A masterly guide to the history of the nature/nurture debate and the reverberations of Darwinian ideas in both popular and academic social thinking.

The following approaches can all be seen as exemplifying a generalization of Darwinian ideas outside of their original domain of biology.

"To a very great extent our ideas about life, our fondest hopes about the meaning of life, are challenged by the Darwinian idea," he said.

But, he said, he found many people who said they displayed the Darwin fish as a symbol of the harmonious coexistence of Darwinian ideas and religion.

A third effect was to serve notice that Darwinian ideas could not be easily dismissed: on the contrary, they would be vigorously defended against orthodox authority.

But Dr. Edelman sees the Darwinian idea and its biological working out as essential aspects of his theory and necessarily difficult.

Sumner never fully embraced Darwinian ideas, and some contemporary historians do not believe that Sumner ever actually believed in social Darwinism.

After this he mostly concentrated on ambitious biological and zoological studies in an effort to create an ethical system based upon Darwinian ideas.

In this sense the pragmatic theory of truth applied Darwinian ideas in philosophy; it made survival the test of intellectual as well as biological fitness.

The Darwinian ideas are articulated with vivid intensity, particularly in the anecdotes that Martha relates about the creatures of the Galapagos.