Search results for "Struggle for existence"
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‘Happy amicable co-operation’: mutual aid, anarchism and the image of the bee in the work of Louisa Sarah Bevington
2017
AbstractThe poet and political activist Louisa Sarah Bevington has been largely ignored in accounts of late Victorian literary and cultural history, even though her work presents a singular nexus of scientific, socio-cultural and poetical perspectives. This essay will show how Bevington juxtaposes Social Darwinist interpretations of the theory of evolution, which foreground the idea of human life as a struggle for existence, with the anarcho-communist view proposed by Peter Kropotkin, which foregrounds the human capacity for sympathy and mutual aid as the driving forces in social development. After situating Kropotkin’s ideas within the larger context of anarchist and evolutionist thinking,…
Revolutionary Struggle for Existence: Introduction to Four Intriguing Puzzles in Virus Research
2012
Cellular life is immersed into an ocean of viruses. Virosphere forms the shadow of this cell-based tree of life: completely dependent on the tree for existence, yet, the tree is equally unable to escape its ever evolving companion. How important role has the shadow played in the evolution of life? Is it a mere ethereal partner or a constitutive factor? In this chapter four puzzles in virus research are taken under the scope in order to probe some of the intriguing ways by which viruses can help us understand life on Earth. These puzzles consider the origin of genetic information in viruses, viruses as symbiotic partners, the structural diversity of viruses and the role of viruses in the ori…