{"id":1098,"date":"2001-11-08T12:06:17","date_gmt":"2001-11-08T19:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/i81.a52.mywebsitetransfer.com\/?p=1098"},"modified":"2014-10-17T11:45:45","modified_gmt":"2014-10-17T18:45:45","slug":"nabokov-evolution-and-insect-mimicry-lecture-by-victoria-n-alexander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dactylfoundation.org\/?p=1098","title":{"rendered":"Nabokov, Evolution, and Insect Mimicry, lecture by Victoria N. Alexander"},"content":{"rendered":"

November 10, 2001<\/strong>
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Emergent Teleology and Nabokov’s Aesthetics<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although Vladimir Nabokov may be better known for his outstanding literary\u00a0achievements, he also had gift for science. While acting as curator at Harvard’s\u00a0Museum of Comparative Zoology in the 1940s, he became an expert on a group of\u00a0butterflies popularly known as “Blues.” He named one species and several have\u00a0been named after him. He published nine articles on lepidoptery in prestigious\u00a0scientific journals. During this time, he also developed compelling ideas about\u00a0evolution. He argued that some instances of insect mimicry did not result from\u00a0Darwinian survival strategies; that is, slight resemblances could not be furthered by\u00a0the function or purpose they served, leading gradually to better resemblances. I\u00a0contend that Nabokov’s understanding of the origins of biological forms can be\u00a0compared to recent work in evolutionary biology, namely structural evolution and\u00a0neutral evolution. I also argue it was Nabokov’s aesthetic interest in the mechanisms\u00a0behind teleological phenomena that gave him the insight to construct a theory of\u00a0mimicry that now appears quite progressive for its time.<\/span><\/p>\n

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