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How process of natural selection brought forth Darwin's genius



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Published Date: 19 July 2008
By Kevin Padian
As the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's book The Origin of Species approaches, Professor Kevin Padian reflects on what it might have felt to formulate such a revolutionary theory.
IMAGINE that, as a young scientist, you spent years collecting information about how nature works. You built your reputation by collecting plants, animals, fossils and geological samples from around the world, and sending back letters that tracked y...



The full article contains 558 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
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1

GlenB,

19/07/2008 09:20:43
This is a fine piece of misrepresentation about the idea of natural selection being Darwin's own work. The idea of natural selection (and not just evolution) had been around some years prior to the publication of the Darwin's work. Also some significant work was published before Darwin.
The ideas in these works obviously influenced Darwin's thinking and helped him develop his particular slant on things. Unfortunately in the first publication of the "Origin of Species" none of these earlier workers or publications were acknowledged.The outcry at the time forced Darwin to include some acknowledgements in later editions.

Just some of the men on whose shoulders Darwin stood are Erasmus Darwin(his own grandfather) James Hutton, William Wells,Patrick Matthew and Edward Blyth.
In fact an American Professor Loren Eiseley published a book in which he states ‘the leading tenets of Darwin’s work—the struggle for existence, variation, natural selection and sexual selection—are all fully expressed in Blyth’s paper of 1835’.

Perhaps the inconvenient truth for todays evolutionists is that Blyth was a creationist which is why he never gets a mention in connection with natural selection.

 

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