Daily Archives: June 29, 2016

Ascension – Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Posted: June 29, 2016 at 6:31 pm

This page is about the Feast of the Ascension. For the event that it celebrates, see Ascension of Jesus.

Ascension is a Christian holiday. The word "ascension" means "going up". According to the story told in the Bible, Jesus ascended (went up) to heaven with his apostles. The holiday is celebrated forty days after his resurrection. The story tells that Jesus' body went to heaven, and that in heaven he sits at the right-hand side of God the Father.

Ascension Day is officially celebrated on a Thursday. However, not all countries hold the feast on this day. It is one of the ecumenical feasts. All Christians celebrate this feast, much like Easter and Pentecost. It is a very important feast in the calendar of the Christian Church.

In some countries (at least in Austria, Belgium, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany (since the 1930s), Haiti, Iceland, Indonesia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Namibia, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Vanuatu) it is a public holiday; Germany also holds its Father's day on the same date.

The Eastern Orthodox Church calculates the date of Easter differently, so the Eastern Orthodox celebration of Ascension will usually be after the western observance (either one week, or four weeks, or five weeks later; but occasionally on the same day). The earliest possible date for the feast is May 13 (of the western calendar), and the latest possible date is June 16. Some of the Oriental Orthodox Churches, however, observe Ascension on the same date as the Western Churches.[1]

The feast is observed with an all-night vigil.

The Epistle to the Romans is a book from the Bible which was written about the year 56 or 57.[2] In it, Paul describes Christ as in heaven and in the abyss.[3] This seems to be the earliest Christian reference to Jesus in heaven.

One of the most important texts about the Ascension is in the Acts of the Apostles 1:1-11. According to the two-source hypothesis it is also the earliest.[4] There Jesus is taken up bodily into heaven forty days after his resurrection. The text says that the apostles saw this happening. Before going into heaven, Jesus gave a speech called the Great Commission, in which he said that he would return. In the Gospel of Luke, the Ascension[5] takes place on Easter Sunday evening.[6] The Gospel of John (c. 90-100)[7] talks about Jesus returning to the Father.[8] In 1 Peter (c. 90-110),[7] Jesus has ascended to heaven and is at God's right side.[9] Ephesians (c. 90-100)[7] refers to Jesus ascending higher than all the heavens.[10] First Timothy (c. 90-140)[7] describes Jesus as taken up in glory.[11] The traditional ending in the Book of Mark (see Mark 16) includes a short version of what Luke had said about the resurrection. It describes Jesus as being taken up into heaven and sitting at God's right hand.[12] The way that Christ's Ascension is described is similar to the general description of his welcome in heaven, a description that comes from Hebrew scripture.[13] The picture of Jesus rising bodily into the heavens fits in with the old traditional idea that heaven was above the earth.[14]

There are texts that are not in the Bible that also speak about ascension, for example Pistis Sophia. In his text Against Heresies, Irenaeus tells about the Gnostic view that the Ascension happened eighteen months after the Resurrection.[15] The apocryphal text known as the Apocryphon of James describes the teachings of Jesus to James and Peter 550 days after the resurrection, but before the ascension. This text suggests an even longer period. The recently discovered Nag Hammadi Gospel of Thomas, like the canonical Gospel of Matthew, does not mention the Ascension.

The feast of the Ascension has been celebrated for many centuries. Although we do not have anything in writing about it before the beginning of the fifth century, St. Augustine says that it is of Apostolic origin, and he speaks of it in a way that shows that all Christians celebrated it long before his time (he lived from 354-430).

Christ's ascension is mentioned in the original Nicene Creed. This text has been important to Christians ever since it was made in 325. It is included in the Mass. It is also mentioned in the Apostles' Creed. It is important for Christian belief because it shows that Jesus' humanity was taken into Heaven.[13]Ascension Day is one of the chief feasts of the Christian year.[13] There is plenty of evidence that shows that the feast dates back at least to the later 300s.[13]

The canonical story of Jesus ascending bodily into the clouds is different from the gnostic tradition, by which Jesus was said to transcend the bodily world and return to his home in the spirit world. It also contrasts with Docetic beliefs, by which matter is basically evil and Jesus was said to have been pure spirit.

Scholars of the historical Jesus think that New Testament accounts of Jesus' resurrection were stories that were invented by the apostolic-era Christian community.[6] Some describe the Ascension as a convenient way to disagree with ongoing appearance claims in the Christian community.[6]

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Coffee & Wine Bar | Ascension Coffee Roasters Dallas, Texas

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Pursuing this vision has required commitment to the DEVELOPMENT of every local community, individual and product we touch and inspired investment in the development of international communities in crisis that we otherwise would not. Development, thus, has become the underlying vision and goal of Ascension. ELEVATION OF THE CAF EXPERIENCE is just our outcome and we hope to do it exceptionally well.

So welcome to our kitchen, welcome to our classroom. Welcome to our journey, and in some ways, our destination. Welcome to our HOME.

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Coffee & Wine Bar | Ascension Coffee Roasters Dallas, Texas

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Ascension – Definition and Meaning, Bible Dictionary

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ASCENSION

a-sen'-shun:

Most modern Lives of Christ commence at Bethlehem and end with the Ascension, but Christ's life began earlier and continued later. The Ascension is not only a great fact of the New Testament, but a great factor in the life of Christ and Christians, and no complete view of Jesus Christ is possible unless the Ascension its consequences are included. It is the consummation of His redemptive work. The Christ of the Gospels is the Christ of history, the Christ of the past, but the full New Testament picture of Christ is that of a living Christ, the Christ of heaven, the Christ of experience, the Christ of the present and the future. The New Testament passages referring to the Ascension need close study and their teaching careful observation.

I. In the Gospels.

1. Anticipations:

The Ascension is alluded to in several passages in the Gospels in the course of our Lord's earthly ministry (Luke 9:31,51; John 6:62; 7:33; 12:32; 14:12,28; 16:5,10,17,28; 20:17). These passages show that the event was constantly in view, and anticipated by our Lord. The Ascension is also clearly implied in the allusions to His coming to earth on clouds of heaven (Matthew 24:30; 26:64).

2. Records:

If with most modern scholars we regard Mark's Gospel as ending with 16:8, it will be seen to stop short at the resurrection, though the present ending speaks of Christ being received up into heaven, of His sitting at the right hand of God, and of His working with the disciples as they went preaching the word (Mark 16:19,20). In any case this is a bare summary only. The close of the Third Gospel includes an evident reference to the fact of the Ascension (Luke 24:28-53), even if the last six words of Luke 24:51, "and was carried up into heaven" are not authentic. No difficulty need be felt at the omission of the Fourth Gospel to refer to the fact of the Ascension, though it was universally accepted at the time the apostle wrote (John 20:17). As Dr. Hort has pointed out, "The Ascension did not lie within the proper scope of the Gospels .... its true place was at the head of the Ac of the Apostles" (quoted Swete, The Ascended Christ, 2).

II. In the Acts.

1. Record:

The story in Acts 1:6-12 is clear. Jesus Christ was on the Mount of Olives. There had been conversation between Him and His disciples, and in the course of it He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight (Acts 1:9). His body was uplifted till it disappeared, and while they continued to gaze up they saw two men who assured them that He would come back exactly as He had gone up. The three Greek words rendered "taken up" (eperthe) (Acts 1:9); "went" (poreuomenou) (Acts 1:10); "received up" (analemphtheis) (Acts 1:11); deserve careful notice. This account must either be attributed to invention, or to the testimony of an eye-witness. But Luke's historicity now seems abundantly proved.

2. References:

The Ascension is mentioned or implied in several passages in Acts 2:33; 3:21; 7:55; 9:3-5; 22:6-8; 26:13-15. All these passages assert the present life and activity of Jesus Christ in heaven.

III. In the Pauline Epistles.

1. Romans:

In Romans 8:34 the apostle states four facts connected with Christ Jesus:

His death; His resurrection; His session at God's right hand; His intercession. The last two are clearly the culminating points of a series of redemptive acts.

2. Ephesians:

While for its purpose Romans necessarily lays stress on the Resurrection, Ephesians has as part of its special aim an emphasis on the Ascension. In 1:20 God's work wrought in Christ is shown to have gone much farther than the Resurrection, and to have "made him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places," thereby constituting Him the supreme authority over all things, and especially Head of the church (1:20-23). This idea concerning Christ is followed in 2:6 by the association of believers with Christ "in the heavenly places," and the teaching finds its completest expression in 4:8-11, where the Ascension is connected with the gift of the heavenly Christ as the crowning feature of His work. Nothing is more striking than the complementary teaching of Romans and Ephesians respectively in their emphasis on the Resurrection and Ascension.

3. Philippians:

In Philippians 2:6-11 the exaltation of Christ is shown to follow His deep humiliation. He who humbled Himself is exalted to the place of supreme authority. In 3:20 Christians are taught that their commonwealth is in heaven, "whence also we wait for a Saviour."

4. Thessalonians:

The emphasis placed on the second advent of Christ in 1Th is an assumption of the fact of the Ascension. Christians are waiting for God's Son from heaven (1:10) who is to "descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God" (4:16).

5. Timothy:

The only allusion to the Ascension in the Pastoral Epistles is found in the closing statement of what seems to be an early Christian song in 1Timothy 3:16. He who was "manifested in the flesh .... received up in glory."

IV. In Hebrews.

In Hebrews there is more recorded about the Ascension and its consequences than in any other part of the New Testament. The facts of the Ascension and Session are first of all stated (1:3) with all that this implies of definite position and authority (1:4-13). Christians are regarded as contemplating Jesus as the Divine Man in heaven (2:9), though the meaning of the phrase, "crowned with glory and honor" is variously interpreted, some thinking that it refers to the result and outcome of His death, others thinking that He was "crowned for death" in the event of the Transfiguration (Matheson in Bruce, Hebrews, 83). Jesus Christ is described as "a great High Priest, who hath passed through the heavens" (4:14), as a Forerunner who is entered within the veil for us, and as a High Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek (6:20). As such He "abideth for ever," and "ever liveth to make intercession" (7:24,25). The chief point of the epistle itself is said to be "such a high priest, who sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens" (8:1), and His position there implies that He has obtained eternal redemption for His people and is appearing before God on their behalf (9:12,24). This session at God's right hand is also said to be with a view to His return to earth when His enemies will have become His footstool (10:12,13), and one of the last exhortations bids believers to look unto Jesus as the Author and Perfecter of faith who has "sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (12:2).

V. In the Petrine Epistles.

The only reference to the Ascension is in 1Peter 3:22, where Christ's exaltation after His sufferings is set forth as the pattern and guarantee of Christian glorification after endurance of persecution.

VI. In the Johannine Writings.

1. Epistles:

Nothing is recorded of the actual Ascension, but 1John 2:1 says that "we have an Advocate with the Father." The word "Advocate" is the same as "Comforter" in John 14:16, where it is used of the Holy Spirit. Christ is the Comforter "in relation to the Father," and the Holy Spirit is the Comforter dwelling in the soul.

2. Apocalypse:

All the references in the Apocalypse either teach or imply the living Christ who is in heaven, as active in His church and as coming again (Revelation 1:7,13; 5:5-13; 6:9-17; 14:1-5).

VII. Summary of New Testament Teaching.

1. The Fact:

The New Testament calls attention to the fact of Ascension and the fact of the Session at God's right hand. Three words are used in the Greek in connection with the Ascension:

anabainein (ascendere), "to go up"; analambanesthai (adsumi), "to be taken up"; poreuesthai "to go." The Session is connected with Psalms 110, and this Old Testament passage finds frequent reference or allusion in all parts of the New Testament. But it is used especially in He in connection with Christ's priesthood, and with His position of authority and honor at God's right hand (Swete, The Ascended Christ, 10-15). But the New Testament emphasizes the fact of Christ's exaltation rather than the mode, the latter being quite secondary. Yet the acceptance of the fact must be carefully noticed, for it is impossible to question that this is the belief of all the New Testament writers. They base their teaching on the fact and do not rest content with the moral or theological aspects of the Ascension apart from the historic reality. The Ascension is regarded as the point of contact between the Christ of the gospels and of the epistles. The gift of the Spirit is said to have come from the ascended Christ. The Ascension is the culminating point of Christ's glorification after His Resurrection, and is regarded as necessary for His heavenly exaltation. The Ascension was proved and demanded by the Resurrection, though there was no need to preach it as part of the evangelistic message. Like the Virgin birth, the Ascension involves doctrine for Christians rather than non-Christians. It is the culmination of the Incarnation, the reward of Christ's redemptive work, and the entrance upon a wider sphere of work in His glorified condition, as the Lord and Priest of His church (John 7:39; 16:7).

2. The Message:

We may summarize what the New Testament tells us of our Lord's present life in heaven by observing carefully what is recorded in the various passages of the New Testament. He ascended into heaven (Mark 16:19; Luke 24:51; Acts 1:9); He is seated on the right hand of God (Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:3; 8:1; 10:12); He bestowed the gift of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 4:9,33); He added disciples to the church (Acts 2:47); He worked with the disciples as they went forth preaching the gospel (Mark 16:20); He healed the impotent man (Acts 3:16); He stood to receive the first martyr (Acts 7:56); He appeared to Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9:5); He makes intercession for His people (Romans 8:26; Hebrews 7:25); He is able to succor the tempted (Hebrews 2:18); He is able to sympathize (Hebrews 4:15); He is able to save to the uttermost (Hebrews 7:25); He lives forever (Hebrews 7:24; Revelation 1:18); He is our Great High Priest (Hebrews 7:26; 8:1; 10:21); He possesses an intransmissible or inviolable priesthood (Hebrews 7:24); He appears in the presence of God for us (Hebrews 9:24); He is our Advocate with the father (1John 2:1); He is waiting until all opposition to Him is overcome (Hebrews 10:13). This includes all the teaching of the New Testament concerning our Lord's present life in heaven.

VIII. Problems.

There are two questions usually associated with the Ascension which need our attention.

1. Relation to the Laws of Nature:

There is no greater difficulty in connection with the Ascension than with the Resurrection, or the Incarnation. Of our Lord's resurrection body we know nothing. All we can say is that it was different from the body laid in the tomb and yet essentially the same; the same and yet essentially different. The Ascension was the natural close of Our Lord's earthly life, and as such, is inseparable from the Resurrection. Whatever, therefore, may be said of the Resurrection in regard to the laws of nature applies equally to the Ascension.

2. Localization of the Spiritual World:

The record in Ac is sometimes objected to because it seems to imply the localization of heaven above the earth. But is not this taking the narrative in too absolutely bald and literal a sense? Heaven is at once a place and a state, and as personality necessarily implies locality, some place for our Lord's Divine, yet human person is essential. To speak of heaven as "above" may be only symbolical, but the ideas of fact and locality must be carefully adhered to. And yet it is not merely local, and "we have to think less of a transition from one locality than of a transition from one condition to another. .... the real meaning of the ascension is that .... our Lord withdrew from a world of limitations" to that higher existence where God is (Milligan, Ascension and Heavenly Priesthood, 26). It matters not that our conception today of the physical universe is different from that of New Testament times. We still speak of the sun setting and rising, though strictly these are not true. The details of the Ascension are really unimportant. Christ disappeared from view, and no question need be raised either of distance or direction. We accept the fact without any scientific explanation. It was a change of conditions and mode of existence; the essential fact is that He departed and disappeared. Even Keim admits that "the ascension of Jesus follows from all the facts of His career" (quoted, Milligan, 13), and Weiss is equally clear that the Ascension is as certain as the Resurrection, and stands and fails therewith (Milligan, 14).

IX. Its Relation to Christ Himself.

The Ascension was the exaltation and glory of Jesus Christ after His work was accomplished (Philippians 2:9). He had a threefold glory:

(1) as the Son of God before the Incarnation (John 17:5);

(2) as God manifest in the flesh (John 1:14);

(3) as the exalted Son of God after the Resurrection and Ascension (Luke 24:26; 1Peter 1:21).

The Ascension meant very much to Christ Himself, and no study of subject must overlook this aspect of New Testament teaching. His exaltation to the right hand of meant

(1) the proof of victory (Ephesians 4:8);

(2) the position of honor (Psalms 110:1);

(3) the place of power (Acts 2:33);

(4) the place of happiness (Psalms 26:11);

(5) the place of rest ("seated");

(6) the place of permanence ("for ever").

X. Its Teaching for Christians.

The importance of the Ascension for Christians lies mainly in the fact that it was the introduction to our Lord's present life in heaven which means so much in the believer's life. The spiritual value of the Ascension lies, not in Christ's physical remoteness, but in His spiritual nearness. He is free from earthly limitations, and His life above is the promise and guarantee of ours. "Because I live ye shall live also."

1. Redemption Accomplished:

The Ascension and Session are regarded as the culminating point of Christ's redemptive work (Hebrews 8:1), and at the same time the demonstration of the sufficiency of His righteousness on man's behalf. For sinful humanity to reach heaven two essential features were necessary:

(a) the removal of sin (negative); and

(b) the presence of righteousness (positive).

The Resurrection demonstrated the sufficiency of the atonement for the former, and the Ascension demonstrated the sufficiency of righteousness for the latter. The Spirit of God was to convict the world of "righteousness" "because I go to the Father" (John 16:10). In accord with this we find that in the Epistle to the He every reference to our Lord's atonement is in the past, implying completeness and perfection, "once for all."

2. High Priesthood:

This is the peculiar and special message of He. Priesthood finds its essential features in the representation of man to God, involving access into the Divine presence (Hebrews 5:1). It means drawing near and dwelling near to God. In He, Aaron is used as typical of the work, and Melchizedek as typical of the person of the priest; and the two acts mainly emphasized are the offering in death and the entrance into heaven. Christ is both priest and priestly victim. He offered propitiation and then entered into heaven, not "with," but "through" His own blood (Hebrews 9:12), and as High Priest, at once human and Divine, He is able to sympathize (Hebrews 4:15); able to succor (Hebrews 2:18); and able to save (Hebrews 7:25). See CHRIST AS KING, PRIEST, PROPHET.

3. Lordship:

The Ascension constituted Christ as Head of the church (Ephesians 1:22; 4:10,15; Colossians 2:19). This Headship teaches that He is the Lord and Life of the church. He is never spoken of as King in relation to His Body, the Church, only as Head and Lord. The fact that He is at the right hand of God suggests in the symbolical statement that He is not yet properly King on His own throne, as He will be hereafter as "King of the Jews," and "King of Kings."

4. Intercession:

In several New Testament passages this is regarded as the crowning point of our Lord's work in heaven (Romans 8:33,34). He is the perfect Mediator between God and man (1Timothy 2:5; Hebrews 8:6); our Advocate with the Father (1John 2:1). His very presence at God's right hand pleads on behalf of His people. There is no presentation, or representation, or pleading, of Himself, for His intercession is never associated with any such relation to the sacrifice of Calvary. Nor is there any hint in the New Testament of a relation between the Eucharist and His life and work in heaven. This view popularized by the late Dr. William Milligan (The Ascension, etc., 266), and endorsed from other standpoints in certain aspects of Anglican teaching (Swete, The Ascended Christ, 46), does not find any support in the New Testament. As Westcott says, "The modern conception of Christ, pleading in heaven His passion, `offering His blood,' on behalf of man, has no foundation in this epistle" (Hebrews, 230). And Hort similarly remarks, "The words, `Still .... His prevailing death He pleads' have no apostolic warrant, and cannot even be reconciled with apostolic doctrine" (Life and Letters, II, 213). our Lord's intercession is He says as in what He is. He pleads by His presence on His Father's throne, and he is able to save to the uttermost through His intercession, because of His perpetual life and His inviolable, undelegated, intransmissible priesthood (Hebrews 7:24,25).

5. The Gift of the Spirit:

There is an intimate and essential connection between the Ascension of Christ and the descent of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was given to Christ as the acknowledgment and reward of His work done, and having received this "Promise of the Father" He bestowed Him upon His people (Acts 2:33). By means of the Spirit the twofold work is done, of convincing sinners (John 16:9), and of edifying believers (John 14:12; see also John 14:25,26; 16:14,15).

6. Presence:

It is in connection with the Ascension and our Lord's life in heaven that we understand the force of such a passage as "Lo, I am with you always" (Matthew 28:20). "He ever liveth" is the supreme inspiration of the individual Christian and of the whole church. All through the New Testament from the time of the Ascension onward, the one assurance is that Christ is living; and in His life we live, hold fellowship with God, receive grace for daily living and rejoice in victory over sin, sorrow and death.

7. Expectation:

Our Lord's life in heaven looks forward to a consummation. He is "expecting till his enemies be made his footstool" (Hebrews 10:13 the King James Version). He is described as our Forerunner (Hebrews 6:18), and His presence above is the assurance that His people will share His life hereafter. But His Ascension is also associated with His coming again (Philippians 3:20,21; 1Thessalonians 4:16; Hebrews 9:28). At this coming there will be the resurrection of dead saints, and the transformation of living ones (1Thessalonians 4:16,17), to be followed by the Divine tribunal with Christ as Judge (Romans 2:16; 2Timothy 4:1,8). To His own people this coming will bring joy, satisfaction and glory (Acts 3:21; Romans 8:19); to His enemies defeat and condemnation (1Corinthians 15:25; Hebrews 2:8; 10:13).

Reviewing all the teaching of our Lord's present life in heaven, appearing. on our behalf, interceding by His presence, bestowing the Holy Spirit, governing and guiding the church, sympathizing, helping and saving His people, we are called upon to up "lift our hearts," for it is in occupation with the living that we find the secret of peace, the assurance of access, and the guaranty of our permanent relation to God. Indeed, we are clearly taught in He that it is in fellowship with the present life of Christ in heaven that Christians realize the difference between spiritual immaturity and maturity (Hebrews 6:1; 10:1), and it is the purpose of this epistle to emphasize this truth above all others. Christianity is "the religion of free access to God," and in proportion as we realize, in union with Christ in heaven, this privilege of drawing near and keeping near, we shall find in the attitude of "lift up your hearts" the essential features of a strong, vigorous, growing, joyous Christian life.

_LITERATURE._

Milligan, Ascension and Heavenly Priesthood of our Lord; Swete, The Appearances of the Risen Lord; The Ascended Christ; Lacey, The Historic Christ; Lives of Christ, by Neander, B. Weiss, Edersheim, Farrar, Geikie, Gilbert; Fairbairn, Studies in the Life of Christ; Knowling, Witness of the Epistles; Bernard in The Expositor T, 1900-1901, 152-55; Bruce in The Expositor. Greek Test, I; Swete, Apostles' Creed; Westcott, Historic Faith, chapter vi; Revelation of the Risen Lord, chapters x, xi; Epesians to Hebrews; article "Ascension" in Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes); Paget, Studies in the Christian Character, sermons xxi, xxii; Findlay, Things Above; article. "Priest" in Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes) (in New Testament), "Hebrews"; Davidson, Hebrews, special note on "Priesthood of Christ"; Dimock, Our One Priest on High; The Christian Doctrine of Sacerdotium; Perowne, Our High Priest in Heaven; Rotherham, Studies in He; Soames, The Priesthood of the New Covenant; Hubert Brooke, The Great High Priest; H. W. Williams, The Priesthood of Christ; J. S. Candlish, The Christian Salvation (1899), 6; G. Milligan, The Theol. of Ep. to Heb (1899), 111; R. C. Moberly, Ministerial Priesthood (1897); A. S. Peake, "Hebrews" in Century Bible; Beyschlag, New Testament Theol., II, 315; article "Ascension" in Hastings, Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels; article "Assumption and Ascension" in HDRE; article "Ascension" in JE; Charles, The Book of Enoch; The Slavonic Secrets of En; The Book of Jub; The Apocalypse of Bar; The Ascension Isaiah.; Assumption of Moses; M. R. James, "Testament of Abraham" TS, II, 2, 1892; Martensen, Christian Dogmatics.

W. H. Griffith Thomas

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Female Shamanism, Goddess Cultures, and Psychedelics

Posted: at 6:30 pm

I originally wrote this article for the Journal ReVision Winter 2003.

Female Shamanism, Goddess Cultures, and Psychedelics by Karen Vogel

The Goddess came consciously into my life after I moved to Berkeley, California, in 1975. I began attending Goddess rituals, studying with psychic healers, practicing yoga and looking at images of goddesses in prehistoric and indigenous art. Many experiences came together in rapid succession to lead me to co-create the Motherpeace Tarot deck with Vicki Noble. The Motherpeace deck is based on iconography and consciousness of the Goddess. The psychedelic world view is represented in the deck by Amanita muscaria, peyote, cannabis, morning glories, datura, poppies, and tobacco.

The viewpoint I gained from psychedelics and my ongoing relationship with the Goddess propelled me to search for the roots, the history and practices associated with the three important threads in my life, female shamanism, Goddess cultures and psychedelics. I want to know about my lineage. I'm following a calling to research these realms and create art that is informed by my exploration. As part of my quest, I carved in wood a close replica of a relief carving from the Louvre of two women, or goddesses, holding mushrooms (fig. 1). The original carving is on a funeral marker or stele from Thessaly in northern Greece, dated around 470 B.C.E. Through the story of this particular image I will explore what might have happened in ancient Greek culture to the Goddess, female shamanism, and psychedelics in the transition to a more patriarchal way of life.

Figure 1. Mushroom Shaman-Priestesses woodcarving in cypress 11"x15" by Karen Vogel. Replica of Exaltation of the Flower, stele from Thessaly, 470 B.C.E., in the collection of the Louvre Museum, Paris.

Women healers have been around as long as there have been women. I think these early women healers had many skills and much knowledge, which eventually developed into a tradition of female shamanism.

Our human ancestors had the ability to self-medicate because of our animal heritage. Animals are incredibly discerning at diagnosing ailments and seeking out certain plants or minerals to treat a variety of ailments. Animals are also very precise about using the correct dosage. Animals also know how to get intoxicated. Some even use psychedelics. (2002, Engel,C.). Caribou seem to love to ingest the hallucinogenic mushroom Amanita muscaria. (1997, Devereux,P.). Our ancestors also knew about psychedelics. Human use of psychedelics may be as old as humanity.

The roots of female shamanism may go back more then 5 million years and be linked with our ancestors upright posture. Once our ancestors stood upright there would be a need for midwives, according Ian Tattersal, one of the leaders in the study of human evolution and curator at the Museum of Natural History in New York City (Ian Tattersal, Becoming Human p.121-122).

It is rare for women to give birth alone. Usually cultures have midwives. The !Kung San or Ju/'hoansi (pronounced: zhu-twasi) as they prefer to be known, a gathering and hunting people of Botswana in southern Africa, are reported to ideally give birth alone. Marjorie Shostack says in her book Nisa, that a woman may give birth alone, but close enough to camp that she could call out for help. Shostack explains:

"A !Kung woman will have on average, four of five live births during her reproductive life. With each successive birth, she is more likely to attain the ideal of delivering alone. Without telling anyone, she walks a few hundred yards from the village, prepares a cushion of leaves, and gives birth to her child. Accompanied or not, most births occur close enough to the village so that others can hear the baby's first cries. This signals the woman's female relatives and friends that the child has been born and that the mother may welcome assistance in delivering the afterbirth, cutting the umbilical cord, and wiping the baby clean. Perhaps carrying the baby for her, other women will accompany her back to the village. Only the most experienced and determined woman insist on being alone during these last stages."(Nisa, p.181)

Humans are almost unique in our use of midwives. Most animals give birth alone, though midwives have been observed among elephants, dolphins and bats. The human need for midwives undoubtedly increased, as the size of newborns heads increased. In our evolution humans have struck a delicate balance with our large heads. Our big brains make for difficult births. The trend in the human line (hominids) has been for our babies to be born less mature so a great deal of the brain growth happens after a baby is born. As a result of this evolutionary strategy, human babies are born "immature" and need care for a long time compared to other animals. This puts all sorts of demands on social structure and nursing mothers in particular. It also must have increased the demands on midwives. Midwives have the experience of catching babies and usually at some points in their lives are also pregnant and give birth. This double experience, over millions of years, gives midwives a vast body of knowledge about pregnancy, birth and child rearing. This body of knowledge would include what to do if something goes wrong, or someone gets sick, or hurt. The importance in human evolution of the tradition of midwifery seems to me to be the logical root of female shamanism.

Shamanism is a concept that has many meanings attached to it. The more I study shamanism the broader I become in my use of the term. I think it encompasses a world-view as profound and yet very different from other world religions. I think there are many ways of being a shaman and using shamanic energy. We all have shamanic moments, such as in birth and death.

Some people draw distinctions between true shamans and herbal practitioners. Others draw the line between shamans, doctors, and priest/priestesses. I think it is impossible to make such distinctions. A shaman is a profession or calling with no set rules about how to enter the profession or precisely what is done once someone is a shaman.

A shaman can gain the position hereditarily through a lineage or family tradition. People in a community or extended family will see that a young child has talents or special experiences. The talents and experiences of an individual can grow into a calling to undertake a period of apprenticeship to become a shaman. Bonnie Glass-Coffin worked with female healers in northern Peru. Glass-Coffin reports that some of the healers inherited their mesa or altar and healing tools from relatives after the relative died.

The period of apprenticeship can include many ways of learning. A person may study with one or more shaman, or someone may study directly with a certain plant or substance. The apprenticeship may include accidental or chosen "ordeals" both physical and mental. Through this time of apprenticeship an individual develops a reputation based on results. Eventually the individual is acknowledged for her abilities as a shaman.

An individual may be recognized for certain talents such as midwifery or healing a particular class of diseases, protecting, or finding things (i.e. plants, animals or lost objects) or controlling weather. A shaman may use touch and massage, sweats, medicinal plants, animals and minerals. These techniques or substances can produce altered states or be medicinal in other ways.

A shaman may be particularly adept at entering trance and altered states and dealing with unseen forces, restoring balance and doing "soul retrieval". The repair work or healing may be for an individual or community or the earth itself. These so-called world renewal ceremonies and dances are still performed by the local tribes, in many of the roundhouses all around northern California.

A shaman can also harm others by being a poisoner, sending darts or illness and death. A shaman can make or have power objects, which some shamans believe are the source of their power. A shaman can be an artist, storyteller or ritual leader. A shaman may use sandpaintings, songs, dances, sweats and community rituals to create and heighten the energy used to heal.

Shamans may use power for war and peace, to control weather and other environmental factors. Some shamans may be feared or be afflicted, with what might be called mental or physically illness. In other cases a shaman can be an exceptionally strong and clear individual who is loved and respected by an extended community.

The respect, participation, and belief of a community in shamanism enable individual talents to flourish and grow. Shamans interact and trade plants and techniques with each other. Shamanism is a group activity and a worldview. It is easy to be dazzled by someone's talents and forget all that goes into making the magic, ritual or healing happen. Many people tended and collected the plants, gathered and ground the pigments, painted the rock walls, created and learned the songs and dances and made the regalia which were used in the rituals of the shaman.

Shamanism is a community activity especially it seems when it comes to female shamanism. Bonnie Glass-Coffin explains female healing traditions with the term coessence. "Coessence, in contrast to both transcendence and immanence, locates shamanic power and spiritual energy upon which shamans draw neither within nor without the boundaries of this world. Instead, coessence implies that this thing flows between worlds. When the shaman taps into this source of power, she is not transcending dichotomies and she is not healing"on behalf of" her patients. Instead, she is facilitating a reestablishment of the energy flow between spirit and matter, between individual and group, and between shaman and patient. Shamanic power and shamanic voyage is, thus, inherently relational." (Glass-Coffin, 1998, p.188-9)

Human experience of altered states became evident in the Paleolithic, around forty thousand years ago, in a creative flowering of art and ritual. At this time what I call goddess culture took hold in the art in a number of places around the world, a significant milepost in the development of female shamanism.

My personal experience with the Goddess and discovery of prehistoric goddess cultures came after my first experiences with psychedelics. I felt immediately connected with early art because the things that I had seen and felt on psychedelics were reflected in these first images of forty thousand years ago. The geometric and other abstract patterns of the early art painted on rock and cave walls were often linked with female imagery. In my mind it makes sense to put together the great mysterious realm of shapes and colors of psychedelics, with my experience of the Goddess.

This eruption of art forty thousand years ago is remarkable because it happened in many places in the world around the same time. Paintings and engravings on rock walls from around the thirty to forty thousand years ago are found in Africa, Asia and Europe. The Americas may be added to the list, if controversial early dates are substantiated. I will use the term rock art to refer to paintings and engravings on rocks including those inside caves. Cave art in Europe is often called Ice Age art because forty thousand years ago Europe was in a period of glaciers called the Ice Age.

The sudden worldwide proliferation of art forty thousand years ago is shocking. The only vague explanation I've found is something called "a slow acting neural transformation in the human brain." (McKie, R. 2000 p. 195). I think that is a fancy way of saying; we don't know how or why art started at the same time, in different location that had no known contact.

Even if we don't know why art began many scholars have tried to figure out what the early art means. David Lewis-Williams, a South African archeologist, has become well known in the field of rock art. He has used the innovative approach of interviewing people from cultures where rock art is still used. He discovered that the San (!Kung San or Ju/'hoansi) people go into altered states or trance by touching the images on rock walls.

Lewis-Williams also studied altered states with T.E. Dowson. They developed a system of three stages of visual imagery that people experience when in altered states. The stages are a way of recognizing and discussing imagery that can seem to be random. The incomprehensible array of dots, lines and geometric shapes are considered to be the first stage and supernatural beings are the third stage. The second stage is an intermediary between the two in which thing may be recognizable, but not animated or mythological as in the third stage. Lewis-Williams says that there aren't hard and fast lines between the 3 stages.

In other work, Lewis-Williams collaborated with Jean Clottes, an eminent scholar of the rock art of Ice Age Europe. Lewis-Williams and Clottes believe that this early rock art is evidence of shamanism and that the art comes from shamanic practices, rituals and altered states.(Clottes,J. and Lewis-Williams,D.,1998).

Female figurines also say something about Paleolithic humans. These so-called Paleolithic "Venus" figurines are found in great numbers all over Europe. There is speculation about what they are ranging from Goddesses to early male pornography.

I think they are Goddesses. In particular they seem to be very good depictions of what it must feel like to be pregnant. I would venture to say that whoever made these early sculptures knew from the inside what it was like to be pregnant. If that's true the artists of the figurines were mothers. This flies in the face of the assumptions that sculptors of hard materials, like stone, must be male. In order to gain understanding, anthropologists are encouraged to participate in the culture they are studying. In archeology this practice is called hermeneutic archeology. (Schaafsma,P. 1997 p.8)

I'm not Paleolithic despite what some of my friends might say, but I am a sculptor of hard materials. I've found that I need inspirations that are strong enough to motivate me to sit for countless hours chipping, etching and slowly, almost imperceptibly, grinding away at hard surfaces. I also need time to sit for long hours. No matter how much the Paleolithic mind and culture may differ from ours, I don't see that a Paleolithic sculptor was all that different from me in these essential qualities, whether that person was male or female. We know the Paleolithic sculptors and painters had a good deal of time to be creative because we have the art as evidence of their labor-intensive work. The nature of the inspiration is open to speculation.

The goddess figurines are often said to be symbols of a fertility cult. I think that is too narrow. Instead I believe they speak of many things, including a profound sense of awe around birth and death. The Goddess is a midwife, as well as the mother from which everything is born. These early Goddesses are impressive expressions of the pregnant state. They are also good depictions of a baby's view in which a mother is a large, round, encompassing being. In many of the Paleolithic figurines I also see old age and the forces of gravity and erosion returning matter to the earth. These figurines could represent the knowledge that we come from the mother in birth and we return to her in death. Perhaps these figurines were shamanic tools of midwives in their important role as priestesses to new life and healer/shamans when necessary.

Though the roots of shamanism are probably much older. Siberian shamanism is often used as the model for all shamanic tradition because it was one area where shamanism was first extensively studied. Among the many tribes found across Siberia, the word used to indicate a male shaman varied, whereas the term for female shaman was the same. Archeologist Jeannine Davis-Kimball concludes in her recent book "In fact, if we are to believe the linguists, women were also the first shamans. The roots of shamanism are to be found in Paleolithic Siberia, where a single term... always referred to the female shaman." (Davis-Kimball, J. 2002 p.236).

So, here we are forty thousand years ago with evidence of female shamanism and goddess culture. What about the third thread: psychedelics? There is no direct evidence that our Paleolithic ancestors used psychedelics, yet I believe our animal lineage indicates humans always knew about them. "The use of hallucinogens is in fact one of humankind's most widespread practices. Everywhere people in small-scale societies have remarkable knowledge of plants and there psychoactive properties, and this was almost certainly the case in the Upper Paleolithic." (Clottes,J. and Lewis-Williams, D. 1998 p. 22).

Based on this assumption I would say that the use of psychedelics was an intricate part of the female shamanistic tradition and the developing goddess culture.

I use the term goddess culture not because I think there was a monotheistic ideology of goddess worship sweeping across the world during the Paleolithic. Instead I'm painting broad brush stokes across time to show a pattern and possible trend in human history. To me the widespread creation of female figurines means the great mysterious spirit realm began to be personified as the Goddess.

What I have always loved about the Goddess is that I have my own idiosyncratic relationship with Her. She can have many aspects or personas. I learn from others experiences and certainly have been inspired by all sorts of images, writing and rituals. Still it is all mediated through my direct experience and relationship with the Goddess.

Two intriguing images that come from widely separated cultures both around ten thousand years ago. To me both look like possible connections between Goddess cultures and the use of psychedelic mushrooms. The first is from a famous and extraordinary rock art complex called Tassilli in southern Algeria. (fig 2). In this image, a large goddess figure gesture to a smaller individual in a mask and a net garment sprouting four mushrooms. The other image (fig. 3), from a site in Turkey. depicts a mushroom headed goddess who, with her prominent vulva may be giving birth.

Figure 2. Rock painting from Tassili, southern Algeria, 6000 B.C.E. Drawn by Karen Vogel

Figure 3. Image on a rock wall of a ceremonial building in Gobelki Tepe, Turkey, 9000 B.C.E. Drawn by Karen Vogel

Currently I know of only two cultures that uses any psychedelics as part of labor. Midwives among the Mazatec of Mexico sometimes use morning glories (Kathleen Harrison, 2000 in Palmer and Horowitz p.304). Women among the Huichol may take peyote during pregnancy. (Susana Valadez, personal communication 2002). Stacy Shaeffer reports that Huichol women use peyote "especially while in labor, to ease the birth process" (Schaefer 2002, 56).

I would link female shamanism to midwifery and psychedelics, but I don't think that psychedelics were necessarily used in labor. Psychedelic experiences are integrated into a culture as a whole. It informs and effects daily life in many ways, from the patterns in the artwork, to the entire worldview of a group. Even if a particular individual has not taken a psychedelic, they are already living in a psychedelic culture. Datura was used widely in a number of California Indian tribes yet some individuals may take Datura only once in their life. (Bean,J.L.,1992).

The gathering and hunting cultures of Paleolithic Eurasia lasted for around thirty thousand years from the emergence of art forty thousand years ago until around ten thousand ago. Then, most likely women since they were the primary plant gatherers invented methods to grow plants and select for more productive crops. This new subsistence strategy emerged in a number of cultures around the world. (Hawkes,J. 1976)

The tending plants and animals enabled settled agricultural civilization to flourish in what's called Neolithic Europe from ten thousand to three thousand years ago. These cultures continued to make art. Goddess figurines were the predominant and pervasive features of the art created by the people of Neolithic Europe.

There is a great debate about how goddess centered cultures of Neolithic Europe ended. Some believe that warrior nomadic horse cultures invaded from the eastern steppes. Still others look to causes from within the cultures. There is also evidence for cataclysmic events, such as drought and flooding, displacing people.

The Neolithic was changed five thousand years ago by the discovery of metallurgy. This led to the need for huge amounts of wood for smelting the raw ore into usable metal. It began with copper, eventually leading to bronze and iron. One of the first large-scale operations was on the island of Cyprus. The island is endowed with an excellent source of copper, iron and trees. The forest was cut down and regrew at least 16 times over two thousand years of copper mining and smelting. (McPhee, J. 1993 p.143). Finally the trees were decimated and the island abandoned by 90 percent of the inhabitants. (Perlin,J. 1989)

The increased trade of metal and other goods created a need for bigger boats, which also required more and more, trees. Imagine this pattern occurring over and over across Europe for several thousand years. This had to be a tremendous factor in the development of warfare to find, control and steal resources and then move on. A familiar pattern to this day. Repeated raids and invasions transformed the Neolithic civilizations of Europe. People fought back, ran, hide and adapted.

The pressure of war and raiding may have been a major reason for the breakup of the large settlements that had developed across Neolithic Europe including cultures in Thessaly. I think that war came from many locations, including city-states expanding their domain and nomadic cultures raiding and conquering. I don't know who started war, but once it got going it became impossible for large peaceful communities to survive. Some were able to continue for a time on islands such as Crete. By this time Thessaly had become a key factor in the struggle between the city-states of Athens and Sparta for domination of the Greek peninsula and lands beyond. This is the backdrop for life in Thessaly when the grave marker or stele was created in 470BCE that inspired my carving in figure 1.

Thessaly is in an important geographic location for a number of reasons. For one thing it sits at the doorway to the vast timber resources of Macedonia. Athens power was based on dominance of the sea. In order to maintain this position of power they needed reliable access to wood to build more ships and forge metal weapons.

Whoever controlled Thessaly could block attacks by land because they controlled the mountain pass that led from Macedonia into Thessaly and the rest of Greece. That would force anyone that wanted to attack Greece to do so by ship. Thessaly tried to make an alliance with Sparta. Sparta declined and Thessaly made a deal with Athens. Athens became the dominant power until it fell to Sparta in the Peloponnesian war fought during the later part of the 5th Century B.C.E.

By 470 B.C.E. earlier invaders of the Greek peninsula had already pushed many of the previous inhabitants of Thessaly into the mountains and off the rich soil of the plains of Thessaly. These former inhabitants are presumed to have been descendents of earlier Neolithic Goddess civilizations of Thessaly. These so-called mountain people are important links to the earlier female shamanism of the Neolithic Goddess cultures of Thessaly.

From Neolithic Thessaly, including the archeological sites of Nea Nikomedeia, come numerous female figurines. These artifacts as well as others, indicate a strong orientation to the Goddess existing in that part of Greece at least 6000 years ago. Vicki Noble (2003) believes the name Nea(new) Niko(victory) Medeia(wise woman) may be "referring to a "dynastic" legacy or lineage of shaman-priestesses." (Noble,V. 2003)

The most compelling evidence that these Neolithic Goddess cultures may have used psychedelics comes from a site around 400 miles north of Thessaly near Belgrade. Mushroom stones from a Neolithic Goddess culture site from 7000 years ago were found in area known as Vinca. The archeologist and renowned scholar of Neolithic European Goddess civilizations Marija Gimbutas says: "The fact that the mushrooms were carved out of the best available stone alone speaks for the prominent role of the mushroom in magic and cult...and it is possible that the Vinca mushrooms were connected with intoxicating drinks."(Gimbutas 1974 p. 220) (figure 4).

Figure 4. Stone mushrooms, approximately 3", from Vinca, near Belgrade, 5000B.C.E. Drawn by Karen Vogel

By the time the stele was made, the earlier inhabitants, who had become the people of the mountains, were a number of different tribes renowned for their horse riding skills and herbal practices. In fact they are believed to be the legendary centaurs. One form of centaurs is the horse and human amalgam. But there are numerous other animals that are mixed together and also called centaurs. The centaurs were known as sorcerers or witches. They practiced the shamanic art of shapeshifting by turning into animals, or using animals as allies to augment their human power. (Lawson,J.C. 1964 p.252)

The ancient Greek writer Apollodorus said Thessaly was "always the home of magic" (Harrison,J.E. 1963 p.81). There is evidence that the people of Thessaly coped with drought by having rituals to make rain. According to Jane Ellen Harrison, a scholar of ancient Greece, "Magic was no hole and corner practice but an affair of public ritual, performed with full social sanction." (Harrison,J.E. 1963 p.82). The rainmaking ritual is said to have included a dance on hobbyhorses, which is a further link to the centaurs. (Graves,R. 1996 p.199)

The Greeks were able to dominate the land of the earlier inhabitants, but not the spirituality and healing practices of the people. The name of the Thessalian Goddess is Enodia. She is represented riding a horse on the coins of a city in Thessaly beginning 480 B.C.E. (Rabinowitz,J. 1998 p.37). Enodia became the Greek Goddess Hekate in the fifth century. Hekate was originally a multifaceted Goddess who was associated with childbirth, death, the crossroads and healing. She actually embodied the mother (Demeter), maiden (Persephone) and Crone. She was also sometimes called Artemis and both were Goddesses of childbirth and of wild places. Eventually Hekate was relegated to the image of a crone and Goddess of witches and the underworld.

Hekate is considered a midwife to birth and death. The following quote from Hesiod speaks to Hekate's power over birth and death: "and those whose business is in the grey discomfortable sea, and who pray to Hekate and loud-crashing Earth Shaker, easily the glorious goddess gives great catch, and easily she takes away as soon as seen, if she so will." (Hesiod(Theo. 440-52) from Rabinowitz,J. 1998 p.20)

Thessaly is renowned for it's female healers or witches, as they are called in the writings of Greek historians. Robert Graves says, "That Zeus did not deny her (Hekate) the ancient power or granting every mortal his heart's desire is a tribute to the Thessalian witches, of whom everyone stood in dread." (Graves,R. 1955 v1 p.124-5).

Part of what must have made people stand in dread is the female shaman-priestesses ability to use poisons such as aconite and hallucinogens such as datura. According to Robert Graves aconite was called hecateis, named for Hekate who first used it. Aconite, creates a numbing sensation and was used by the Thessalian witches to make a flying ointment. (Graves,R. 1955,1996 p.471-2). Datura stramonium is what the English herbalist Gerard thought the Greeks called hippomanes, known for driving horses mad. (Schultes,R.E. and Hoffman,A., 1992 p.109)

Originally when I carve my version of the stele from Thessaly I thought the figures were Demeter and Persephone. I had read that the stele was connected with the Eleusinian Mysteries, which is associated with Demeter and Persephone and the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms (Samorini, G. 1998 p.60). The initial assumption is that the two women are Demeter and Persephone. The reasoning goes that Demeter is associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries. Therefore the stele is believed to be evidence for hallucinogenic mushrooms being used in the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Ludovic Laugier, Scientific Collaborator of the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the Louvre Museum said of the stele: "Here, the dead woman seems to be on the right: she's the one receiving gifts. We don't know whether this indicates a mother and daughter or two sisters. Another mystery: The contents of the bag of seeds being handed over by the survivor. Perhaps in receiving seeds, the deceased is receiving symbols of renaissance? This is but a hypothesis"(personal communication, 2001).

Speculation is tricky business especially when it is based on an image. I want to see female shaman-priestesses. Ludovic Laugier sees flowers and seeds, in a funerary image of symbols of death and rebirth. Giorgio Samorini sees mushrooms and a mushroom presentation bag. In his opinion the presence of mushrooms connects the stele to the Eleusinian Mysteries, which is associated with Demeter and Persephone. So for him the two females appear to be older and younger or the mother goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone. (Samorini, G. 1998).

The site of the Eleusinian Mysteries was a temple 14 miles outside of Athens. The first temple was built in the 8th Century B.C.E. It was destroyed during the Persian Wars around 480 B.C.E. The temple was rebuilt after 460 B.C.E. It became widely known for the Eleusinian mysteries after it was rebuilt. This chronology seems important to me because the stele was made during a time when there was no temple at Eleusis and before the new one was built.

What actually occurred during the ceremonies in the temple is secret. We do know that participants drank something called kykeon and had amazing experiences of life and death. It certainly sounds as if the drink was hallucinogenic. Psychedelic or entheogen scholars have tried to discover what was in the brew.

Some people think it was ergot, a fungal parasite on grain that can have effects similar to LSD. There are many strains of ergot and it can be a tricky and toxic hallucinogen. Others think the Eleusinian drink contained some other hallucinogenic mushroom containing psilocybin. Some suggest it was a combination of ergot and psilocybin.

I think that hallucinogens were used in Greece at the Eleusinian Mysteries. Perhaps it was a combination of ergot and psylocibin or some other species of hallucinogenic mushroom such as panaeolus or Amanita muscaria. (Graves, R.,1960. Samorini, G. 1998.) Whatever the actual content of kykeon, it is an impressive feat to dose and conduct a ritual in a temple with three thousand people in an altered state.

The Eleusinian Mysteries seem to have provided a really important experience of ecstasy and Goddess energy through Demeter and Persephone. Women were virtual slaves in Athens during the 5th century B.C.E. Perhaps it was revitalistic practice and reaction to the repression of Goddess culture and ecstatic experiences of an earlier era.

Revitalistic is an anthropological term, applied to practices that happen when cultures are in times of great change. People create ceremonies to bring back old ways that are being swept away and repressed by new power. The Eleusinian Mysteries seem to me to be a revitalistic cult.

Women in 5th Century B.C.E. Athens were under male authority and expected to stay in the home. For all it's so called democracy Athens was firmly in the grips of patriarchy. The Eleusinian Mysteries may have provided a controlled outlet for lost freedom. Through the power of psychedelics people could experience the Goddess and the mysteries of life and death.

I think the desire to link the stele from Thessaly to the use of hallucinogens at the Eleusinian Mysteries is important to psychedelic or entheogen scholars because it can be used to give a history and distinguished lineage to the use of psychedelics. Having a lineage or history has been important to many current users of psychedelics. If psychedelics were used in Greece, at the birthplace of western civilization, psychedelics are civilized. In other words the use of hallucinogens is can be associated with literate as well than as preliterate people.

But the stele comes from Thessaly. There is no reason to assume that the two women are Demeter and Persephone. Steles or funeral markers are thought to show the diseased person's life and not to depict deities. Also the stele is dated 470 BCE, which is exactly the time when there was no Eleusinian temple, presumable there were no Eleusinian Mysteries. It was after the first temple was destroyed and rebuilt that the Eleusinian Mysteries gained widespread fame. In 470 BCE in Thessaly, it would be unlikely to have the Eleusinian Mysteries portrayed on a stele.

I think the stele is of two shaman-priestesses. I believe that the long tradition of shaman-priestesses played an important part in the development of cultures. It makes sense that the tradition be represented and honored on a funeral stele. The tradition of funeral steles is thought to represent an important event or aspect of someone's life. Perhaps the stele is an image of two priestesses honoring the death of one of them.

The two women in the stele look the same age, not younger and older. To me the women in the stele are entranced with each other and the mushrooms. I think these shaman-priestesses of Thessaly were commemorating their relationship as colleagues and the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms.

What is that so-called bag in the hand of the woman on the left? In the carving I did of the piece, I left the object obscure, because it looked to me like she could actually be holding the end of the other women's peplos (dress or robe). Were they lovers? Our perhaps the removing of the peplos had symbolic meaning. A Greek ritual existed in which a larger then life wooden "puppet" of a Goddess would be renewed yearly by redressing the Goddess with a new peplos or robe. (Jane Ellen Harrison 1913 p.179-80). The removing of the robe could be a symbol of rebirth.

In my own experience, death and psychedelics go hand in hand. In my first experiences with psychedelics over thirty years ago, I was mesmerized by the visual effects and sensations in my body. I'm still astounded visually and physically. Over the years, as I've developed in the rest of my life, I've learned to navigate the psychedelic terrain and stunning visual and body effects. I've also learned how to work with patterns and disharmony, repairing and soothing what is broken or tangled in the design of the world and in my life.

A near-death experience when I was eighteen preceded both the Goddess and psychedelics. I was unconscious for two days with a fractured skull, the result of a car accident. When I woke suddenly I was flooded with the most extraordinary and powerful feeling of love.

I know there are all sorts of brain chemistry reasons why I might have woke up telling my mother and everyone else I knew that I loved them. I was changed and opened in a way I'll never forget. This experience as continued to fuel and inform my life. Certainly it deeply colors my expectations about death. It was my initiation into my future work with psychedelics, the Goddess and love. In the course of my research I found this quote from the Jungian therapist and scholar Nor Hall in which she refers to the stele. She thinks they are Demeter and Persephone holding poppies. No matter, she gives a lovely summing up of Goddesses, female shaman-priestesses and psychedelics. "The frieze of the poppy-bearing goddesses arrest them eternally in the moment of passing into each other. Sometimes the point of passage is thought of as the Maiden Well, where Demeter sat grieving awaiting "'the flowering from the depths'"

Hall warns:

"Hekate becomes a witch whose power is magic rather than realization, and the passing of the phases or psychological states into each other is accomplished -if at all- by the use of too many "aids" (seeds,brew,grass, chemical), rendering the experience inaccessible and antipodal to consciousness. Hekate can poison as well as intoxicate, turn ecstasy into madness, and cause death where incubation -or short journey- was intended." (1980 p.63-64)

In this passage Hall is using Hekate to represent the negative or shadow side of psychedelics. Psychedelics are a powerful tool for healing. Psychedelics can certainly be misused or over used. People can become numb or deluded when the primary focus becomes high dosage, frequent use, and multiple combinations without a sacred setting.

It has been important to me to link the use of psychedelics to shamanism and the Goddess. Susana Valadez says of women's ritual among the Huichol, who use peyote and other hallucinagens:"Women perform many rituals for healing and shamanic powers where they invoke the Mother Creator, Tacutsi. The goddess reveals knowledge the women seek only after a long arduous path. Magical plants and animals provide the women with the power objects and "tools" they need in order to successfully channel communication from the spirit world into their everyday lives." (1992, 39)

Shamanism, the Goddess and psychedelics are widespread despite the concerted efforts to stamp them out. The inquisition did significant damage wherever the hand or ideas of the church reached. But people are good at hiding, retreating to wild places, disguising and adapting practices. The Mazatec Indians pray to the Virgin of Guadeloupe in their mushroom ceremonies. Ayahuasca takes on a Christian flavor in Santo Diame. Southern California Indians developed Chingchinix, a syncretic mix of Christianity and Datura.

Our modern day inquisition makes hallucinogens and other mind-altering medicine illegal. In addition, tactics of ridicule, accusations of pre-scientific thinking, superstition and co-opting have made inroads in old, well develop practices of shamanism, Goddess worship and psychedelic use. Much is lost, yet many practices remain, some taking root in new soil.

There is an image from a Greek vase that I found instructive (fig. 5). The horned snake is coiled around a tree. Two mushrooms grow at the spring flowing from the roots of the tree. One priestess steps on her vase to begin her ascent. The second priestess floats beside the tree offering the snake a plate. The third priestess descends with her vase filled.

Figure 5. Image on a Greek vase, from a latern slide in the collection of Jane Ellen Harrison (1963, p.431). Drawn by Karen Vogel.

To me the ritual use of psychedelic mushrooms is clear in this image. Go to a sacred space. Empty yourself as you begin the climb. Enjoy yourself, and honor, respect and feed the snake guardian of the medicine. Receive the healing and descend back to the ground with you vase refilled.

My hope is that everyone, who wants to, can find productive, healing and ecstatic uses for psychedelics. Female shamanism, the Goddess and psychedelics have a long history and lineage. I hope in particular, women can continue to develop psychedelic healing traditions that serve us all in the future.

Bibliography

Bean, John Lowell, editor 1992, California Indian Shamanism, Ballena Press, Menlo Park

Clottes, Jean and Lewis-Williams, David 1998 The Shamans of Prehistory: Trance and Magic in the Painted Caves, Harry N. Abrams, New York.

Davis-Kimball with Behan, Mona 2002 Warrior Woman: An Archeologist's Search for History's Hidden Heroines, Warner Books, New York.

Devereux, Paul 1997 The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia, Penguin/Arkana, New York

Engel, Cindy 2002 Wild Health, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston and New York.

Gimbutas, Marija 1974, 1982 The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe 6500-3500BC Myths and Cult Images, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles.

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Political correctness – Simple English Wikipedia, the free …

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Political correctness (or PC for short) means using words or behavior which will not offend any group of people. Most people think it is important for everyone to be treated equally, fairly and with dignity. Some words have been used for a long time that are unkind to some people. Sometimes these words have now been replaced by other words that are not offensive. Such words are described as politically correct. The term is often used in a mocking sense when attempts at avoiding offense are seen to go too far.

This term has been used since the early 1970s. It started being used in the modern negative sense in the late 80s in America.

Politically correct words or terms are used to show differences between people or groups in a non-offensive way. This difference may be because of race, gender, beliefs, religion, sexual orientation, or because they have a mental or physical disability, or any difference from what is considered the norm.

Throughout the 20th century women fought to have the same rights as men. In PC language this is seen in changes to job titles such as "lineman", "postman", and "chairman" which now commonly go by the gender-neutral titles "lineworker", "letter carrier" and "chairperson" or "chair" as well as with terms having broader application, such as "humankind" replacing "mankind".

People who are attracted to the same gender are usually referred to as 'homosexual'. Likewise, people who are attracted to people of both genders are usually referred to as "bisexual". However, both of these terms are seen as being perfectly fine by the more politically liberal oriented people.

People who are mentally disabled are now rarely described as "mentally retarded" (sometimes called "M.R.") but may be said to have "special needs". M.R. has been changed to I.D.; Intellectual Disabilities.

People who are blind or deaf may be referred to as "vision impaired" and "hearing impaired". People who cannot speak are never "dumb" but "mute" or "without speech".

The overall terms 'handicapped' and 'disabled' are no longer considered appropriate (there is no distinction between physical or mental, acquired or inborn.) The people first/pc term is 'challenged'. This term better reflects the fact they are different, rather than less.

Some of the new politically correct words are often criticized for being rather ridiculous. Some examples of these are the terms ending in challenged. For example, someone who is very short might be described as "vertically challenged". People also say that things that are obviously bad are called by something else which hides the fact that they are bad. For example, young people who are in trouble with the law, instead of being called "juvenile delinquents" became "children at risk". Some PC terms may be ambiguous i.e. have two possible meanings. "hearing impaired" can also refer to someone who has partial hearing (hard of hearing) and "vision impaired" can also refer to someone who has partial vision.

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Eugenics | Define Eugenics at Dictionary.com

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Historical Examples

eugenics is based to a very large extent upon the principles underlying sex hygiene.

I try so hard not to be afraid of men, for I know they are necessary to eugenics.

eugenics is the science of reproducing better humans by applying the established laws of genetics or heredity.

It is a sin of our race that the eugenics Office should have bred out--but they have failed.

eugenics deals with the even more vital subject of improving the inherent type and capacities of the individuals of the future.

It has been said that eugenics is futile because it cannot define its end.

British Dictionary definitions for eugenics Expand

(functioning as sing) the study of methods of improving the quality of the human race, esp by selective breeding

Derived Forms

eugenic, adjectiveeugenically, adverbeugenicist, nouneugenist (judnst) noun, adjective

Word Origin

C19: from Greek eugens well-born, from eu- + -gens born; see -gen

Word Origin and History for eugenics Expand

1883, coined (along with adjective eugenic) by English scientist Francis Galton (1822-1911) on analogy of ethics, physics, etc. from Greek eugenes "well-born, of good stock, of noble race," from eu- "good" (see eu-) + genos "birth" (see genus).

eugenics in Medicine Expand

eugenics eugenics (y-jn'ks) n. The study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding.

eugenics in Culture Expand

The idea that one can improve the human race by careful selection of those who mate and produce offspring.

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Eugenics – New World Encyclopedia

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Eugenics is a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention. The purported goals have variously been to create healthier, more intelligent people, save society's resources, and lessen human suffering.

Earlier proposed means of achieving these goals focused on selective breeding, while modern ones focus on prenatal testing and screening, genetic counseling, birth control, in vitro fertilization, and genetic engineering. Opponents argue that eugenics is immoral and is based on, or is itself, pseudoscience. Historically, eugenics has been used as a justification for coercive state-sponsored discrimination and human rights violations, such as forced sterilization of persons with genetic defects, the killing of the institutionalized and, in some cases, genocide of races perceived as inferior. Today, however, the ideas developed from eugenics are used to identify genetic disorders that are either fatal or result in severe disabilities. While there is still controversy, some of this research and understanding may prove beneficial.

The word eugenics etymologically derives from the Greek words eu (good) and gen (birth), and was coined by Francis Galton in 1883.

The term eugenics is often used to refer to movements and social policies that were influential during the early twentieth century. In a historical and broader sense, eugenics can also be a study of "improving human genetic qualities." It is sometimes broadly applied to describe any human action whose goal is to improve the gene pool. Some forms of infanticide in ancient societies, present-day reprogenetics, preemptive abortions, and designer babies have been (sometimes controversially) referred to as eugenic.

Eugenicists advocate specific policies that (if successful) would lead to a perceived improvement of the human gene pool. Since defining what improvements are desired or beneficial is, by many, perceived as a cultural choice rather than a matter that can be determined objectively (by empirical, scientific inquiry), eugenics has often been deemed a pseudoscience. The most disputed aspect of eugenics has been the definition of "improvement" of the human gene pool, such as what comprises a beneficial characteristic and what makes a defect. This aspect of eugenics has historically been tainted with scientific racism.

Early eugenicists were mostly concerned with perceived intelligence factors that often correlated strongly with social class. Many eugenicists took inspiration from the selective breeding of animals (where purebreds are valued) as their analogy for improving human society. The mixing of races (or miscegenation) was usually considered as something to be avoided in the name of racial purity. At the time this concept appeared to have some scientific support, and it remained a contentious issue until the advanced development of genetics led to a scientific consensus that the division of the human species into unequal races is unjustifiable. Some see this as an ideological consensus, since equality, just like inequality, is a cultural choice rather than a matter that can be determined objectively.

Eugenics has also been concerned with the elimination of hereditary diseases such as haemophilia and Huntington's disease. However, there are several problems with labeling certain factors as "genetic defects." In many cases there is no scientific consensus on what a "genetic defect" is. It is often argued that this is more a matter of social or individual choice. What appears to be a "genetic defect" in one context or environment may not be so in another. This can be the case for genes with a heterozygote advantage, such as sickle cell anemia or Tay-Sachs disease, which in their heterozygote form may offer an advantage against, respectively, malaria and tuberculosis. Many people can succeed in life with disabilities. Many of the conditions early eugenicists identified as inheritable (pellagra is one such example) are currently considered to be at least partially, if not wholly, attributed to environmental conditions. Similar concerns have been raised when a prenatal diagnosis of a congenital disorder leads to abortion.

Eugenic policies have been conceptually divided into two categories: Positive eugenics, which encourage a designated "most fit" to reproduce more often; and negative eugenics, which discourage or prevent a designated "less fit" from reproducing. Negative eugenics need not be coercive. A state might offer financial rewards to certain people who submit to sterilization, although some critics might reply that this incentive along with social pressure could be perceived as coercion. Positive eugenics can also be coercive. Abortion by "fit" women was illegal in Nazi Germany.

During the twentieth century, many countries enacted various eugenics policies and programs, including:

Most of these policies were later regarded as coercive, restrictive, or genocidal, and now few jurisdictions implement policies that are explicitly labeled as eugenic or unequivocally eugenic in substance (however labeled). However, some private organizations assist people in genetic counseling, and reprogenetics may be considered as a form of non-state-enforced "liberal" eugenics.

Selective breeding was suggested at least as far back as Plato, who believed human reproduction should be controlled by government. He recorded these ideals in The Republic: "The best men must have intercourse with the best women as frequently as possible, and the opposite is true of the very inferior." Plato proposed that the process be concealed from the public via a form of lottery. Other ancient examples include the polis of Sparta's purported practice of infanticide. However, they would leave all babies outside for a length of time, and the survivors were considered stronger, while many "weaker" babies perished.[1]

During the 1860s and 1870s, Sir Francis Galton systematized his ideas and practices according to new knowledge about the evolution of humans and animals provided by the theory of his cousin Charles Darwin. After reading Darwin's Origin of Species, Galton noticed an interpretation of Darwin's work whereby the mechanisms of natural selection were potentially thwarted by human civilization. He reasoned that, since many human societies sought to protect the underprivileged and weak, those societies were at odds with the natural selection responsible for extinction of the weakest. Only by changing these social policies, Galton thought, could society be saved from a "reversion towards mediocrity," a phrase that he first coined in statistics and which later changed to the now common "regression towards the mean."[2]

According to Galton, society already encouraged dysgenic conditions, claiming that the less intelligent were out-reproducing the more intelligent. Galton did not propose any selection methods; rather, he hoped that a solution would be found if social mores changed in a way that encouraged people to see the importance of breeding.

Galton first used the word eugenic in his 1883 Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development, a book in which he meant "to touch on various topics more or less connected with that of the cultivation of race, or, as we might call it, with 'eugenic' questions." He included a footnote to the word "eugenic" which read:

That is, with questions bearing on what is termed in Greek, eugenes namely, good in stock, hereditarily endowed with noble qualities. This, and the allied words, eugeneia, etc., are equally applicable to men, brutes, and plants. We greatly want a brief word to express the science of improving stock, which is by no means confined to questions of judicious mating, but which, especially in the case of man, takes cognisance of all influences that tend in however remote a degree to give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had. The word eugenics would sufficiently express the idea; it is at least a neater word and a more generalized one than viriculture which I once ventured to use.[3]

Eugenics differed from what would later be known as Social Darwinism. This school of thought was developed independently of Darwin by such writers as Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner. Social Darwinism includes a range of political ideologies which are held to be compatible with the concept that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution of biological traits in a population by natural selection can also be applied to competition between human societies or groups within a society. It is based on ideas of the "survival of the fittest" (a term coined by Herbert Spencer) to human society, saying that those humans with superior genes would be better placed to succeed in society, as evidenced by wealth and status. Social Darwinism, like eugenics, fell out of favor as it become increasingly associated with racism. While both claimed intelligence was hereditary, eugenics asserted that new policies were needed to actively change the status quo towards a more "eugenic" state, while the Social Darwinists argued society itself would naturally "check" the problem of "dysgenics" if no welfare policies were in place (for example, the poor might reproduce more but would have higher mortality rates).

The United States was home to a large eugenics movement in the 1890s. Beginning with Connecticut, in 1896, many states enacted marriage laws with eugenic criteria, prohibiting anyone who was "epileptic, imbecile, or feeble-minded" from marrying. In 1898, Charles B. Davenport, a prominent American biologist, began as director of a biological research station based in Cold Spring Harbor, where he experimented with evolution in plants and animals. In 1904, Davenport received funds from the Carnegie Institution to found the Station for Experimental Evolution. The Eugenics Record Office opened in 1910, while Davenport and Harry H. Laughlin began to promote eugenics.[4]

Though eugenics is today often associated with racism, it was not always so; both W.E.B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey supported eugenics or ideas resembling eugenics as a way to reduce African American suffering and improve their stature.[5] Many legal methods of eugenics include state laws against miscegenation or prohibitions of interracial marriage. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned those state laws in 1967, and declared anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional.

During the twentieth century, researchers became interested in the idea that mental illness could run in families and conducted a number of studies to document the heritability of such illnesses as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and clinical depression. Their findings were used by the eugenics movement as proof for its cause. State laws were written in the late 1800s and early 1900s to prohibit marriage and force sterilization of the mentally ill in order to prevent the "passing on" of mental illness to the next generation. These laws were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1927, and were not abolished until the mid-twentieth century. By 1945, over 45,000 mentally ill individuals in the United States had been forcibly sterilized.

With the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, eugenicists for the first time played a central role in the Congressional debate as expert advisers on the threat of "inferior stock" from eastern and southern Europe. This reduced the number of immigrants from abroad to 15 percent of previous years, to control the number of "unfit" individuals entering the country. The new act strengthened existing laws prohibiting race mixing in an attempt to maintain the gene pool.[6] Eugenic considerations also lay behind the adoption of incest laws in much of the U.S. and were used to justify many antimiscegenation laws.[7]

Some states sterilized "imbeciles" for much of the twentieth century. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1927 Buck v. Bell case that the state of Virginia could sterilize those it thought unfit. The most significant era of eugenic sterilization was between 1907 and 1963, when over 64,000 individuals were forcibly sterilized under eugenic legislation in the United States.[8] A favorable report on the results of sterilization in California, by far the state with the most sterilizations, was published in book form by the biologist Paul Popenoe and was widely cited by the Nazi government as evidence that wide-reaching sterilization programs were feasible and humane. When Nazi administrators went on trial for war crimes in Nuremberg after World War II, they justified the mass sterilizations (over 450,000 in less than a decade) by citing the United States as their inspiration.[9]

Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler was infamous for eugenics programs which attempted to maintain a "pure" German race through a series of programs that ran under the banner of "racial hygiene." Among other activities, the Nazis performed extensive experimentation on live human beings to test their genetic theories, ranging from simple measurement of physical characteristics to the horrific experiments carried out by Josef Mengele for Otmar von Verschuer on twins in the concentration camps. During the 1930s and 1940s, the Nazi regime forcibly sterilized hundreds of thousands of people whom they viewed as mentally and physically "unfit," an estimated 400,000 between 1934 and 1937. The scale of the Nazi program prompted American eugenics advocates to seek an expansion of their program, with one complaining that "the Germans are beating us at our own game."[10] The Nazis went further, however, killing tens of thousands of the institutionalized disabled through compulsory "euthanasia" programs.[11]

They also implemented a number of "positive" eugenics policies, giving awards to "Aryan" women who had large numbers of children and encouraged a service in which "racially pure" single women were impregnated by SS officers (Lebensborn). Many of their concerns for eugenics and racial hygiene were also explicitly present in their systematic killing of millions of "undesirable" people including Jews, gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals during the Holocaust (much of the killing equipment and methods employed in the death camps were first developed in the euthanasia program). The scope and coercion involved in the German eugenics programs along with a strong use of the rhetoric of eugenics and so-called "racial science" throughout the regime created an indelible cultural association between eugenics and the Third Reich in the postwar years.[12]

After the experience of Nazi Germany, many ideas about "racial hygiene" and "unfit" members of society were publicly renounced by politicians and members of the scientific community. The Nuremberg Trials against former Nazi leaders revealed to the world many of the regime's genocidal practices and resulted in formalized policies of medical ethics and the 1950 UNESCO statement on race. Many scientific societies released their own similar "race statements" over the years, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, developed in response to abuses during the Second World War, was adopted by the United Nations in 1948, and affirmed, "Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family."[13] In continuation, the 1978 UNESCO declaration on race and racial prejudice states that the fundamental equality of all human beings is the ideal toward which ethics and science should converge.[14]

In reaction to Nazi abuses, eugenics became almost universally reviled in many of the nations where it had once been popular (however, some eugenics programs, including sterilization, continued quietly for decades). Many pre-war eugenicists engaged in what they later labeled "crypto-eugenics," purposefully taking their eugenic beliefs "underground" and becoming respected anthropologists, biologists, and geneticists in the postwar world (including Robert Yerkes in the U.S. and Otmar von Verschuer in Germany). Californian eugenicist Paul Popenoe founded marriage counseling during the 1950s, a career change which grew from his eugenic interests in promoting "healthy marriages" between "fit" couples.[15]

High school and college textbooks from the 1920s through the 1940s often had chapters touting the scientific progress to be had from applying eugenic principles to the population. Many early scientific journals devoted to heredity in general were run by eugenicists and featured eugenics articles alongside studies of heredity in nonhuman organisms. After eugenics fell out of scientific favor, most references to eugenics were removed from textbooks and subsequent editions of relevant journals. Even the names of some journals changed to reflect new attitudes. For example, Eugenics Quarterly became Social Biology in 1969 (the journal still exists today, though it looks little like its predecessor). Notable members of the American Eugenics Society (192294) during the second half of the twentieth century included Joseph Fletcher, originator of Situational ethics; Dr. Clarence Gamble of the Procter & Gamble fortune; and Garrett Hardin, a population control advocate and author of The Tragedy of the Commons.

Despite the changed postwar attitude towards eugenics in the U.S. and some European countries, a few nations, notably, Canada and Sweden, maintained large-scale eugenics programs, including forced sterilization of mentally handicapped individuals, as well as other practices, until the 1970s. In the United States, sterilizations capped off in the 1960s, though the eugenics movement had largely lost most popular and political support by the end of the 1930s.[16]

Despite the ill repute of eugenics, there still exists a debate regarding its use or abuse.

While the science of genetics has increasingly provided means by which certain characteristics and conditions can be identified and understood, given the complexity of human genetics, culture, and psychology, there is at this point no agreed objective means of determining which traits might be ultimately desirable or undesirable. Eugenic manipulations that reduce the propensity for criminality and violence, for example, might result in the population being enslaved by an outside aggressor it can no longer defend itself against. On the other hand, genetic diseases like hemochromatosis can increase susceptibility to illness, cause physical deformities, and other dysfunctions. Eugenic measures against many of these diseases are already being undertaken in societies around the world, while measures against traits that affect more subtle, poorly understood traits, such as criminality, are relegated to the realm of speculation and science fiction. The effects of diseases are essentially wholly negative, and societies everywhere seek to reduce their impact by various means, some of which are eugenic in all but name.

In modern bioethics literature, the history of eugenics presents many moral and ethical questions. Commentators have suggested the new "eugenics" will come from reproductive technologies that will allow parents to create so-called "designer babies" (what the biologist Lee M. Silver prominently called "reprogenetics"). It has been argued that this "non-coercive" form of biological "improvement" will be predominantly motivated by individual competitiveness and the desire to create "the best opportunities" for children, rather than an urge to improve the species as a whole, which characterized the early twentieth century forms of eugenics. Because of this non-coercive nature, lack of involvement by the state, and a difference in goals, some commentators have questioned whether such activities are eugenics or something else altogether.

Some disability activists argue that, although their impairments may cause them pain or discomfort, what really disables them as members of society is a sociocultural system that does not recognize their right to genuinely equal treatment. They express skepticism that any form of eugenics could be to the benefit of the disabled considering their treatment by historical eugenic campaigns.

James D. Watson, the first director of the Human Genome Project, initiated the Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications Program (ELSI) which has funded a number of studies into the implications of human genetic engineering (along with a prominent website on the history of eugenics), because:

In putting ethics so soon into the genome agenda, I was responding to my own personal fear that all too soon critics of the Genome Project would point out that I was a representative of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory that once housed the controversial Eugenics Record Office. My not forming a genome ethics program quickly might be falsely used as evidence that I was a closet eugenicist, having as my real long-term purpose the unambiguous identification of genes that lead to social and occupational stratification as well as genes justifying racial discrimination.[17]

Distinguished geneticists including Nobel Prize-winners John Sulston ("I don't think one ought to bring a clearly disabled child into the world")[18] and Watson ("Once you have a way in which you can improve our children, no one can stop it")[19] support genetic screening. Which ideas should be described as "eugenic" are still controversial in both public and scholarly spheres. Some observers such as Philip Kitcher have described the use of genetic screening by parents as making possible a form of "voluntary" eugenics.[20]

Some modern subcultures advocate different forms of eugenics assisted by human cloning and human genetic engineering, sometimes even as part of a new cult (see Ralism, Cosmotheism, or Prometheism). These groups also talk of "neo-eugenics." "conscious evolution," or "genetic freedom."

Behavioral traits often identified as potential targets for modification through human genetic engineering include intelligence, clinical depression, schizophrenia, alcoholism, sexual behavior (and orientation), and criminality.

In a 2005 United Kingdom court case, the Crown v. James Edward Whittaker-Williams, arguably set a precedent of banning sexual contact between people with "learning difficulties." The accused, a man suffering learning disabilities, was jailed for kissing and hugging a woman with learning disabilities. This was done under the 2003 Sexual Offences Act, which redefines kissing and cuddling as sexual and states that those with learning difficulties are unable to give consent regardless of whether or not the act involved coercion. Opponents of the act have attacked it as bringing in eugenics through the backdoor under the guise of a requirement of "consent."[21]

A common criticism of eugenics is that it inevitably leads to measures that are unethical. In the hypothetical scenario where it's scientifically proven that one racial minority group making up 5 percent of the population is on average less intelligent than the majority racial group it's more likely that the minority racial group will be submitted to a eugenics program, opposed to the five percent least intelligent members of the population as a whole. For example, Nazi Germany's eugenic program within the German population resulted in protests and unrest, while the persecution of the Jews was met with silence.

Steven Pinker has stated that it is "a conventional wisdom among left-leaning academics that genes imply genocide." He has responded to this "conventional wisdom" by comparing the history of Marxism, which had the opposite position on genes to that of Nazism:

But the twentieth century suffered "two" ideologies that led to genocides. The other one, Marxism, had no use for race, didn't believe in genes and denied that human nature was a meaningful concept. Clearly, it's not an emphasis on genes or evolution that is dangerous. It's the desire to remake humanity by coercive means (eugenics or social engineering) and the belief that humanity advances through a struggle in which superior groups (race or classes) triumph over inferior ones.[22]

Richard Lynn has argued that any social philosophy is capable of ethical misuse. Though Christian principles have aided in the abolition of slavery and the establishment of welfare programs, he notes that the Christian church has also burned many dissidents at the stake and waged wars against nonbelievers in which Christian crusaders slaughtered large numbers of women and children. Lynn argued the appropriate response is to condemn these killings, but believing that Christianity "inevitably leads to the extermination of those who do not accept its doctrines" is unwarranted.[23]

Eugenic policies could also lead to loss of genetic diversity, in which case a culturally accepted improvement of the gene pool may, but would not necessarily, result in biological disaster due to increased vulnerability to disease, reduced ability to adapt to environmental change and other factors both known and unknown. This kind of argument from the precautionary principle is itself widely criticized. A long-term eugenics plan is likely to lead to a scenario similar to this because the elimination of traits deemed undesirable would reduce genetic diversity by definition.

Related to a decrease in diversity is the danger of non-recognition. That is, if everyone were beautiful and attractive, then it would be more difficult to distinguish between different individuals, due to the wide variety of ugly traits and otherwise non-attractive traits and combinations thereof that people use to recognize each other.

The possible elimination of the autism genotype is a significant political issue in the autism rights movement, which claims autism is a form of neurodiversity. Many advocates of Down Syndrome rights also consider Down Syndrome (Trisomy-21) a form of neurodiversity, though males with Down Syndrome are generally infertile.

In some instances, efforts to eradicate certain single-gene mutations would be nearly impossible. In the event the condition in question was a heterozygous recessive trait, the problem is that by eliminating the visible unwanted trait, there are still as many genes for the condition left in the gene pool as were eliminated according to the Hardy-Weinberg principle, which states that a population's genetics are defined as pp+2pq+qq at equilibrium. With genetic testing it may be possible to detect all of the heterozygous recessive traits, but only at great cost with the current technology. Under normal circumstances it is only possible to eliminate a dominant allele from the gene pool. Recessive traits can be severely reduced, but never eliminated unless the complete genetic makeup of all members of the pool was known, as aforementioned. As only very few undesirable traits, such as Huntington's disease, are dominant, the practical value for "eliminating" traits is quite low.

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Evolution – Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Evolution is a scientific theory used by biologists. It explains how living things change over a long time, and how they have come to be the way they are.[1]

The Earth has been around for a very long time.[2][3] By doing research on the layers of rock, we can find out about its past. That kind of research is called historical geology.

We know that living things have changed over time, because we can see their remains in the rocks. These remains are called 'fossils'. So we know that the animals and plants of today are different from those of long ago. And the further we go back, the more different the fossils are.[4] How has this come about? Evolution has taken place. That evolution has taken place is a fact, because it is overwhelmingly supported by many lines of evidence.[5][6][7] At the same time, evolutionary questions are still being actively researched by biologists.

Comparison of DNA sequences allows organisms to be grouped by how similar their sequences are. In 2010 an analysis compared sequences to phylogenetic trees, and supported the idea of common descent. There is now "strong quantitative support, by a formal test",[8] for the unity of life.[9]

The theory of evolution is the basis of modern biology. "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution".[10]

The evidence for evolution is given in a number of books.[11][12][13][14] Some of this evidence is discussed here.

The realization that some rocks contain fossils was a landmark in natural history. There are three parts to this story:

The most convincing evidence for the occurrence of evolution is the discovery of extinct organisms in older geological strata... The older the strata are...the more different the fossil will be from living representatives... that is to be expected if the fauna and flora of the earlier strata had gradually evolved into their descendants.

Ernst Mayr [1]p13

The evolution of the horse family (Equidae) is a good example of the way that evolution works. The oldest fossil of a horse is about 52 million years old. It was a small animal with five toes on the front feet and four on the hind feet. At that time, there were more forests in the world than today. This horse lived in woodland, eating leaves, nuts and fruit with its simple teeth. It was only about as big as a fox.[19]

About 30 million years ago the world started to become cooler and drier. Forests shrank; grassland expanded, and horses changed. They ate grass, they grew larger, and they ran faster because they had to escape faster predators. Because grass wears teeth out, horses with longer-lasting teeth had an advantage.

For most of this long period of time, there were a number of horse types (genera). Now, however, only one genus exists: the modern horse, Equus. It has teeth which grow all its life, hooves on single toes, great long legs for running, and the animal is big and strong enough to survive in the open plain.[19] Horses lived in western Canada until 12,000 years ago,[20] but all horses in North America became extinct about 11,000 years ago. The causes of this extinction are not yet clear. Climate change and over-hunting by humans are suggested.

So, scientists can see that changes have happened. They have happened slowly over a long time. How these changes have come about is explained by the theory of evolution.

This is a topic which fascinated both Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace.[21][22][23] When new species occur, usually by the splitting of older species, this takes place in one place in the world. Once it is established, a new species may spread to some places and not others.

Australasia has been separated from other continents for many millions of years. In the main part of the continent, Australia, 83% of mammals, 89% of reptiles, 90% of fish and insects and 93% of amphibians are endemic.[24] Its native mammals are mostly marsupials like kangaroos, bandicoots, and quolls.[25] By contrast, marsupials are today totally absent from Africa and form a small portion of the mammalian fauna of South America, where opossums, shrew opossums, and the monito del monte occur (see the Great American Interchange).

The only living representatives of primitive egg-laying mammals (monotremes) are the echidnas and the platypus. They are only found in Australasia, which includes Tasmania, New Guinea, and Kangaroo Island. These monotremes are totally absent in the rest of the world.[26] On the other hand, Australia is missing many groups of placental mammals that are common on other continents (carnivora, artiodactyls, shrews, squirrels, lagomorphs), although it does have indigenous bats and rodents, which arrived later.[27]

The evolutionary story is that placental mammals evolved in Eurasia, and wiped out the marsupials and monotremes wherever they spread. They did not reach Australasia until more recently. That is the simple reason why Australia has most of the world's marsupials and all the world's monotremes.

In about 6,500sqmi (17,000km2), the Hawaiian Islands have the most diverse collection of Drosophila flies in the world, living from rainforests to mountain meadows. About 800 Hawaiian drosophilid species are known.

Genetic evidence shows that all the native drosophilid species in Hawaii have descended from a single ancestral species that colonized the islands, about 20 million years ago. The subsequent adaptive radiation was spurred by a lack of competition and a wide variety of vacant niches. Although it would be possible for a single pregnant female to colonise an island, it is more likely to have been a group from the same species.[28][29][30][31]

The combination of continental drift and evolution can explain what is found in the fossil record. Glossopteris is an extinct species of seed fern plants from the Permian period on the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana.[32]

Glossopteris fossils are found in Permian strata in southeast South America, southeast Africa, all of Madagascar, northern India, all of Australia, all of New Zealand, and scattered on the southern and northern edges of Antarctica.

During the Permian, these continents were connected as Gondwana. This is known from magnetic striping in the rocks, other fossil distributions, and glacial scratches pointing away from the temperate climate of the South Pole during the Permian.[13]p103[33]

When biologists look at living things, they see that animals and plants belong to groups which have something in common. Charles Darwin explained that this followed naturally if "we admit the common parentage of allied forms, together with their modification through variation and natural selection".[21]p402[11]p456

For example, all insects are related. They share a basic body plan, whose development is controlled by master regulatory genes.[34] They have six legs; they have hard parts on the outside of the body (an exoskeleton); they have eyes formed of many separate chambers, and so on. Biologists explain this with evolution. All insects are the descendants of a group of animals who lived a long time ago. They still keep the basic plan (six legs and so on) but the details change. They look different now because they changed in different ways: this is evolution.[35]

It was Darwin who first suggested that all life on Earth had a single origin, and from that beginning "endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved".[11]p490[21] Evidence from molecular biology in recent years has supported the idea that all life is related by common descent.[36]

Strong evidence for common descent comes from vestigial structures.[21]p397 The useless wings of flightless beetles are sealed under fused wing covers. This can be simply explained by their descent from ancestral beetles which had wings that worked.[14]p49

Rudimentary body parts, those that are smaller and simpler in structure than corresponding parts in ancestral species, are called vestigial organs. Those organs are functional in the ancestral species but are now either nonfunctional or re-adapted to a new function. Examples are the pelvic girdles of whales, halteres (hind wings) of flies, wings of flightless birds, and the leaves of some xerophytes (e.g. cactus) and parasitic plants (e.g. dodder).

However, vestigial structures may have their original function replaced with another. For example, the halteres in flies help balance the insect while in flight, and the wings of ostriches are used in mating rituals, and in aggressive display. The ear ossicles in mammals are former bones of the lower jaw.

In 1893, Robert Wiedersheim published a book on human anatomy and its relevance to man's evolutionary history. This book contained a list of 86 human organs that he considered vestigial.[37] This list included examples such as the appendix and the 3rd molar teeth (wisdom teeth).

The strong grip of a baby is another example.[38] It is a vestigial reflex, a remnant of the past when pre-human babies clung to their mothers' hair as the mothers swung through the trees. This is borne out by the babies' feet, which curl up when it is sitting down (primate babies grip with the feet as well). All primates except modern man have thick body hair to which an infant can cling, unlike modern humans. The grasp reflex allows the mother to escape danger by climbing a tree using both hands and feet.[13][39]

Vestigial organs often have some selection against them. The original organs took resources, sometimes huge resources. If they no longer have a function, reducing their size improves fitness. And there is direct evidence of selection. Some cave crustacea reproduce more successfully with smaller eyes than do those with larger eyes. This may be because the nervous tissue dealing with sight now becomes available to handle other sensory input.[40]p310

From the eighteenth century it was known that embryos of different species were much more similar than the adults. In particular, some parts of embryos reflect their evolutionary past. For example, the embryos of land vertebrates develop gill slits like fish embryos. Of course, this is only a temporary stage, which gives rise to many structures in the neck of reptiles, birds and mammals. The proto-gill slits are part of a complicated system of development: that is why they persisted.[34]

Another example are the embryonic teeth of baleen whales.[41] They are later lost. The baleen filter is developed from different tissue, called keratin. Early fossil baleen whales did actually have teeth as well as the baleen.[42]

A good example is the barnacle. It took many centuries before natural historians discovered that barnacles were crustacea. Their adults look so unlike other crustacea, but their larvae are very similar to those of other crustacea.[43]

Charles Darwin lived in a world where animal husbandry and domesticated crops were vitally important. In both cases farmers selected for breeding individuals with special properties, and prevented the breeding of individuals with less desirable characteristics. The eighteenth and early nineteenth century saw a growth in scientific agriculture, and artificial breeding was part of this.

Darwin discussed artificial selection as a model for natural selection in the 1859 first edition of his work On the Origin of Species, in Chapter IV: Natural selection:

Nikolai Vavilov showed that rye, originally a weed, came to be a crop plant by unintentional selection. Rye is a tougher plant than wheat: it survives in harsher conditions. Having become a crop like the wheat, rye was able to become a crop plant in harsh areas, such as hills and mountains.[45][46]

There is no real difference in the genetic processes underlying artificial and natural selection, and the concept of artificial selection was used by Charles Darwin as an illustration of the wider process of natural selection. There are practical differences. Experimental studies of artificial selection show that "the rate of evolution in selection experiments is at least two orders of magnitude (that is 100 times) greater than any rate seen in nature or the fossil record".[47]p157

Some have thought that artificial selection could not produce new species. It now seems that it can.

New species have been created by domesticated animal husbandry, but the details are not known or not clear. For example, domestic sheep were created by hybridisation, and no longer produce viable offspring with Ovis orientalis, one species from which they are descended.[48] Domestic cattle, on the other hand, can be considered the same species as several varieties of wild ox, gaur, yak, etc., as they readily produce fertile offspring with them.[49]

The best-documented new species came from laboratory experiments in the late 1980s. William Rice and G.W. Salt bred fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, using a maze with three different choices of habitat such as light/dark and wet/dry. Each generation was put into the maze, and the groups of flies that came out of two of the eight exits were set apart to breed with each other in their respective groups.

After thirty-five generations, the two groups and their offspring were isolated reproductively because of their strong habitat preferences: they mated only within the areas they preferred, and so did not mate with flies that preferred the other areas.[50][51]

Diane Dodd was also able to show how reproductive isolation can develop from mating preferences in Drosophila pseudoobscura fruit flies after only eight generations using different food types, starch and maltose.[52]

Dodd's experiment has been easy for others to repeat. It has also been done with other fruit flies and foods.[53]

Some biologists say that evolution has happened when a trait that is caused by genetics becomes more or less common in a group of organisms.[54] Others call it evolution when new species appear.

Changes can happen quickly in the smaller, simpler organisms. For example, many bacteria that cause disease can no longer be killed with some of the antibiotic medicines. These medicines have only been in use about eighty years, and at first worked extremely well. The bacteria have evolved so that they are no longer affected by antibiotics anymore.[55] The drugs killed off all the bacteria except a few which had some resistance. These few resistant bacteria produced the next generation.

The Colorado beetle is famous for its ability to resist pesticides. Over the last 50 years it has become resistant to 52 chemical compounds used in insecticides, including cyanide.[56] This is natural selection speeded up by the artificial conditions. However, not every population is resistant to every chemical.[57] The populations only become resistant to chemicals used in their area.

Although there were a number of natural historians in the 18th century who had some idea of evolution, the first well-formed ideas came in the 19th century. Three biologists are most important.

Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck (17441829), a French biologist, claimed that animals changed according to natural laws. He said that animals could pass on traits they had acquired during their lifetime to their offspring, using inheritance. Today, his theory is known as Lamarckism. Its main purpose is to explain adaptations by natural means.[58] He proposed a tendency for organisms to become more complex, moving up a ladder of progress, plus use and disuse.

Lamarck's idea was that a giraffe's neck grew longer because it tried to reach higher up. This idea failed because it cannot be reconciled with heredity (Mendel's work). Mendel made his discoveries about half a century after Lamarck's work.

Charles Darwin (18091882) wrote his On the Origin of Species in 1859. In this book, he put forward much evidence that evolution had occurred. He also proposed natural selection as the way evolution had taken place. But Darwin did not understand about genetics and how traits were actually passed on. He could not accurately explain what made children look like their parents.

Nevertheless, Darwin's explanation of evolution was fundamentally correct. In contrast to Lamarck, Darwin's idea was that the giraffe's neck became longer because those with longer necks survived better.[21]p177/8 These survivors passed their genes on, and in time the whole race got longer necks.

An Austrian monk called Gregor Mendel (18221884) bred plants. In the mid-19th century, he discovered how traits were passed on from one generation to the next.

He used peas for his experiments: some peas have white flowers and others have red ones. Some peas have green seeds and others have yellow seeds. Mendel used artificial pollination to breed the peas. His results are discussed further in Mendelian inheritance. Darwin thought that the inheritance from both parents blended together. Mendel proved that the genes from the two parents stay separate, and may be passed on unchanged to later generations.

Mendel published his results in a journal that was not well-known, and his discoveries were overlooked. Around 1900, his work was rediscovered.[59][60]Genes are bits of information made of DNA which work like a set of instructions. A set of genes are in every living cell. Together, genes organise the way an egg develops into an adult. With mammals, and many other living things, a copy of each gene comes from the father and another copy from the mother. Some living organisms, including some plants, only have one parent, so get all their genes from them. These genes produce the genetic differences which evolution acts on.

Darwin's On the Origin of Species has two themes: the evidence for evolution, and his ideas on how evolution took place. This section deals with the second issue.

The first two chapters of the Origin deal with variation in domesticated plants and animals, and variation in nature.

All living things show variation. Every population which has been studied shows that animal and plants vary as much as humans do.[61][62]p90 This is a great fact of nature, and without it evolution would not occur. Darwin said that, just as man selects what he wants in his farm animals, so in nature the variations allow natural selection to work.[63]

The features of an individual are influenced by two things, heredity and environment. First, development is controlled by genes inherited from the parents. Second, living brings its own influences. Some things are entirely inherited, others partly, and some not inherited at all.

The colour of eyes is entirely inherited; they are a genetic trait. Height or weight is only partly inherited, and the language is not at all inherited. Just to be clear: the fact that humans can speak is inherited, but what language is spoken depends on where a person lives and what they are taught. Another example: a person inherits a brain of somewhat variable capacity. What happens after birth depends on many things such as home environment, education and other experiences. When a person is adult, their brain is what their inheritance and life experience have made it.

Evolution only concerns the traits which can be inherited, wholly or partly. The hereditary traits are passed on from one generation to the next through the genes. A person's genes contain all the traits which they inherit from their parents. The accidents of life are not passed on. Also, of course, each person lives a somewhat different life: that increases the differences.

Organisms in any population vary in reproductive success.[64]p81 From the point of view of evolution, 'reproductive success' means the total number of offspring which live to breed and leave offspring themselves.

Variation can only affect future generations if it is inherited. Because of the work of Gregor Mendel, we know that much variation is inherited. Mendel's 'factors' are now called genes. Research has shown that almost every individual in a sexually reproducing species is genetically unique.[65]p204

Genetic variation is increased by gene mutations. DNA does not always reproduce exactly. Rare changes occur, and these changes can be inherited. Many changes in DNA cause faults; some are neutral or even advantageous. This gives rise to genetic variation, which is the seed-corn of evolution. Sexual reproduction, by the crossing over of chromosomes during meiosis, spreads variation through the population. Other events, like natural selection and drift, reduce variation. So a population in the wild always has variation, but the details are always changing.[62]p90

Evolution mainly works by natural selection. What does this mean? Animals and plants which are best suited to their environment will, on average, survive better. There is a struggle for existence. Those who survive will produce the next generation. Their genes will be passed on, and the genes of those who did not reproduce will not. This is the basic mechanism which changes a population and causes evolution.

Natural selection explains why living organisms change over time to have the anatomy, the functions and behaviour that they have. It works like this:

There are now many cases where natural selection has been proved to occur in wild populations.[5][67][68] Almost every case investigated of camouflage, mimicry and polymorphism has shown strong effects of selection.[69]

The force of selection can be much stronger than was thought by the early population geneticists. The resistance to pesticides has grown quickly. Resistance to warfarin in Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) grew rapidly because those that survived made up more and more of the population. Research showed that, in the absence of warfarin, the resistant homozygote was at a 54% disadvantage to the normal wild type homozygote.[62]p182[70] This great disadvantage was quickly overcome by the selection for warfarin resistance.

Mammals normally cannot drink milk as adults, but humans are an exception. Milk is digested by the enzyme lactase, which switches off as mammals stop taking milk from their mothers. The human ability to drink milk during adult life is supported by a lactase mutation which prevents this switch-off. Human populations have a high proportion of this mutation wherever milk is important in the diet. The spread of this 'milk tolerance' is promoted by natural selection, because it helps people survive where milk is available. Genetic studies suggest that the oldest mutations causing lactase persistence only reached high levels in human populations in the last ten thousand years.[71][72] Therefore, lactase persistence is often cited as an example of recent human evolution.[73][74] As lactase persistence is genetic, but animal husbandry a cultural trait, this is geneculture coevolution.[75]

Adaptation is one of the basic phenomena of biology.[76] Through the process of adaptation, an organism becomes better suited to its habitat.[77]

Adaptation is one of the two main processes that explain the diverse species we see in biology. The other is speciation (species-splitting or cladogenesis).[78][79] A favourite example used today to study the interplay of adaptation and speciation is the evolution of cichlid fish in African rivers and lakes.[80][81]

When people speak about adaptation they often mean something which helps an animal or plant survive. One of the most widespread adaptations in animals is the evolution of the eye. Another example is the adaptation of horses' teeth to grinding grass. Camouflage is another adaptation; so is mimicry. The better adapted animals are the most likely to survive, and to reproduce successfully (natural selection).

An internal parasite (such as a fluke) is a good example: it has a very simple bodily structure, but still the organism is highly adapted to its particular environment. From this we see that adaptation is not just a matter of visible traits: in such parasites critical adaptations take place in the life cycle, which is often quite complex.[82]

Not all features of an organism are adaptations.[62]p251 Adaptations tend to reflect the past life of a species. If a species has recently changed its life style, a once valuable adaptation may become useless, and eventually become a dwindling vestige.

Adaptations are never perfect. There are always tradeoffs between the various functions and structures in a body. It is the organism as a whole which lives and reproduces, therefore it is the complete set of adaptations which gets passed on to future generations.

In populations, there are forces which add variation to the population (such as mutation), and forces which remove it. Genetic drift is the name given to random changes which remove variation from a population. Genetic drift gets rid of variation at the rate of 1/(2N) where N = population size.[47]p29 It is therefore "a very weak evolutionary force in large populations".[47]p55

Genetic drift explains how random chance can affect evolution in surprisingly big ways, but only when populations are quite small. Overall, its action is to make the individuals more similar to each other, and hence more vulnerable to disease or to chance events in their environment.

How species form is a major part of evolutionary biology. Darwin interpreted 'evolution' (a word he did not use at first) as being about speciation. That is why he called his famous book On the Origin of Species.

Darwin thought most species arose directly from pre-existing species. This is called anagenesis: new species by older species changing. Now we think most species arise by previous species splitting: cladogenesis.[87][88]

Two groups that start the same can also become very different if they live in different places. When a species gets split into two geographical regions, a process starts. Each adapts to its own situation. After a while, individuals from one group can no longer reproduce with the other group. Two good species have evolved from one.

A German explorer, Moritz Wagner, during his three years in Algeria in the 1830s, studied flightless beetles. Each species is confined to a stretch of the north coast between rivers which descend from the Atlas mountains to the Mediterranean. As soon as one crosses a river, a different but closely related species appears.[89] He wrote later:

This was an early account of the importance of geographical separation. Another biologist who thought geographical separation was critical was Ernst Mayr.[91]

One example of natural speciation is the three-spined stickleback, a sea fish that, after the last ice age, invaded freshwater, and set up colonies in isolated lakes and streams. Over about 10,000 generations, the sticklebacks show great differences, including variations in fins, changes in the number or size of their bony plates, variable jaw structure, and color differences.[92]

The wombats of Australia fall into two main groups, Common wombats and Hairy-nosed wombats. The two types look very similar, apart from the hairiness of their noses. However, they are adapted to different environments. Common wombats live in forested areas and eat mostly green food with lots of moisture. They often feed in the daytime. Hairy-nosed wombats live on hot dry plains where they eat dry grass with very little water or goodness in it. Their metabolic system is slow and they sleep most of the day underground.

When two groups that started the same become different enough, then they become two different species. Part of the theory of evolution is that all living things started off the same, but then split off into different groups over billions of years.[93]

This was an important movement in evolutionary biology, which started in the 1930s and finished in the 1950s.[94][95] It has been updated regularly ever since. The synthesis explains how the ideas of Charles Darwin fit with the discoveries of Gregor Mendel, who found out how we inherit our genes. The modern synthesis brought Darwin's idea up to date. It bridged the gap between different types of biologists: geneticists, naturalists, and palaeontologists.

When the theory of evolution was developed, it was not clear that natural selection and genetics worked together. But Ronald Fisher showed that natural selection would work to change species.[96]Sewall Wright explained genetic drift in 1931.[97]

Co-evolution is where the existence of one species is tightly bound up with the life of one or more other species.

New or 'improved' adaptations which occur in one species are often followed by the appearance and spread of related features in the other species. The life and death of living things is intimately connected, not just with the physical environment, but with the life of other species.

These relationships may continue for millions of years, as it has in the pollination of flowering plants by insects. The gut contents, wing structures, and mouthparts of fossilized beetles and flies suggest that they acted as early pollinators. The association between beetles and angiosperms during the Lower Cretaceous period led to parallel radiations of angiosperms and insects into the late Cretaceous. The evolution of nectaries in Upper Cretaceous flowers signals the beginning of the mutualism between hymenoptera and angiosperms.[102]

Charles Darwin was the first to use this metaphor in biology. The evolutionary tree shows the relationships among various biological groups. It includes data from DNA, RNA and protein analysis. Tree of life work is a product of traditional comparative anatomy, and modern molecular evolution and molecular clock research.

The major figure in this work is Carl Woese, who defined the Archaea, the third domain (or kingdom) of life.[103] Below is a simplified version of present-day understanding.[104]

Macroevolution: the study of changes above the species level, and how they take place. The basic data for such a study are fossils (palaeontology) and the reconstruction of ancient environments. Some subjects whose study falls within the realm of macroevolution:

It is a term of convenience: for most biologists it does not suggest any change in the process of evolution.[5][105][106]p87 For some palaeontologists, what they see in the fossil record cannot be explained just by the gradualist evolutionary synthesis.[107] They are in the minority.

Altruism the willingness of some to sacrifice themselves for others is widespread in social animals. As explained above, the next generation can only come from those who survive and reproduce. Some biologists have thought that this meant altruism could not evolve by the normal process of selection. Instead a process called "group selection" was proposed.[108][109] Group selection refers to the idea that alleles can become fixed or spread in a population because of the benefits they bestow on groups, regardless of the alleles' effect on the fitness of individuals within that group.

For several decades, critiques cast serious doubt on group selection as a major mechanism of evolution.[110][111][112][113]

In simple cases it can be seen at once that traditional selection suffices. For example, if one sibling sacrifices itself for three siblings, the genetic disposition for the act will be increased. This is because siblings share on average 50% of their genetic inheritance, and the sacrificial act has led to greater representation of the genes in the next generation.

Altruism is now generally seen as emerging from standard selection.[114][115][116][117][118] The warning note from Ernst Mayr, and the work of William Hamilton are both important to this discussion.[119][120]

Hamilton's equation describes whether or not a gene for altruistic behaviour will spread in a population. The gene will spread if rxb is greater than c:

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Also, nations were able to become imperialistic because of the support of their people.... [tags: Social Darwinism Essays] 751 words (2.1 pages) Better Essays [preview] Charles Darwin, Social Darwinism, and Imperialism - England went through dramatic changes in the 19th century. English culture, socio-economic structure and politics where largely influenced by the principles of science. Many social expressions occurred due to these changes. Transformations which categorized this time period could be observed in social institutions; for instance: the switch from popular Evangelicalism to atheism, emergence of feminism and the creation of new political ideologies (Liberalism, Conservatism and Radicalism). These are just a few of the changes that took place.... [tags: Social Darwinism Essays] 511 words (1.5 pages) Unrated Essays [preview] Social Darwinism and Social Welfare in the United States - The interplay and relationship between Social Darwinism and Social Welfare in the United States typify the nation's struggle to make the best of a capitalist society, while at the same time correcting pitfalls. Social Darwinism in our capitalist society compares wealth with fitness, but historically, unregulated markets given the false sanction of natural law have proven out that Darwinist economic competition has a destructive side for society. The role of raw power, the frequency of failure and the spirit of want has out of necessity, fostered a fiscal and monetary policy defined as social welfare, in order to conserve some commitment and core of resistance to the corrosive impact of ma... [tags: Social Darwinism Essays] :: 6 Works Cited 1245 words (3.6 pages) Better Essays [preview] Social Darwinism - Darwins Theory of Natural Selection, a scientific theory that supported the belief of evolution, was manipulated and applied to different areas of life, and thus it became the shaping force in European thought in the last half of the nineteenth century. Darwin, through observation of organisms, determined that a system of natural selection controlled the evolution of species. He found that the organisms that were most fit and assimilated to the environment would survive. They would also reproduce so that over time they would eventually dominate in numbers over the organisms with weaker characteristics.... [tags: Social Darwinism Essays] 1192 words (3.4 pages) Strong Essays [preview] Darwins Theory of Natural Selection and Social Darwinism - Anyone with even a moderate background in science has heard of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution. Since the publishing of his book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859, Darwins ideas have been debated by everyone from scientists to theologians to ordinary lay-people. Today, though there is still severe opposition, evolution is regarded as fact by most of the scientific community and Darwins book remains one of the most influential ever written. Its influence has even extended into realms other than biology and science.... [tags: Social Darwinism Essays] :: 8 Works Cited 2626 words (7.5 pages) Research Papers [preview] Darwins Theory of Natural Selection and Social Darwinism - Darwin and Evolution are inextricably linked in the minds of most people who have had the opportunity to study them in basic biology. However, Darwin's theories of selection and survival of the fittest have been applied to moral, economic, political, and other cultural aspects of society. Dennett briefly touched on some of the political and social ramifications of Darwin's theories in the final chapter of Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Other philosophers and thinkers have also adapted Darwin's evolutionary ideas, in order to apply them in a societal or cultural context.... [tags: Social Darwinism Essays] :: 6 Works Cited 801 words (2.3 pages) Better Essays [preview] Darwins Theory of Natural Selection and Social Darwinism - While he was on the voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle, a man named Charles Darwin viewed the relationship of plants and animals all over the world. He observed organisms on islands off the coast of South America and those on the mainland. His observations showed that these organisms were related, but not identical. This led Darwin into believing that over time, organisms must adapt to suit their environment. He explained his theories thoroughly in his book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.... [tags: Social Darwinism Essays] 564 words (1.6 pages) Better Essays [preview] Darwins Theory of Natural Selection and Social Darwinism - In 1859, a biologist named Charles Darwin postulated a scientific theory, which stated that all living organisms evolved through a process of natural selection. According to Stephen Hawking, Charles Darwin claimed that the offspring of a particular species gradually evolved themselves genetically to resist the changes in the environment (573). The theory contended that the organisms could adapt to the changes in the environment through the survival of the fittest. Though this theory is regarded as a breakthrough in the field of biological evolution, it is interesting to explore how this seemingly scientific theory has been suitably modified, and intellectually applied to both negative... [tags: Social Darwinism Essays] :: 7 Works Cited 1187 words (3.4 pages) Strong Essays [preview] Social Darwinism: Herbert Spencer and The Catholic Church - Herbert Spencer was the most important Social Darwinist of the 19th Century. He was the first to begin thinking about evolutionist long before Darwin came out with his book on the "Origins of Species". He had many theories such as that everything evolves from one basic creature and then breaks off into more diverse species (Haberman (Hab.), 171). His theory was that social, political, and intellectual movements were caused by the development from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous.... [tags: Social Darwinism Essays] :: 3 Works Cited 475 words (1.4 pages) Unrated Essays [preview] Socialism More Beneficial than Social Darwinism - The ideas of Social Darwinism and Socialism were first theorized by those in the age of industrialization, when the gap between the social classes was continuing to grow. Social Darwinism is a philosophy that was taken off of the theory of Darwinism in two aspects that were applied to society. One, survival of the fittest. Those who succeeded in life were the ones who were fit, in addition, those who failed were left to be weeded out, Secondly, the idea of natural selection as applied to society.... [tags: Social Darwinism Essays] 698 words (2 pages) Better Essays [preview] What is Social Darwinism? - ... On the other hand, the individuals that do not have these traits, live shorter lives and die with less or no offspring. Indeed, most giraffes used to have short necks, but some had longer necks and when there was a shortage of food that they could reach with their short necks, the ones with short necks died off, and the ones with long necks survived and reproduced, and eventually, all of the giraffes had long necks. Another difference between Darwin and Lamarck is that Darwin claimed that evolution does not happen according to any predetermined plan (for example, the course of evolution is affected by climatic changes).... [tags: Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species] :: 8 Works Cited 1257 words (3.6 pages) Strong Essays [preview] Jude the Obscure and Social Darwinism - Jude the Obscure and Social Darwinism Jude the Obscure is indeed a lesson in cruelty and despair; the inevitable by-products of Social Darwinism. The main characters of the book are controlled by fate's "compelling arm of extraordinary muscular power"(1), weakly resisting the influence of their own sexuality, and of society and nature around them. Jude's world is one in which only the fittest survive, and he is clearly not equipped to number amongst the fittest. In keeping with the strong Darwinian undercurrents that run through the book, a kind of "natural selection" ensures that Jude's offspring do not survive to procreate either.... [tags: Jude Obscure] :: 2 Works Cited 922 words (2.6 pages) Better Essays [preview] Social Darwinism: Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner - Social Darwinism is term that is used for application of biological concepts of Charles Darwin to sociology and political science. The goal of this paper is to introduce two most known social Darwinists Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner. Herbert Spencer is sometimes named as the founder of social Darwinism. However, labeling him as such is problematic. Spencer came with his concepts and with the term survival of the fittest before he got to know Darwins. His ideas are based on the theory of Lamarckian inheritance by French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck.... [tags: biological concepts, evolutionary theories] :: 13 Works Cited 1402 words (4 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] The Political Implications of Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection - In 1859 biologist Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species which laid out Darwin's theory of natural selection. Natural selection stated that an organism which possessed advantageous traits that allowed it to survive and reproduce easier than became more prevalent in the proceeding generations, eventually resulting in a differentiation of species. This is the basis of evolution and is a constantly ongoing process. Organisms that did not possess the advantageous traits were doomed to genetic extinction.... [tags: Social Darwinism] 864 words (2.5 pages) Better Essays [preview] Darwinism in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - Few people argue that Great Expectations, one of Dickenss later novels, is a Darwinian work. Goldie Morgentaler, in her essay Meditating on the Low: A Darwinian Reading of Great Expectations, is one of those few. She argues primarily that Darwins Origin of the Species was a major topic of discussion in Dickenss circle at the time he wrote Great Expectations, and that Great Expectations marks the first time that Dickens jettisons heredity as a determining factor in the formation of the self (Morgentaler, 708).... [tags: Social Darwinism Essays] :: 2 Works Cited 1548 words (4.4 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] The Working Poor by D. Shipler - The Working Poor The objective of this essay is to illuminate my overall reaction to the reading of The Working Poor conveying what I do not like while highlighting a sociological perspective, in addition to explaining if the reading is applicable to my own life experience. Taking notice, the subject at hand was very sobering alluding even if we ourselves have not been partakers of living in the obscurity of prosperity between poverty and wellbeing, certainly we have encountered someone that has become a victim to it.... [tags: social darwinism, poverty, disparity] :: 1 Works Cited 1081 words (3.1 pages) Strong Essays [preview] The Great Industrial Revolution - The Industrial Revolution was a time in history when society was completely transformed. Beginning in the early 18th century, the Industrial Revolution had a significant impact on peoples lives and surely impacted how society functioned. The Industrial Revolution was a dramatic change from an agricultural to an industrial society. Changes in society were seen through the various new inventions to make life easier: the newly introduced factory system, many scientific and technological advancements, and many more aspects.... [tags: social darwinism,factory system,medicine] :: 5 Works Cited 1080 words (3.1 pages) Strong Essays [preview] My Personal Leadership Style - Peter Senge, in his book, The Fifth Discipline, argued that there is interconnectedness, a relationship, between all forces of matter that act and react upon each other. Not only do they act and react on each other, but act across time and space. These relationships, built upon an exchange of information past and present, transform interrelated processes that act upon us and create our state of being. A social-psycho Darwinian evolution, if you will. This state of being is our reality. In reading and assessing Senge, many thoughts and ideas relating to my personal leadership style began sprouting like beanstalks.... [tags: Leadership Style Social Darwinism] 1160 words (3.3 pages) Strong Essays [preview] Nazi Use of Darwinism - After the Great War in the nineteenth century, European nations had a difficult time finding economic stability. Germany took full responsibility for starting World War I and by signing the Treaty of Versailles, Germany agreed to give up huge portions of territory and pay reparation to victorious allies. The harsh principles which were outlined by the Treaty of Versailles made economic stability in Germany difficult to achieve and caused Germany to suffer from inflation and the Great Depression.... [tags: History, Politics, The Treaty of Versailles] 1504 words (4.3 pages) Better Essays [preview] Social Reconstructinism: An Effective Philosophy - According to Sadker and Zittleman social reconstructinism encourages, schools, teachers, and students to focus their studies and energies on alleviating pervasive social inequalities and, as the name implies, reconstruct society into a new and more just social order. Social Reconstructionist is mainly founded on a student-centered classroom. It also encourages students to get out and help out in the community. Teachers can alter their curriculum around their classes needs. The purpose of social reconstructinism is to reconstruct society.... [tags: teacher, students, social inequitites] :: 5 Works Cited 1285 words (3.7 pages) Strong Essays [preview] William Graham Sumner Social Darwinist - William Graham Sumner Social Darwinist Sumner was the follower of Darwins ideas and Herbert Spencers, Social Darwinism. He is considered to be vigorous and influential social Darwinist in America. He was a professor at Yale College. He developed the concepts of Folkways, diffusion, and ethnocentrism. He is not as big as Spencer but his ideas were bold enough to be recognized. He played three important roles in the development of American thought, he was a great Puritan preacher, an exponent of the Classical pessimism of Ricardo and Malthus, and an assimilator and popularizer of evolution.... [tags: Sociology ] :: 2 Works Cited 1237 words (3.5 pages) Strong Essays [preview] Evolution and The Island of Doctor Moreau - There are a lot of misconceptions about Darwin's theory of evolution. One of the biggest is that he called the theory by that name. Albrecht von Haller used the word "evolution" in 1744 to mean "to unroll," so the word was around in Darwin's time, but Darwin never used it in the sense we use it today. It was added later by others, including Herbert Spencer, who is responsible for the theory we call Social Darwinism. This theory is misnamed; it is not based on Darwin's work, but Spencer's. Darwin did not come up with his theory out of nowhere.... [tags: Darwin Spencer Darwinism Research Papers] :: 5 Works Cited 1421 words (4.1 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] The Father of Science Fiction: Herbert George Wells - Biographical Summary Herbert George Wells was an English author from the 19th century who was born in London, England. H.G. Wells was born on September 21st, 1866 in the county of Kent. He was the youngest child of four in his family and was called Bertie from a young age. Wells wrote in many genres including politics, history, social commentary and contemporary novels. He is best known for his work in the Science Fiction genre, sometimes referred to as The Father of Science Fiction. His father, Joseph Wells was a shopkeeper and played cricket professionally at the time H.G.... [tags: biography, darwinism, Dr. Moreau] :: 7 Works Cited 1549 words (4.4 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] Race As A Social Construct - The concept of race is an ancient construction through which a single society models all of mankind around the ideal man. This idealism evolved from prejudice and ignorance of another culture and the inability to view another human as equal. The establishment of race and racism can be seen from as early as the Middle Ages through the present. The social construction of racism and the feeling of superiority to people of other ethnicities, have been distinguishably present in European societies as well as America throughout the last several centuries.... [tags: Racism Essays] :: 4 Works Cited 1076 words (3.1 pages) Strong Essays [preview] Eugenics: Solving Social Problems? - The melting pot was a movement to solve social problems of the population with the use of technology. Eugenics is the use of science to solve social problems. It is defined as the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, especially by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits.... [tags: Scientific Research ] :: 9 Works Cited 1201 words (3.4 pages) Strong Essays [preview] The Effect British Colonialism Had on The Indian Way of Life - You are powerless to do anything. Foreigners control everything in your country, everything. From taxes right down to social structure, the colonial rulers have the upper hand in everything, while you, a true native of the country, are subjected to tyranny and oppression. None of us would want to be a citizen of such a country, but that was exactly the fate of millions of natives in many countries across the world during the Age of Imperialism. Imperialism is defined as the creation and maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationship, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination. (Imperialism Wikipedia, the fr... [tags: Britain, Social Darwinsm, Greed, Ethnocentrism] 1259 words (3.6 pages) Better Essays [preview] Hegemonic Hypocrisy: A Victim of Social Scriptorium - With the passage at hand, Dr. Ella Shohat discusses about the case of being an Arab Jew, a historical paradox, as one of many social elisions. Unlike the idea of intersectionality, binarism leaves little place for complex identities (Shohat, 2). As an American, Jew, and Arab, she speaks of the disparities amidst a war involving all three cultural topographies. Albeit she speaks from a subjective standpoint, she does not mention the issue of racial hygiene, class, geographic divisions, and gender.... [tags: Understanding "Them vs. Us"] :: 3 Works Cited 1181 words (3.4 pages) Strong Essays [preview] Economic and Social Values of Marxism to Communism - When it comes to human morale, people can be vain and disapproving of themselves as well as nurturing and passionate of beliefs and ideas. It is these emotions that toy with the psyche to determine the best possible solution for everything around. Unfortunately, this can be used as a weapon to convince, brainwash and terrorize the minds of millions, if not more. When it comes to systems of control and government, people have their own individual views and beliefs. It is through these views and beliefs that people can relate to and support in order to set the foundation of a leadership or command authority system.... [tags: Political Science] :: 4 Works Cited 2344 words (6.7 pages) Term Papers [preview] Mcteague As A Social Commentary - Written in 1899, Frank Norris novel, McTeague serves as a view of societal factions of his time period. Norris illustrates the stratification of society in this San Francisco community by using the concept of Social Darwinism. He gives detailed accounts of the inner workings of society along with the emotions of the time. Through his characters, Norris shows the separation of classes and the greed that grew abundantly during the late 19th century. He also gives a grim picture of survival in his depiction of the theory of natural selection.... [tags: essays research papers] 808 words (2.3 pages) Better Essays [preview] "The Time Machine": A Social Critique of Victorian England - H G Wells was cynical of the Victorian class system and thoroughly disapproved of the way people were segregated, according to their wealth. Wells disagreed with Englands capitalist views, as he himself was a socialist. His novel The Time Machine is primarily a social critique of Victorian England projected into the distant future. He has taken segregation to its extremes and shows how far human evolution will go if capitalism continues unhindered. On travelling to the future he finds that this new world is not what he expected, as he feels vulnerable and naked in a strange world. (Page 26) This panic then quickly transforms into frenzy as he then meets the Eloi who were all that he despi... [tags: Literary Review] 1735 words (5 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] Residential Segregation and Social Justice - Despite increased diversity across the country, Americas neighborhoods remain highly segregated along racial and ethnic lines. Residential segregation, particularly between African-Americans and whites, persists in metropolitan areas where minorities make up a large share of the population. This paper will examine residential segregation imposed upon African-Americans and the enormous costs it bears. Furthermore, the role of government will be discussed as having an important role in carrying out efforts towards residential desegregation.... [tags: Papers] :: 7 Works Cited 1903 words (5.4 pages) Term Papers [preview] Quality of life Increases in Correlation to Social Unrest in 19th Century Europe - In the late 19th to early 20th century intellectual trends of the upper end of society differed vastly from the mindset of the general populace, with the mindset of social unrest largely trending towards the intellectuals of society. Due to the social welfare movements that were nascent in the late 19th century the standard of living for the mass populace in Europe did improve, which essentially meant said populace did not participate in the social unrest that was born in the minds of the society who disagreed with certain forms of social change.... [tags: European History ] :: 3 Works Cited 1307 words (3.7 pages) Strong Essays [preview] Middlemarch: The Web of Affinities, by Gillian Beer - In Middlemarch: The Web of Affinities, Gillian Beer traces the influence that Darwin had on the work of George Elliot. In her analysis of Darwins metaphor of the inextricable web of affinities, Beer quotes the central notions inherent in The Origin of the Species, as well as its implications for Eliots writing. Darwin writes that we it is possible for us to see, distinctly, the manner in which all living and extinct beings are able to be linked together in one extensive classification, and the manner in which the many components of each category is bound up together.... [tags: Literary Analysis, Darwinism] 806 words (2.3 pages) Unrated Essays [preview] The Dangers of Social Conformity Exposed in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - The Dangers of Social Conformity Exposed in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie depicts the coming of age of six adolescent girls in Edinburgh, Scotland during the 1930's. The story brings us into the classroom of Miss Jean Brodie, a fascist school teacher at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls, and gives close encounter with the social and political climate in Europe during the era surrounding the second World War. Spark's novel is a narrative relating to us the complexities of politics and of social conformity, as well as of non-conformity.... [tags: Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Essays] :: 5 Works Cited 1961 words (5.6 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] Moral and Social Decline in Three Victorian Texts - A degenerate decadent Victorian society is constructed within Dorian Gray , wealth and image are given more importance than morals. The novels only lapse into first person narrative within which Wilde comments on Civilised society, he argues that insincerity is necessary to conduct oneself in society. This correlates to the idea of performing and wearing a fake mask in order to fit into society. The phrase manners are of more importance than morals exemplifies the fake surface nature of society, Dorian is accepted back into society due to his handsome appearance on the surface, despite his lack of moral code and acts of debauchery.... [tags: Society, Degenerate] :: 5 Works Cited 864 words (2.5 pages) Strong Essays [preview] Education and Womens Social Roles - Education and Womens Social Roles The expectations held by a society define the roles of its members. While many factors influence the parts individuals play in their cultures and communities, education has always been the crucial element in the establishment of social roles. Education was the catalyst which changed women's roles in society from what they were in the late 1800s to what they are now. In the latter years of the nineteenth century, women's roles in American society underwent gradual but definite growth, spurred on by a rapidly changing society.... [tags: Exploratory Essays Research Papers] :: 4 Works Cited 1916 words (5.5 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] Aspects of Racism - Today we live in a multicultural society, which means a nation is made out of several ethnic groups, with different cultures. But why was there xenophobia and racial hatred between peoples and why does it still exist. What really is "foreign", and what effect does it have on young people and young adults. And the most important question is: What is racism. I will in the course of my essay examine these issues. Firstly, I would like to define the term racism generally and talk about its characteristics: Racism is an ideology that uses real or fictitious differences between two ethnic groups for the benefit of the Prosecutor and for the detriment of the victims.... [tags: prejudice, racial profiling, social commentary] 2364 words (6.8 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] Income Inequality - Income inequality has affected American citizens ever since the American Dream came to existence. The American Dream is centered around the concept of working hard and earning enough money to support a family, own a home, send children to college, and invest for retirement. Economic gains in income are one of the only possible ways to achieve enough wealth to fulfill the dream. Unfortunately, many people cannot achieve this dream due to low income. Income inequality refers to the uneven distribution of income and wealth between the social classes of American citizens.... [tags: the american dream, social norms] :: 5 Works Cited 939 words (2.7 pages) Better Essays [preview] I Sit and Look Out by Walt Whitman - Every historical period has its own hero of the time. It can be an active businessman or a sensitive aristocrat that fits the time best. In the poem I Sit and Look Out, Walt Whitman describes the horrors of the oppressive age he was living in. However, he does not try to change the situation and only "sits and look out". The question is whether being a spectator is enough to make the life of the oppressed better. The author is the mirror of the cruel 19th century reality, and this is a huge step towards democratization of the overall situation in the society.... [tags: civil war, darwinist ideas, oppressive age] :: 2 Works Cited 863 words (2.5 pages) Better Essays [preview] Darwinism versus Creationism - There is a difference between Darwinism and Creationism, one is based on data and the other is based on belief. Darwinism concerns itself as a science, that is explained by scientific methodology. Biological evolution concerns changes in living things during the history of life on earth. It explains that living things share common ancestors and over time evolutionary change gives rise to new species. On the other hand, the ideas of creation science is derived from the conviction of most Abrahemic religions that God created the universe-including humans and other living things-all at once in the relatively recent past.... [tags: Science Creationism Darwinism Papers] :: 4 Works Cited 1971 words (5.6 pages) FREE Essays [view] Social Anxiety Disorder and Social Phobia - A lot of individuals who have social phobia are labeled as shy rather than having a disorder. This is mostly because a lot of people dont know or dont understand what social phobia is. To those people its something that you can either grow out of or get over, but its not that simple. There is a lot more to social phobia than most people think and to the individual who has social phobia it can be a very detrimental disorder. What is Social Phobia. Social phobia is a disorder characterized by excessive fear of being exposed to the scrutiny of other people that leads to avoidance of social situations in which the person is called on to perform (Carlson, 2009, p.... [tags: Social Phobia] :: 13 Works Cited 2923 words (8.4 pages) Research Papers [preview] Social Networks and Social Networking Sites - Introduction The world has evolved into a technologically savvy and dependent society with the Internet readily available to many. Convenience and connection are vital to individuals, especially within the United States. Social networking sites have progressed to fit the demanding desires of todays technological era (Albarran 118). The progression from the first social networking sites, such as Friendster or instant messaging, to the sites used today, such as Facebook and Twitter, has made a significant impact on society.... [tags: Facebook, Social Media, Twitter] :: 17 Works Cited 3619 words (10.3 pages) Research Papers [preview] Role of the Social Media in Social Movements - Introduction The number of revolutions in the last 3 decades has increased, and seems to keep increasing. Civil unrest and protests brought many victims including civil and political figures throughout the world. In the era where technology is at the peak of its success, especially in communication technologies, mankind suffers from lack of communication. Problem is not caused by the technology itself, the problem is in human nature. I will continue with an analogy. Man invented the knife, which is very useful tool in our daily lives.... [tags: Social Media Essays] :: 8 Works Cited 3253 words (9.3 pages) Research Papers [preview] History of Social Divisions in Society and the Role of the Social Worker - Power and powerlessness go hand in hand as to have one the other must exist. As society is not egalitarian and never shall be, there will always be inequalities. These inequalities can be on both personal and structural levels. To enable us to understand power and social work we must firstly understand the theoretical explanation of the distribution of power, privilege, prestige and powerlessness within western society by looking at social divisions, class and their positions within society. Marx was interested in the theories of economic development, he believed that economy was dominated by agriculture and power was held by the aristocratic landowner, in the period when manufacture was the... [tags: social work] :: 2 Works Cited 1519 words (4.3 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] Facebook and Social Networking - Facebook is rapidly attracting multitudes of visitors every month instigating a shift in communication. This change consequently presents that societies are choosing to become part of the popular Facebook culture for various reasons, such as its renowned opportunities for keeping in touch with current social circles, reunifying long lost family and friends and broadening prospects of finding new companions. Facebook removes some of the barriers that may limit our regularity of communication with people, upholding the geographic differences, social class, busy lifestyles and economic factors that may usually discourage us from regular contact.... [tags: Social Capital, Social Network] :: 6 Works Cited 945 words (2.7 pages) Better Essays [preview] Social Implications of Facebook - Facebook is currently largest social networking site in the world based on monthly unique visitors attracting 130 million unique visitors every day (Alexa Inc. 2012). The sites popularity exploded in 2007 and it bypassed its social networking rival, MySpace, in April 2008 (Phillips 2007). Over the last few years Facebook has impacted peoples social lives in various ways. With its availability on modern smart phones, Facebook enables users to continuously stay in touch with friends, relatives and peers wherever they are in the world as long as they have internet access.... [tags: Social Networking, Social Network] :: 7 Works Cited 1433 words (4.1 pages) Unrated Essays [preview] Social Inequality of Health - The United States reportedly spends over $8,000 per person on healthcare annually. This amount is two-and-a-half times greater than any other developed country in the world (Kane, 2012). However, this is not reflected statistically in the morbidity and mortality rates of its citizens. Many may ask why and what are we missing. To answer these questions, one may need to look no further than their own town and community. In 2013, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported health disparities as a causative factor for the unchanging morbidity and mortality rates in the United States.... [tags: social issues, social determinants] :: 13 Works Cited 1439 words (4.1 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] The Irish Model of Social Partnership - The Irish model of social Partnership has received little more that lip service in the Caribbean. Evaluate the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of this concept in the Caribbean. What is Social Partnership Social partnership refers to cooperation among government, the private business sector and labour on strategies to address immediate and long-term economic and social challenges. Such strategies can include controls on wages and prices, as well as tax reform. Social partnerships are, therefore, overarching in their aim to provide stability for national growth and development.... [tags: Social Partnership] :: 9 Works Cited 2075 words (5.9 pages) Term Papers [preview] The Work of a Social Worker - All of us are born for a reason, but all of us dont discover why. Success has nothing to do with what you gain in life or accomplish for yourself. Its what you do for others, said Danny Thomas, founder of St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital (Danny). That concept inspires people every day to do better for others. Some are so passionate about helping individuals they decide to make a career out of it. Social work is one of the most renowned occupations when it comes to helping people. The path to becoming a social worker is very difficult, in both getting a degree and choosing an occupation.... [tags: Social Work ] :: 3 Works Cited 1248 words (3.6 pages) Strong Essays [preview] The Impact of Online Social Networks - Twitter, Skype, Facebook these are just a few of the online social networks we utilize day to day, which has made connecting to others easier than before. A social network is a structure made up of individuals or organizations that are tied by one or more specific types of relationships such as friendships. Although traditionally operated with person to person contact, it is now more popular online through social media networks such as Facebook and Skype. There are millions of persons with wide ranges of personalities who are looking to develop new friendships or to simply become a part of a group in order to share information on these websites.... [tags: Social Networking ] :: 6 Works Cited 987 words (2.8 pages) Unrated Essays [preview] THE IMPLICATIONS OF INTERNET SOCIAL NETWORKS - The conclusion from the research of this paper indicates that social networks sites are here to stay. Social network sites need to convey a sense of responsibility. Based on the increasing level of social sites engaging in ecommerce, communication and socialization, the need of privacy protection is passed on to individuals. What this research paper has demonstrated is that there are implications users need to be aware of before signing up and placing their profile on these social network sites.... [tags: Social Networks] :: 16 Works Cited 837 words (2.4 pages) Better Essays [preview] The Growth of Social Networking Sites - The participants and audience for SNSs is growing rapidly. Statistics published become quickly out dated and it is interesting to observe both the international and national trends of Internet usage generally over the years, as well as those specific to the use of Social Networking Sites. Access to technology has become an integral part of education, socialisation and industry related requirements, and accordingly Internet usage is evolving and growing rapidly. A survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statics in 2003 found that in the 12 months prior to April 2003, 95% of Australian children, aged between five and fourteen years had used a computer.... [tags: Social Networking ] 1497 words (4.3 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] Social Mobility in the United States - Does social mobility in our contemporary American society really exist. Is it possible for someone from the deepest depths of poverty to become successful, and ascend into the upper echelons of society. Could the American Dream still be attained in these times where we see the stratification of contemporary American society based on their wealth and social class so vehemently pointed out and perhaps emphasized to a certain degree. Or perhaps, could Charles Sackrey, Geoffrey Schneider, and Janet Knoedler (authors of Introduction to Political Economy) be right about the American Dream being a "particularly deceitful myth?" This is a topic which has been debated over a long period of time betwe... [tags: social issues, social class, capitalism] :: 4 Works Cited 1859 words (5.3 pages) Term Papers [preview] The Evolution of Social Behavior - A defining feature of mankind is the ability to organize, and socialize with the immediate environment, which can either be the natural environment, social groups and organizations. While this feature largely relates to mans propensity to make the best of most situations, such as living communally to offer greater protection to society members; it also relates to the innate nature of mans curiosity. Yeats and Yeats (2007) observe that curiosity in man fuels the need to learn, and investigate, and can only be satisfied .... [tags: Social Evolution] :: 40 Works Cited 1452 words (4.1 pages) Strong Essays [preview] Cultural Sensitivity in Social Work - It is imperative that social workers become knowledgeable about their clients cultures and are culturally sensitive. In learning about their clients cultures, social workers need to be aware of how powerful and significant culture is in relating to clients behavior, values, and beliefs. Becoming culturally competent requires the ability to integrate awareness, knowledge, and skills while maintaining a positive working relationship with the client (Sue and Zane, 1987). Today, the concerns regarding cultural competency continue to accentuate the importance of preparing social workers for a diversified society.... [tags: Social Work] 1537 words (4.4 pages) Better Essays [preview] Social Protection in Developing Countries - The global crisis has sharply underscored the need to strengthen social protection institutions in developing countries, and especially in low income countries. Before the onset of the crisis in November 2008, a growing body of research had accumulated proving a comprehensive knowledge base demonstrating that social protection programmes are effective instruments in reducing poverty and enhancing human development. In the decade prior to the onset of the crisis a large number among the new social protection programmes had emerged in the South with a specific focus on children.... [tags: Social Issues] 982 words (2.8 pages) Better Essays [preview] Dangers of Social Networking Sites - Is the current craze of these ubiquitous social networking sites becoming too much to handle. Some say yes, others might disagree. Social networking was created to connect friends and family together. Now, many predators use sites such as Facebook or Myspace to find their prey. This is the source of what parents are stressing about to their children. While many who use social media are enjoying meeting new people, they are also becoming distant from contact with real people and they are involved in a very surprising and dangerous environment.... [tags: Social Networking] 914 words (2.6 pages) Better Essays [preview] Is the Social Service Broken? - Over the years the population in California has increased and we are seeing more people enrolled in the social services. We are fortunate to have human services to help the less fortunate. As social workers noted; it is not an easy job to help ones clients, but are committed to help and make a difference in their life (Merrill-Payne). Social services are comprised of general assistance, food stamps, Medi-Cal, children services, older adult-services, mental health, and drug abuse. There are many non-profit organizations that are there to help the community, but the counties offer many programs that are Medi-Cal based to help the community.... [tags: Social Issues] :: 10 Works Cited 1823 words (5.2 pages) Term Papers [preview] Social Networking: Harmful or Helpful? - Twitter and Facebook are only two of the online connections people use today to stay in contact with friends and family. The internet is the place to interact with new people and a way to expose yourself to strangers. The partial anonymity available online can be used as a mask for sexual offenders and psychos; they can appear to be ordinary normal people, and you have no way of really knowing what is the the truth and what is the lie. Too much personal information is at risk on these social networking sites.... [tags: Social Networking] 729 words (2.1 pages) Better Essays [preview] The Fight For Social Justice - The main purpose of social work is to advocate for those who have no voice. Throughout history, many individuals have served as role models and proponents of social justice, helping to create policies and programs so future generations can benefit. Jane Addams, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Rachel Carson, and Harriet Tubman worked tirelessly and devoted their entire lives to the pursuit of justice. We have learned through their sacrifices that change is just one person away, and that it takes tremendous force to shift the political landscape of social welfare policy.... [tags: Social Work ] :: 5 Works Cited 2129 words (6.1 pages) Term Papers [preview] A Journey to Social Work - I always received great satisfaction from helping others. I remember at a young age, helping my grandmother with chores that she was no longer able to do for herself. As I got older, my grandmother became more dependent on me. I helped her cook, clean, administer medication and made sure she kept her doctor appointments. I now see myself doing these same things for my mother and father as they get older. I strongly believe that my urge to become a social worker stems from the frightening idea of what would have happened with my grandmother as well as my own parents; had they not had someone helping them.... [tags: Social Work] 1983 words (5.7 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] My Interest in Social Work - Reflecting back on my childhood, I always had a vivid imagination. I would imagine being a doctor, lawyer, or even the first female president of the United States of America. But, I never considered a career in social work. Over the years I realized that I like helping people, but my thoughts of what I wanted to be were indifferent. In high school my counselor had me do a career survey to see what may have interest me. The most common choices were Nursing, Teaching, or becoming a Social Worker. So I went on the Internet and researched as much as I could on each career choice.... [tags: Social Work, career, social workers, ] 1263 words (3.6 pages) Strong Essays [preview] Critical Issues in Social Science - There are a profuse amount of Global Issues that I wanted to cover throughout this paper however; Ive narrowed it down to one of the most critical issues in the world. People in our society tend to only care about what affects them directly and often ignore those critical issues which influence us all, indirectly. The topic I will be discussing is death, which is a serious matter alone, but death of over twenty-four thousand children (under 5 yrs of age) every day is much more severe (UNICEF, 2008).... [tags: Social Science] :: 4 Works Cited 748 words (2.1 pages) Better Essays [preview] Social Work and Child Development - It wasnt until the time of Sigmund Freud that people looked at the psyches of an individual and what kind of impact that could have on that individuals life. Before that time, children were seen as extra farm hands and generally as cheap labor. Families did not look at how the children were treated and the possible impact on their development. Later, Erikson and Piaget furthered the study of development and expanded the road that Freud had pioneered. While all consider Freud the father of psychoanalytic thinking, few turn to many of his first theories in reference to development.... [tags: Social Work] :: 2 Works Cited 1718 words (4.9 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] Resoruce Based View of Social Entrepreneurship - The emerging field of social entrepreneurship calls for a need for new integrated theories to contribute to the discipline and help grow the field. Social Entrepreneurship has been a topic of academic interest for the past few decades; however, there has been little scholarly output in mainstream journals (Short, Moss, & Lumpkin 2009). Social entrepreneurship is commonly defined as entrepreneurial activity with an embedded social purpose (Austin et al. 2006). Social entrepreneurs play a role of change agents in society by adopting missions to create and sustain social value.... [tags: social impact, social entrepreneurship] :: 26 Works Cited 1552 words (4.4 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] Social Media: The Negative Effects of Facebook - Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter allow you to find and connect with just about anyone, from old high school friends to co-workers and neighbors. Participating in social media sites such as these can make you feel more connected, but such an easy, casual connection in an electronic environment can also have its downside. First of all sites like Facebook promote sharing details of our lives with one another. Posts can range from a simple update on what shows someone is watching, cooking for dinner, or pictures of you and your friends having drinks and doing shots at a local bar.... [tags: Social Networking, Social Media] 374 words (1.1 pages) FREE Essays [view] Social marketing reflects corporate social responsibility - Introduction This assignment will initially describe social marketing and then indicate how corporations affect stakeholders through companies social marketing and responsibility. Following that, the importance and functions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and social marketing will be demonstrated. Finally, it will explain how organizations reflect CSR and make a short conclusion to indicate the relationship between social marketing and CSR. Social Marketing In the past decades, the marketing environment has been changed radically.... [tags: Social Responsibility Essays] :: 6 Works Cited 1117 words (3.2 pages) Strong Essays [preview] What is Social Science? - Human evolution and the dramatic social change accompanying progress and transformation demands a uniform discipline which assesses human interaction and the social world issues that pervade society. Hence it was in the context of extraordinary societal change, the Enlightenment period, that the development of a human science or social science emerged, defined as the attempt to explain social phenomena within the limits of available evidence (Lewins, 1992, p.5).The concept of a social science can be further understood from a philosophical stand point where the work of social scientists can be classified in terms of a positivist or non-positivist position.... [tags: Social Science] :: 4 Works Cited 1426 words (4.1 pages) Powerful Essays [preview] What is Social Science - What is the job of social science. Social science focuses its attention on the social aspects of human nature; its job is to study how individuals can relate with and communicate with each other. Social scientists study the social environment in which we live in an attempt to understand human society and to predict how people will interact in a given set of circumstances (Mack, 2004, p584). In this essay, I discuss the role of social science for societies and individuals, how individuals relate to societies and the function of rules in societies as a main concern of social science.... [tags: Sociology, Social Status, Social Interactions] 1268 words (3.6 pages) Unrated Essays [preview] Enlarging Your Social Network - Social networking comprises of both strong and weak ties. Social networking has an impact on all human beings through organizations, relationships, associations, internet networks, and community. Being in the hospitality industry it is important that I develop social networking for both my personal self and industry. Belonging to the American Culinary Federation I believe increases my social network. Being a member of the American Culinary Federation allows me to share ideas and come together with professionals in the same business.... [tags: Social Networking ] :: 3 Works Cited 1165 words (3.3 pages) Strong Essays [preview]

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AI File – What is it and how do I open it?

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Did your computer fail to open an AI file? We explain what AI files are and recommend software that we know can open or convert your AI files.

AI is the acronym for Adobe Illustrator. Files that have the .ai extension are drawing files that the Adobe Illustrator application has created.

The Adobe Illustrator application was developed by Adobe Systems. The files created by this application are composed of paths that are connected by points and are saved in vector format. The technology used to create these files allows the user to re-size the AI image without losing any of the image's quality.

Some third-party programs allow users to "rastersize" the images created in Adobe Illustrator, which allows them to convert the AI file into bitmap format. While this may make the file size smaller and easier to open across multiple applications, some of the file quality may be lost in the process.

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