Attributes of Domesticated Animals

The study of domesticated animals since Darwin’s influential work (1868) has culminated in the formation of a set of changes that are claimed to distinguish domestic populations from wild species (for recent outlines of these see Price 1984, 1999; Hemmer 1990; Tchernov and Horwitz 1991; Hall 1993; Teichert 1993; Smith 1995; Zohary, Tchernov, and Horwitz 1998; Clutton-Brock 1999; Trut 1999). Although not uniformly present in all domesticated species, those affecting the skeleton may include ...

 The Universality of Analogy

This reversibility and this polyvalency endow analogy with a universal field of application. Through it, all the figures in the whole universe can be drawn together. There does exist, however, in this space, furrowed in every direction, one particularly privileged point: it is saturated with analogies (all analogies can find one of their necessary terms there), and as they pass through it, their relations may be inverted without losing any of their force. This point is man: he stands in propo...

 The Need for an Internal Skeleton

The need for an internal skeleton stems largely from the nature of muscle tissue, which can exert force only by contracting and is therefore much more effective with a good lever system to work with. I belittle neither the intelligence nor the strength of the octopus; but in spite of Victor Hugo and most other writers of undersea adventure, the creature's boneless tentacles are not all that effective as handling organs. I don't mean that the octopus and his kin are helpless hunks of meat; but...

 The Importance of Studying the Skeleton in Evolution

The occurrence of an internal skeleton, in definite relations to the other organ systems, and the articulation of the body into homologous segments, are points in the general organization of Vertebrates to which especial weight must be given. This metameric structure is more or less definitely expressed in most of the organs, and as it extends to the axial skeleton, the latter also gradually articulates into separate segments, the vertebrae. The latter, however, must be regarded only as the p...