Robert J. Richards

This provocative reading of Darwin goes directly to the origins of evolutionary theory. Unlike most contemporary biologists or historians and philosophers of science, Richards holds that Darwin did concern himself with the idea of progress, or telos, as he constructed his theory. Richards maintains that Darwin drew on the traditional embryological meanings of the terms 'evolution' and 'descent with modification'.

"Darwinian Heresies looks at the history of evolutionary thought, breaking through much of the conventional thinking to see whether there are assumptions or theories that are blinding us to important issues. The collection, which includes some of today's leading historians and philosophers of science, digs beneath the surface and shows that not all is precisely as it is too often assumed to be. Covering a wide range of issues starting back in the eighteenth century, Darwinian Heresies brings us through the time of Charles Darwin and the Origin all the way to the twenty-first century."--Jacket.