a lens made of billions of other lives. The sovereign is dead. Long live the swarm…
“The Sovereign Individual Does Not Exist,” from @nilsgilman.bsky.social.
Further complicating the issue: “Externalities, Rights, and the Problem of Knowledge,” from Cyril Hédoin:
Very short summary: This essay explains how the knowledge problem [the challenge of a central authority having the information needed to make rational decisions for a complex system like a society] applies to the definition of jurisdictional rights. Jurisdictional rights define spheres of individual sovereignty. Rights are appropriately defined if they internalize all potential externalities. However, individuals may disagree about what counts as an externality. This disagreement stems from individuals’ preferences, which are typically dispersed and local. I discuss various solutions to this problem, including the use of polycentricity...
[Image above: source]
* John Donne
###
As we incorporate the interconnected, we might recall that it was on this date in 1859 that our perspective was shifted in a different kind of way: Charles Darwin published The Origin of the Species. Actually, on that day he published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life; the title was shortened to the one we know with the sixth edition in 1872.
Title page of the 1859 edition#charlesDarwin #culture #darwin #externalities #history #holobiont #individualism #individuality #interconnection #interdependence #philosophy #politics #reason #rights #society #theOriginOfTheSpecies
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“No man is an island, / Entire of itself; / Every man is a piece of the continent, / A part of the main.”*…
Individualism has been been a growing force in cultures around the world since the Enlightenment; it picked up momentum in the 20th century (c.f., e.g., Adam Curtis’ masterful Century of Self [and here]); and has become a– if not the— foundational concept in liberalism. But, Nils Gilman argues, the biological discovery of the holobiont gives the lie to “the autonomous individual” in a way that has massive implications not only for how we think about, but also how we govern ourselves…
We like to believe we end at our skin. This is the primary hallucination of modern political philosophy in the West, the foundational axiom upon which we have erected our laws, our economics, and our sense of self-worth. Philosophical liberalism imagines human individuals as discrete, bounded entities — monads moving through space, contained entirely within a fleshy envelope that separates “self” from “other.” This architectural model of the human being underpins the political concept of the autonomous liberal subject, just as it grounds the social scientific commitment to methodological individualism. It asserts that the basic unit of human reality is the singular actor, the “I” that thinks, chooses, and owns.
However, this model is a biological fiction. It is a map that corresponds to no territory found in nature. Over the last three decades the life sciences have undergone a quiet revolution that renders the classical liberal view of the subject not merely philosophical debatable, yet factually incorrect. The concept of the holobiont, coined by Adolf Meyer-Abich in 1943 but popularized in the anglophone world by Lynn Margulis in the 1990s, has shattered the idea of the unitary organism. We now know that every macro-organism is actually a dynamic ecosystem, a chimera composed of a host and billions of symbiotic microbes that function as a distinct, integrated biological unit. You are not a single entity. You are a walking coral reef, a plural assemblage of human and non-human cells negotiating a fragile, continuous existence. Roughly half the cells in your body are not human; they are bacterial, fungal, and viral. They do not merely hitch a ride. They digest your food, regulate your immune system, modulate your mood, and structure the development of your brain.
The implications of this biological reality for political theory are cataclysmic. The entire edifice of Liberalism, from Hobbes and Locke to modern libertarianism, rests on the assumption of the “atomic individual” — a sovereign state of one. This core concept of liberal political theory posits a world of separate, self-governing agents who enter into contracts and demand rights to protect their private sphere from intrusion. The liberal subject claims (and demands) to be walled off, protected, and kept clean of the influence of others.
Biology exposes this desire for total autonomy as not just false, but a death wish. In the logic of the holobiont, absolute immunity is not health; it is starvation. A body hermetically sealed against the “other” dies. Our physical existence requires constant contamination and collaboration with foreign agents. We cannot be “self-made” because we are constitutively “made-with.” Donna Haraway describes this shift as moving from autopoiesis (self-making) to sympoiesis (making-with). We do not precede our relationships; our relationships constitute us. If the political subject is physically constituted by “others,” the concept of self-sovereignty collapses. One cannot be the sole monarch of a kingdom occupied by foreign powers that provide the essential infrastructure for the kingdom’s survival…
[Gilman elaborates on the implications both for our political and management systems and for the social sciences that study them. And he explores why this new perspective is hard to internalize and embrace…]
The resistance to this holobiontic perspective is fierce because it is terrifying. As Rudyard Kipling observed (in a quote often misattributed to Nietzsche), “The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” The autonomous liberal subject offers psychological safety. It promises control. It tells us that we are captains of our souls. Embracing the holobiont requires admitting that we are porous, vulnerable, and inextricably entangled with things we cannot control. It demands that we surrender the fantasy of the impermeable border. The skin is not a wall; it is a heavily trafficked interface. The state is not a fortress; it is a metabolic node in a planetary flow.
We are living through the friction between our laws and our biology. We legislate for individuals, yet we live as assemblages. We worship independence while our bodies are grounded in interdependence. The future of political theory cannot simply be an adjustment of liberal categories. It requires a fundamental ontological revision that starts with relation rather than separation. We must stop trying to protect the self from the world and begin understanding the self as a spatially intensified instantiation of the world.
Clinging to the myth of the autonomous subject is a massive act of collective denial. It represents a refusal to look at the microscope and see the legions teeming inside us. We construct our societies around a myth of being that does not correspond to biogeochemical reality. The cost of this error is everywhere apparent — in the degradation of our ecology, the polarization of our politics, and the isolation of our private lives. We try to seal ourselves off, creating sterile environments that make us sick, physically and politically. The holobiont offers a different path, one that acknowledges that to be one is always to be many. We are not solitary thinkers looking out at nature. We are nature looking at itself, through a lens made of billions of other lives. The sovereign is dead. Long live the swarm…
“The Sovereign Individual Does Not Exist,” from @nilsgilman.bsky.social.
Further complicating the issue: “Externalities, Rights, and the Problem of Knowledge,” from Cyril Hédoin:
Very short summary: This essay explains how the knowledge problem [the challenge of a central authority having the information needed to make rational decisions for a complex system like a society] applies to the definition of jurisdictional rights. Jurisdictional rights define spheres of individual sovereignty. Rights are appropriately defined if they internalize all potential externalities. However, individuals may disagree about what counts as an externality. This disagreement stems from individuals’ preferences, which are typically dispersed and local. I discuss various solutions to this problem, including the use of polycentricity...
[Image above: source]
* John Donne
###
As we incorporate the interconnected, we might recall that it was on this date in 1859 that our perspective was shifted in a different kind of way: Charles Darwin published The Origin of the Species. Actually, on that day he published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life; the title was shortened to the one we know with the sixth edition in 1872.
Title page of the 1859 edition#charlesDarwin #culture #darwin #externalities #history #holobiont #individualism #individuality #interconnection #interdependence #philosophy #politics #reason #rights #society #theOriginOfTheSpecies
-
“No man is an island, / Entire of itself; / Every man is a piece of the continent, / A part of the main.”*…
Individualism has been been a growing force in cultures around the world since the Enlightenment; it picked up momentum in the 20th century (c.f., e.g., Adam Curtis’ masterful Century of Self [and here]); and has become a– if not the— foundational concept in liberalism. But, Nils Gilman argues, the biological discovery of the holobiont gives the lie to “the autonomous individual” in a way that has massive implications not only for how we think about, but also how we govern ourselves…
We like to believe we end at our skin. This is the primary hallucination of modern political philosophy in the West, the foundational axiom upon which we have erected our laws, our economics, and our sense of self-worth. Philosophical liberalism imagines human individuals as discrete, bounded entities — monads moving through space, contained entirely within a fleshy envelope that separates “self” from “other.” This architectural model of the human being underpins the political concept of the autonomous liberal subject, just as it grounds the social scientific commitment to methodological individualism. It asserts that the basic unit of human reality is the singular actor, the “I” that thinks, chooses, and owns.
However, this model is a biological fiction. It is a map that corresponds to no territory found in nature. Over the last three decades the life sciences have undergone a quiet revolution that renders the classical liberal view of the subject not merely philosophical debatable, yet factually incorrect. The concept of the holobiont, coined by Adolf Meyer-Abich in 1943 but popularized in the anglophone world by Lynn Margulis in the 1990s, has shattered the idea of the unitary organism. We now know that every macro-organism is actually a dynamic ecosystem, a chimera composed of a host and billions of symbiotic microbes that function as a distinct, integrated biological unit. You are not a single entity. You are a walking coral reef, a plural assemblage of human and non-human cells negotiating a fragile, continuous existence. Roughly half the cells in your body are not human; they are bacterial, fungal, and viral. They do not merely hitch a ride. They digest your food, regulate your immune system, modulate your mood, and structure the development of your brain.
The implications of this biological reality for political theory are cataclysmic. The entire edifice of Liberalism, from Hobbes and Locke to modern libertarianism, rests on the assumption of the “atomic individual” — a sovereign state of one. This core concept of liberal political theory posits a world of separate, self-governing agents who enter into contracts and demand rights to protect their private sphere from intrusion. The liberal subject claims (and demands) to be walled off, protected, and kept clean of the influence of others.
Biology exposes this desire for total autonomy as not just false, but a death wish. In the logic of the holobiont, absolute immunity is not health; it is starvation. A body hermetically sealed against the “other” dies. Our physical existence requires constant contamination and collaboration with foreign agents. We cannot be “self-made” because we are constitutively “made-with.” Donna Haraway describes this shift as moving from autopoiesis (self-making) to sympoiesis (making-with). We do not precede our relationships; our relationships constitute us. If the political subject is physically constituted by “others,” the concept of self-sovereignty collapses. One cannot be the sole monarch of a kingdom occupied by foreign powers that provide the essential infrastructure for the kingdom’s survival…
[Gilman elaborates on the implications both for our political and management systems and for the social sciences that study them. And he explores why this new perspective is hard to internalize and embrace…]
The resistance to this holobiontic perspective is fierce because it is terrifying. As Rudyard Kipling observed (in a quote often misattributed to Nietzsche), “The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” The autonomous liberal subject offers psychological safety. It promises control. It tells us that we are captains of our souls. Embracing the holobiont requires admitting that we are porous, vulnerable, and inextricably entangled with things we cannot control. It demands that we surrender the fantasy of the impermeable border. The skin is not a wall; it is a heavily trafficked interface. The state is not a fortress; it is a metabolic node in a planetary flow.
We are living through the friction between our laws and our biology. We legislate for individuals, yet we live as assemblages. We worship independence while our bodies are grounded in interdependence. The future of political theory cannot simply be an adjustment of liberal categories. It requires a fundamental ontological revision that starts with relation rather than separation. We must stop trying to protect the self from the world and begin understanding the self as a spatially intensified instantiation of the world.
Clinging to the myth of the autonomous subject is a massive act of collective denial. It represents a refusal to look at the microscope and see the legions teeming inside us. We construct our societies around a myth of being that does not correspond to biogeochemical reality. The cost of this error is everywhere apparent — in the degradation of our ecology, the polarization of our politics, and the isolation of our private lives. We try to seal ourselves off, creating sterile environments that make us sick, physically and politically. The holobiont offers a different path, one that acknowledges that to be one is always to be many. We are not solitary thinkers looking out at nature. We are nature looking at itself, through a lens made of billions of other lives. The sovereign is dead. Long live the swarm…
“The Sovereign Individual Does Not Exist,” from @nilsgilman.bsky.social.
Further complicating the issue: “Externalities, Rights, and the Problem of Knowledge,” from Cyril Hédoin:
Very short summary: This essay explains how the knowledge problem [the challenge of a central authority having the information needed to make rational decisions for a complex system like a society] applies to the definition of jurisdictional rights. Jurisdictional rights define spheres of individual sovereignty. Rights are appropriately defined if they internalize all potential externalities. However, individuals may disagree about what counts as an externality. This disagreement stems from individuals’ preferences, which are typically dispersed and local. I discuss various solutions to this problem, including the use of polycentricity...
[Image above: source]
* John Donne
###
As we incorporate the interconnected, we might recall that it was on this date in 1859 that our perspective was shifted in a different kind of way: Charles Darwin published The Origin of the Species. Actually, on that day he published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life; the title was shortened to the one we know with the sixth edition in 1872.
Title page of the 1859 edition#charlesDarwin #culture #darwin #externalities #history #holobiont #individualism #individuality #interconnection #interdependence #philosophy #politics #reason #rights #society #theOriginOfTheSpecies
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“No man is an island, / Entire of itself; / Every man is a piece of the continent, / A part of the main.”*…
Individualism has been been a growing force in cultures around the world since the Enlightenment; it picked up momentum in the 20th century (c.f., e.g., Adam Curtis’ masterful Century of Self [and here]); and has become a– if not the— foundational concept in liberalism. But, Nils Gilman argues, the biological discovery of the holobiont gives the lie to “the autonomous individual” in a way that has massive implications not only for how we think about, but also how we govern ourselves…
We like to believe we end at our skin. This is the primary hallucination of modern political philosophy in the West, the foundational axiom upon which we have erected our laws, our economics, and our sense of self-worth. Philosophical liberalism imagines human individuals as discrete, bounded entities — monads moving through space, contained entirely within a fleshy envelope that separates “self” from “other.” This architectural model of the human being underpins the political concept of the autonomous liberal subject, just as it grounds the social scientific commitment to methodological individualism. It asserts that the basic unit of human reality is the singular actor, the “I” that thinks, chooses, and owns.
However, this model is a biological fiction. It is a map that corresponds to no territory found in nature. Over the last three decades the life sciences have undergone a quiet revolution that renders the classical liberal view of the subject not merely philosophical debatable, yet factually incorrect. The concept of the holobiont, coined by Adolf Meyer-Abich in 1943 but popularized in the anglophone world by Lynn Margulis in the 1990s, has shattered the idea of the unitary organism. We now know that every macro-organism is actually a dynamic ecosystem, a chimera composed of a host and billions of symbiotic microbes that function as a distinct, integrated biological unit. You are not a single entity. You are a walking coral reef, a plural assemblage of human and non-human cells negotiating a fragile, continuous existence. Roughly half the cells in your body are not human; they are bacterial, fungal, and viral. They do not merely hitch a ride. They digest your food, regulate your immune system, modulate your mood, and structure the development of your brain.
The implications of this biological reality for political theory are cataclysmic. The entire edifice of Liberalism, from Hobbes and Locke to modern libertarianism, rests on the assumption of the “atomic individual” — a sovereign state of one. This core concept of liberal political theory posits a world of separate, self-governing agents who enter into contracts and demand rights to protect their private sphere from intrusion. The liberal subject claims (and demands) to be walled off, protected, and kept clean of the influence of others.
Biology exposes this desire for total autonomy as not just false, but a death wish. In the logic of the holobiont, absolute immunity is not health; it is starvation. A body hermetically sealed against the “other” dies. Our physical existence requires constant contamination and collaboration with foreign agents. We cannot be “self-made” because we are constitutively “made-with.” Donna Haraway describes this shift as moving from autopoiesis (self-making) to sympoiesis (making-with). We do not precede our relationships; our relationships constitute us. If the political subject is physically constituted by “others,” the concept of self-sovereignty collapses. One cannot be the sole monarch of a kingdom occupied by foreign powers that provide the essential infrastructure for the kingdom’s survival…
[Gilman elaborates on the implications both for our political and management systems and for the social sciences that study them. And he explores why this new perspective is hard to internalize and embrace…]
The resistance to this holobiontic perspective is fierce because it is terrifying. As Rudyard Kipling observed (in a quote often misattributed to Nietzsche), “The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” The autonomous liberal subject offers psychological safety. It promises control. It tells us that we are captains of our souls. Embracing the holobiont requires admitting that we are porous, vulnerable, and inextricably entangled with things we cannot control. It demands that we surrender the fantasy of the impermeable border. The skin is not a wall; it is a heavily trafficked interface. The state is not a fortress; it is a metabolic node in a planetary flow.
We are living through the friction between our laws and our biology. We legislate for individuals, yet we live as assemblages. We worship independence while our bodies are grounded in interdependence. The future of political theory cannot simply be an adjustment of liberal categories. It requires a fundamental ontological revision that starts with relation rather than separation. We must stop trying to protect the self from the world and begin understanding the self as a spatially intensified instantiation of the world.
Clinging to the myth of the autonomous subject is a massive act of collective denial. It represents a refusal to look at the microscope and see the legions teeming inside us. We construct our societies around a myth of being that does not correspond to biogeochemical reality. The cost of this error is everywhere apparent — in the degradation of our ecology, the polarization of our politics, and the isolation of our private lives. We try to seal ourselves off, creating sterile environments that make us sick, physically and politically. The holobiont offers a different path, one that acknowledges that to be one is always to be many. We are not solitary thinkers looking out at nature. We are nature looking at itself, through a lens made of billions of other lives. The sovereign is dead. Long live the swarm…
“The Sovereign Individual Does Not Exist,” from @nilsgilman.bsky.social.
Further complicating the issue: “Externalities, Rights, and the Problem of Knowledge,” from Cyril Hédoin:
Very short summary: This essay explains how the knowledge problem [the challenge of a central authority having the information needed to make rational decisions for a complex system like a society] applies to the definition of jurisdictional rights. Jurisdictional rights define spheres of individual sovereignty. Rights are appropriately defined if they internalize all potential externalities. However, individuals may disagree about what counts as an externality. This disagreement stems from individuals’ preferences, which are typically dispersed and local. I discuss various solutions to this problem, including the use of polycentricity...
[Image above: source]
* John Donne
###
As we incorporate the interconnected, we might recall that it was on this date in 1859 that our perspective was shifted in a different kind of way: Charles Darwin published The Origin of the Species. Actually, on that day he published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life; the title was shortened to the one we know with the sixth edition in 1872.
Title page of the 1859 edition#charlesDarwin #culture #darwin #externalities #history #holobiont #individualism #individuality #interconnection #interdependence #philosophy #politics #reason #rights #society #theOriginOfTheSpecies
-
“No man is an island, / Entire of itself; / Every man is a piece of the continent, / A part of the main.”*…
Individualism has been been a growing force in cultures around the world since the Enlightenment; it picked up momentum in the 20th century (c.f., e.g., Adam Curtis’ masterful Century of Self [and here]); and has become a– if not the— foundational concept in liberalism. But, Nils Gilman argues, the biological discovery of the holobiont gives the lie to “the autonomous individual” in a way that has massive implications not only for how we think about, but also how we govern ourselves…
We like to believe we end at our skin. This is the primary hallucination of modern political philosophy in the West, the foundational axiom upon which we have erected our laws, our economics, and our sense of self-worth. Philosophical liberalism imagines human individuals as discrete, bounded entities — monads moving through space, contained entirely within a fleshy envelope that separates “self” from “other.” This architectural model of the human being underpins the political concept of the autonomous liberal subject, just as it grounds the social scientific commitment to methodological individualism. It asserts that the basic unit of human reality is the singular actor, the “I” that thinks, chooses, and owns.
However, this model is a biological fiction. It is a map that corresponds to no territory found in nature. Over the last three decades the life sciences have undergone a quiet revolution that renders the classical liberal view of the subject not merely philosophical debatable, yet factually incorrect. The concept of the holobiont, coined by Adolf Meyer-Abich in 1943 but popularized in the anglophone world by Lynn Margulis in the 1990s, has shattered the idea of the unitary organism. We now know that every macro-organism is actually a dynamic ecosystem, a chimera composed of a host and billions of symbiotic microbes that function as a distinct, integrated biological unit. You are not a single entity. You are a walking coral reef, a plural assemblage of human and non-human cells negotiating a fragile, continuous existence. Roughly half the cells in your body are not human; they are bacterial, fungal, and viral. They do not merely hitch a ride. They digest your food, regulate your immune system, modulate your mood, and structure the development of your brain.
The implications of this biological reality for political theory are cataclysmic. The entire edifice of Liberalism, from Hobbes and Locke to modern libertarianism, rests on the assumption of the “atomic individual” — a sovereign state of one. This core concept of liberal political theory posits a world of separate, self-governing agents who enter into contracts and demand rights to protect their private sphere from intrusion. The liberal subject claims (and demands) to be walled off, protected, and kept clean of the influence of others.
Biology exposes this desire for total autonomy as not just false, but a death wish. In the logic of the holobiont, absolute immunity is not health; it is starvation. A body hermetically sealed against the “other” dies. Our physical existence requires constant contamination and collaboration with foreign agents. We cannot be “self-made” because we are constitutively “made-with.” Donna Haraway describes this shift as moving from autopoiesis (self-making) to sympoiesis (making-with). We do not precede our relationships; our relationships constitute us. If the political subject is physically constituted by “others,” the concept of self-sovereignty collapses. One cannot be the sole monarch of a kingdom occupied by foreign powers that provide the essential infrastructure for the kingdom’s survival…
[Gilman elaborates on the implications both for our political and management systems and for the social sciences that study them. And he explores why this new perspective is hard to internalize and embrace…]
The resistance to this holobiontic perspective is fierce because it is terrifying. As Rudyard Kipling observed (in a quote often misattributed to Nietzsche), “The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” The autonomous liberal subject offers psychological safety. It promises control. It tells us that we are captains of our souls. Embracing the holobiont requires admitting that we are porous, vulnerable, and inextricably entangled with things we cannot control. It demands that we surrender the fantasy of the impermeable border. The skin is not a wall; it is a heavily trafficked interface. The state is not a fortress; it is a metabolic node in a planetary flow.
We are living through the friction between our laws and our biology. We legislate for individuals, yet we live as assemblages. We worship independence while our bodies are grounded in interdependence. The future of political theory cannot simply be an adjustment of liberal categories. It requires a fundamental ontological revision that starts with relation rather than separation. We must stop trying to protect the self from the world and begin understanding the self as a spatially intensified instantiation of the world.
Clinging to the myth of the autonomous subject is a massive act of collective denial. It represents a refusal to look at the microscope and see the legions teeming inside us. We construct our societies around a myth of being that does not correspond to biogeochemical reality. The cost of this error is everywhere apparent — in the degradation of our ecology, the polarization of our politics, and the isolation of our private lives. We try to seal ourselves off, creating sterile environments that make us sick, physically and politically. The holobiont offers a different path, one that acknowledges that to be one is always to be many. We are not solitary thinkers looking out at nature. We are nature looking at itself, through a lens made of billions of other lives. The sovereign is dead. Long live the swarm…
“The Sovereign Individual Does Not Exist,” from @nilsgilman.bsky.social.
Further complicating the issue: “Externalities, Rights, and the Problem of Knowledge,” from Cyril Hédoin:
Very short summary: This essay explains how the knowledge problem [the challenge of a central authority having the information needed to make rational decisions for a complex system like a society] applies to the definition of jurisdictional rights. Jurisdictional rights define spheres of individual sovereignty. Rights are appropriately defined if they internalize all potential externalities. However, individuals may disagree about what counts as an externality. This disagreement stems from individuals’ preferences, which are typically dispersed and local. I discuss various solutions to this problem, including the use of polycentricity...
[Image above: source]
* John Donne
###
As we incorporate the interconnected, we might recall that it was on this date in 1859 that our perspective was shifted in a different kind of way: Charles Darwin published The Origin of the Species. Actually, on that day he published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life; the title was shortened to the one we know with the sixth edition in 1872.
Title page of the 1859 edition#charlesDarwin #culture #darwin #externalities #history #holobiont #individualism #individuality #interconnection #interdependence #philosophy #politics #reason #rights #society #theOriginOfTheSpecies
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Superman: Il primo supereroe
https://edu.inaf.it/approfondimenti/scoperte/superman-il-primo-supereroe/
Andiamo alla scoperta degli spunti scientifici dietro le origini dei superpoteri della versione originale di Superman.
#accelerazioneDiGravità_ #CharlesDarwin #evoluzione #fisica #JerrySiegel #JoeShuster #supereroi #Superman
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Superman: Il primo supereroe
https://edu.inaf.it/approfondimenti/scoperte/superman-il-primo-supereroe/
Andiamo alla scoperta degli spunti scientifici dietro le origini dei superpoteri della versione originale di Superman.
#accelerazioneDiGravità_ #CharlesDarwin #evoluzione #fisica #JerrySiegel #JoeShuster #supereroi #Superman
-
Superman: Il primo supereroe
https://edu.inaf.it/approfondimenti/scoperte/superman-il-primo-supereroe/
Andiamo alla scoperta degli spunti scientifici dietro le origini dei superpoteri della versione originale di Superman.
#accelerazioneDiGravità_ #CharlesDarwin #evoluzione #fisica #JerrySiegel #JoeShuster #supereroi #Superman
-
Superman: Il primo supereroe
https://edu.inaf.it/approfondimenti/scoperte/superman-il-primo-supereroe/
Andiamo alla scoperta degli spunti scientifici dietro le origini dei superpoteri della versione originale di Superman.
#accelerazioneDiGravità_ #CharlesDarwin #evoluzione #fisica #JerrySiegel #JoeShuster #supereroi #Superman
-
Superman: Il primo supereroe
https://edu.inaf.it/approfondimenti/scoperte/superman-il-primo-supereroe/
Andiamo alla scoperta degli spunti scientifici dietro le origini dei superpoteri della versione originale di Superman.
#accelerazioneDiGravità_ #CharlesDarwin #evoluzione #fisica #JerrySiegel #JoeShuster #supereroi #Superman
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The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online
#HackerNews #CharlesDarwin #OnlineWork #ScienceHistory #Evolution #Literature
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Darwin and Wallace's original papers to the Linnean Society (published 1858) are fascinating reads, showing how they each developed the concept of natural selection. The foreword by Lyell and Hooker makes clear that Darwin was very reluctant to publish!
Both mention artificial selection, but Wallace uses the tendency of domesticated animals to "return to type" in the wild - seen at the time as some sort of stabilising force against change - to bolster the idea of natural selection.
On the tendency of species to form varieties; and on the perpetuation of varieties and species by natural means of selection. Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, Zoology. 3:45-62, 1858-9
https://archive.org/details/darwin-wallace-1858-journalofproceed-00linn/mode/1up?view=theater#NaturalSelection #OriginOfSpecies #CharlesDarwin #AlfredRusselWallace #LinneanSociety #EvolutionaryBiology #TheoryOfEvolution
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#Evolution #Biologie #Ornithologie
👉Evolution in nur 10 Jahren👈(1/2)
#SnailKites (#Schneckenbussarde) in #Florida beweisen: #CharlesDarwin hatte wieder einmal Recht mit der #Evolutionstheorie.
Als sich die #Schnecken--die Beute der #Schneckenbussarde--weiterentwickelten und 5x größer wurden, taten dies auch die #Beutevögel:
ihre Schnäbel wurden ebenfalls größer, ebenso wie ihre Körper, letztere um 12%.Eine ähnliche Anpassung wurde bei einer anderen...
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‘What should be taught in schools?’: the infamous ‘Scopes monkey trial’ turns 100 https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/jul/10/scopes-monkey-trial-100 #CharlesDarwin #Creationism #Tennessee #Festivals #Evolution #Religion #Culture #Science #USnews #Stage
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Traffic noise triggers road rage among male Galápagos birds
“We have to think about noise pollution even in places like Galápagos, I think, and the impact of noise pollution on the unique species there.” #Climate_Change #Biodiversity #CharlesDarwin #SoundscapeEcology
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/mar/20/traffic-noise-triggers-road-rage-among-male-galapagos-birds -
Useless Facts, Badly Drawn #77: Office chairs with wheels were invented by Charles Darwin.
.
.
.#darwin #charlesdarwin #inventors #inventions #officefurniture #themoreyouknow #trivia #funfacts #randomfacts #webcomic #comics #uselessfacts #uselessfactsbadlydrawn
