Webinar: Classifying Nature after Linnaeus: Charles Darwin’s Insight Changes the Conversation
Webinar: Classifying Nature after Linnaeus: Charles Darwin’s Insight Changes the Conversation
Presented by: Rob Paratley, University of Kentucky
This webinar presented by Rob Paratley begins in 18th Century Sweden with botanist Carl Linnaeus, the so-called “Father of Taxonomy” (the science of classifying Nature). Linnaeus’ conversation with Nature, the How and What of Nature’s diversity, are with us yet today, but he and those that followed left unanswered the questions of Why. Why is Nature patterned the way that Linnaeus first saw? What causes natural groups? What does natural affinity actually mean? Religious men and creationists, the best they could do was to invoke the plan of the Deity. This changed forever with Darwin’s Great Taxonomic Insight. Rob will discuss how Darwin’s evolutionary thinking changed forever the way we converse with Nature.
