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Hewett Watson
Hewett Cottrell Watson (9 May 1804 – 27 July 1881) was a phrenologist, botanist and theory of evolution, evolutionary theorist. He was born in Firbeck, near Rotherham, Yorkshire, and died at Thames Ditton, Surrey. Biography Watson was the eldest son of Holland Watson, a Justice of the Peace and Mayor of Congleton in Cheshire, and his wife, Harriet Powell. His mother died when he was fifteen. He had seven older sisters and two younger brothers and his early life was overshadowed by a terrible relationship with his father, a reactionary conservative whose character Watson himself detailed in later years. As a teenager, Watson suffered a serious injury to his knee in a cricket match, and never recovered full movement in the joint again. Watson's mother had attempted to distract him from family tensions by sending him to work with the family's gardener, and it was after her death that his obsession with botany began. While training for the legal profession in Liverpool, Watson bec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hewett Cottrell Watson
Hewett Cottrell Watson (9 May 1804 – 27 July 1881) was a phrenologist, botanist and evolutionary theorist. He was born in Firbeck, near Rotherham, Yorkshire, and died at Thames Ditton, Surrey. Biography Watson was the eldest son of Holland Watson, a Justice of the Peace and Mayor of Congleton in Cheshire, and his wife, Harriet Powell. His mother died when he was fifteen. He had seven older sisters and two younger brothers and his early life was overshadowed by a terrible relationship with his father, a reactionary conservative whose character Watson himself detailed in later years. As a teenager, Watson suffered a serious injury to his knee in a cricket match, and never recovered full movement in the joint again. Watson's mother had attempted to distract him from family tensions by sending him to work with the family's gardener, and it was after her death that his obsession with botany began. While training for the legal profession in Liverpool, Watson became interested in p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edinburgh Phrenological Society
The Edinburgh Phrenological Society was founded in 1820 by George Combe, an Edinburgh lawyer, with his physician brother Andrew Combe. The Edinburgh Society was the first and foremost phrenology grouping in Great Britain; more than forty phrenological societies followed in other parts of the British Isles. The Society's influence was greatest over its first two decades but declined in the 1840s; the final meeting was recorded in 1870. The central concept of phrenology is that the brain is the organ of the mind and that human behaviour can be usefully understood in broadly neuropsychological rather than philosophical or religious terms. Phrenologists discounted supernatural explanations and stressed the modularity of mind. The Edinburgh phrenologists also acted as midwives to evolutionary theory and inspired a renewed interest in psychiatric disorder and its moral treatment. Phrenology claimed to be scientific but is now regarded as a pseudoscience as its formal procedures ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (30 June 1817 – 10 December 1911) was a British botanist and explorer in the 19th century. He was a founder of geographical botany and Charles Darwin's closest friend. For twenty years he served as director of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, succeeding his father, William Jackson Hooker, and was awarded the highest honours of British science. Biography Early years Hooker was born in Halesworth, Suffolk, England. He was the second son of the famous botanist Sir William Jackson Hooker, Regius Professor of Botany, and Maria Sarah Turner, eldest daughter of the banker Dawson Turner and sister-in-law of Francis Palgrave. From age seven, Hooker attended his father's lectures at Glasgow University, taking an early interest in plant distribution and the voyages of explorers like Captain James Cook. He was educated at the Glasgow High School and went on to study medicine at Glasgow University, graduating M.D. in 1839. This degree qualified him for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Downe
Downe, formerly Down, () is a village in Greater London, England, located within the London Borough of Bromley but beyond the London urban sprawl. Downe is south west of Orpington and south east of Charing Cross. Downe lies on a hill, and much of the centre of the village is unchanged; the former village school now acts as the village hall. The word Downe originates from the Anglosaxon word ''dūn'', latterly ''down'', hence the South and North Downs. In April 1965, it (and the remaining part of Orpington Urban District Council), which was abolished, were transferred from the historic county of Kent and placed within the newly created London Borough of Bromley. Partial History Lord Simon de Manning, a former Lord of the Manor for Kevington, London, and holder of the land which now includes Downe, was a Grandson of Rudolph de Manning, Count Palatine, (who married Elgida, aunt to King Harold I, of England); he was the royal Standard Bearer to King Richard the Lionheart, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended from a common ancestor is now generally accepted and considered a fundamental concept in science. In a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history and was honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey. Darwin's early interest in nature led him to neglect his medical education at the University of Edinburgh; instead, he helped to investigate marine invertebrates. His studies at the University of Cambridge's Christ's Col ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Species Transmutation
Transmutation of species and transformism are unproven 18th and 19th-century evolutionary ideas about the change of one species into another that preceded Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection. The French ''Transformisme'' was a term used by Jean Baptiste Lamarck in 1809 for his theory, and other 18th and 19th century proponents of pre-Darwinian evolutionary ideas included Denis Diderot, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Erasmus Darwin, Robert Grant, and Robert Chambers, the anonymous author of the book ''Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation''. Opposition in the scientific community to these early theories of evolution, led by influential scientists like the anatomists Georges Cuvier and Richard Owen, and the geologist Charles Lyell, was intense. The debate over them was an important stage in the history of evolutionary thought and influenced the subsequent reaction to Darwin's theory. Terminology Transmutation was one of the names commonly used for evolutionary id ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Chambers (journalist)
Robert Chambers (; 10 July 1802 – 17 March 1871) was a Scottish publisher, geologist, History of evolutionary thought, evolutionary thinker, author and journal editor who, like his elder brother and business partner William Chambers (publisher), William Chambers, was highly influential in mid-19th-century scientific and political circles. Chambers was an early phrenology, phrenologist in the Edinburgh Phrenological Society. He was also the anonymous author of ''Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation'', which was so controversial that his authorship was not acknowledged until after his death. Early life Chambers was born in Peebles in the Scottish Borders 10 July 1802 to Jean Gibson (''c''. 1781–1843) and James Chambers, a cotton manufacturer. He was their second son of six children. The town had changed little in centuries. The town had old and new parts, each consisting of little more than a single street. Peebles was mainly inhabited by weavers and labourers living i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cerebral Hemispheres
The vertebrate cerebrum (brain) is formed by two cerebral hemispheres that are separated by a groove, the longitudinal fissure. The brain can thus be described as being divided into left and right cerebral hemispheres. Each of these hemispheres has an outer layer of grey matter, the cerebral cortex, that is supported by an inner layer of white matter. In eutherian (placental) mammals, the hemispheres are linked by the corpus callosum, a very large bundle of nerve fibers. Smaller commissures, including the anterior commissure, the posterior commissure and the fornix, also join the hemispheres and these are also present in other vertebrates. These commissures transfer information between the two hemispheres to coordinate localized functions. There are three known poles of the cerebral hemispheres: the ''occipital pole'', the ''frontal pole'', and the ''temporal pole''. The central sulcus is a prominent fissure which separates the parietal lobe from the frontal lobe and the prim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evolutionary Theory
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation tends to exist within any given population as a result of genetic mutation and recombination. Evolution occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection (including sexual selection) and genetic drift act on this variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more common or more rare within a population. The evolutionary pressures that determine whether a characteristic is common or rare within a population constantly change, resulting in a change in heritable characteristics arising over successive generations. It is this process of evolution that has given rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organisation, including the levels of species, individual organisms, and molecular evolution, molecules. The sci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transmutation Of Species
Transmutation of species and transformism are unproven 18th and 19th-century evolutionary ideas about the change of one species into another that preceded Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection. The French ''Transformisme'' was a term used by Jean Baptiste Lamarck in 1809 for his theory, and other 18th and 19th century proponents of pre-Darwinian evolutionary ideas included Denis Diderot, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Erasmus Darwin, Robert Grant, and Robert Chambers, the anonymous author of the book ''Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation''. Opposition in the scientific community to these early theories of evolution, led by influential scientists like the anatomists Georges Cuvier and Richard Owen, and the geologist Charles Lyell, was intense. The debate over them was an important stage in the history of evolutionary thought and influenced the subsequent reaction to Darwin's theory. Terminology Transmutation was one of the names commonly used for evolutionary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lateralization Of Brain Function
The lateralization of brain function is the tendency for some neural functions or cognitive processes to be specialized to one side of the brain or the other. The median longitudinal fissure separates the human brain into two distinct cerebral hemispheres, connected by the corpus callosum. Although the macrostructure of the two hemispheres appears to be almost identical, different composition of neuronal networks allows for specialized function that is different in each hemisphere. Lateralization of brain structures is based on general trends expressed in healthy patients; however, there are numerous counterexamples to each generalization. Each human's brain develops differently, leading to unique lateralization in individuals. This is different from specialization, as lateralization refers only to the function of one structure divided between two hemispheres. Specialization is much easier to observe as a trend, since it has a stronger anthropological history. The best examp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Edgar Dennes
George Edgar Dennes (181727 March 1871) was an English solicitor and plant collector. Life George Edgar Dennes, the son of George and Ann Dennes, was baptised in Soham, Cambridgeshire, on 27 March 1817, although at least one other source suggests that he was born in Australia. Dennes was by profession a solicitor with a passion for botany, with his plant collections from England today held in British museums. Embroiled in intrigue around the financial mismanagement of the Botanical Society of London, a precursor to the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, Dennes travelled to the Vancouver Island Colony of western Canada in 1860. However, he continued to have difficulties with money and was the colony's first solicitor to be struck off, for multiple contempts due to bankruptcy in 1866. He returned to London soon after, before again embarking a ship in early 1867 to the Colony of Victoria. He arrived in Melbourne in June 1867 and was registered as a solicitor in the followin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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