Synthesis Period Archives | Professor Joe Cain

Simpson's (1944) Tempo and Mode in Evolution and Simpson's (1953) Major Features of Evolution compared

Comparing Tempo and Mode (1944) with Major Features (1953) by George Gaylord Simpson

This post compares two of George Gaylord Simpson’s major theoretical works: Tempo and Mode in Evolution (1944) and Major Features of Evolution (1953). Both were published by Columbia University Press in their Columbia Biological Series. […]

George Gaylord Simpson’s (1953) The Major Features of Evolution. Title page

Major Features of Evolution (1953) by George Gaylord Simpson

George Gaylord Simpson‘s (1902-1984) book, Major Features of Evolution, was published in 1953 by Columbia University Press in their Columbia Biological Series. This book played an important part in the expansion of evolutionary studies in […]

G. Ledyard Stebbins’s (1950) Variation and Evolution in Plants. Title page

Variation and Evolution in Plants (1950) by G. Ledyard Stebbins

G. Ledyard Stebbins‘ (1906-2000) book, Variation and Evolution in Plants, was published in 1950 by Columbia University Press in their Columbia Biological Series. This book played an important part in the expansion of evolutionary studies […]

George Gaylord Simpson’s (1944) Tempo and Mode in Evolution. Title page

Tempo and Mode in Evolution (1944) by George Gaylord Simpson

George Gaylord Simpson‘s (1902-1984) book, Tempo and Mode in Evolution, was published in 1944 by Columbia University Press in their Columbia Biological Series. This book played an important part in the expansion of evolutionary studies […]

Ernst Mayr’s (1942) Systematics and the Origin of Species from the Viewpoint of a Zoologist. Title page

Systematics and the Origin of Species (1942) by Ernst Mayr

Ernst Mayr‘s (1904-2005) book, Systematics and the Origin of Species from the Viewpoint of a Zoologist was published in 1942 by Columbia University Press in their Columbia Biological Series. This book played an important part […]

Theodosius Dobzhansky’s (1937) Genetics and the Origin of Species. Title page

Genetics and the Origin of Species (1937) by Theodosius Dobzhansky

Theodosius Dobzhansky‘s (1900-1975) book, Genetics and the Origin of Species, was first published in 1937 by Columbia University Press in their Columbia Biological Series. This book played an important part in the expansion of evolutionary […]

Illustration of "ring species" concept, or Rassenkreis

Society for the Study of Speciation: Bibliographic Analysis using LLM

I provide data for an LLM-based analysis of the short-lived Society for the Study of Speciation (SSS), organised by Alfred Emerson, through three documents.

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Proceedings of the Seventh International Genetical Congress held in 1939 and published in 1941.

International Genetical Congress (1939, Seventh): Queries using LLM

What work can large-language models (LLMs) do for historical researching? They offer tools for voluminous compilation of data ready for complex human analysis. They can organise and reorganise data. They can extract data from source material. They can be set to search for trends. We’re coming to grips with LLM tools for historical researching, and we’re quickly moving well beyond the LLM-as-author model so distrusted in our community. Historians must push ourselves to be as creative and demanding of LLM resources as those in our sister disciplines.

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George Gaylord Simpson in Paris 1947. APS Library. Colourised.

George Gaylord Simpson (1902-1984) bibliography

The American vertebrate paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson (1902–1984) published more than 700 original items. A general sense of Simpson’s career is provided by his autobiography (Simpson, 1978). Authoritative secondary sources are Laporte (2000) and Whittington […]

George Gaylord Simpson, 1956 (courtesy American Philosophical Society Library).

Patricide in the Repeated Assassination of George Gaylord Simpson

George Gaylord Simpson was the undisputed American heavy-weight in macro-evolutionary theory prior to paleobiology’s disciplinary formation in the 1970s. Memory of Simpson’s intellectual influence on this next generation of thinkers is tied intimately to aggressive […]