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I didn't know this part - Darwin is a mensch! "Wallace sent his ideas to the English naturalist Charles Darwin, with whom he often exchanged letters. As it hap
by not_that_noob 10y ago
I didn't know this part - Darwin is a mensch!
"Wallace sent his ideas to the English naturalist Charles Darwin, with whom he often exchanged letters. As it happened, Darwin had been working for 20 years on his own theory of natural selection, partly inspired by his 1835 visit to the Galápagos Islands.
Darwin had not published his ideas, because he was afraid of a backlash. He quickly realised that Wallace's discoveries matched up with his own, and resolved to take the plunge. He decided to present both their papers at the same time, so that both men would get credit for having independently discovered evolution.
In the immediate aftermath, they both became famous. But after Darwin published his book On the origin of species by means of natural selection in 1859, he became known as the man who discovered evolution. Most people forgot about Wallace."
- azakai 10y ago> Darwin had not published his ideas, because he was afraid of a backlash. And he had good cause to be worried. Many initial responses were very negative. And although consensus shifted to firm agreement with him, a small but strong opposition exists to this day in multiple forms.
- Numberwang 10y agoWell, mostly one form. The religious one.
- azakai 10y agoThe secular opposition is significant as well (as summarized in e.g. Pinker's The Blank Slate [1]). I don't think we can say either the religious or secular one is clearly larger than the other. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Angostura 10y agoDon't forget that Darwin's original destination was going to be to train as a parish priest.
- dTal 10y agoHe deserves the credit - "Origin" is a comprehensive tour de force. That 20 years made him into a very thorough spokesperson.