3 ms·

> But Buffon never figured out how this species change actually took place: it took Darwin, and his theory of natural selection, to shed light on the process.

> But Buffon never figured out how this species change actually took place: it took Darwin, and his theory of natural selection, to shed light on the process. Natural selection is the most important part of Darwin's theory. The title exaggerates

defrost 3y ago
Darwin's theory? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Russel_Wallace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Russel_Wallace https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/alfred-wallace/ https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/alfred-wal...
- graemep 3y ago
  Wallace never gets due credit. Darwin did give him credit - e.g. referring to "our theory" in a letter to him. There are probably multiple reasons for this. I can think of multiple reasons Darwin was more appealing to people. Wallace was religious, and he was not racist (not that Darwin was any worse than most of his time, but Wallace was different). It was not always so: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-21549079 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-21549079 There are a number of people who came close to the idea including Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin's grandfather.
  - defrost 3y ago
    Darwin did give him a shout out, the biggest difference here was very likely the levels of self promotion; Wallace failed to promote his role in formulating the theory as effectively as Darwin. ~ your bbc link and Darwin was very much on home ground in the UK actively riding on Wallace's extensive field work and spreading a Darwin flavoured spin on the very material Wallace was writing in from the tropics. Both were very good writers, Darwin had greater visibility during the early days simply by being there to meet, greet, and lecture. Many of the "Darwin" ideas in the popular mind came from elsewhere; Survival of the fittest was Spencer and although later taken up as a phrse by both Darwin and Wallace it's almost the active opposite of the more passive (and more correct) notion of Survival of the best adapted.
    - graemep 3y ago
      > Both were very good writer Not sure about that that. Darwin goes on and on and on sometimes - especially about pigeons.
      - apricot 3y ago
        Well can you blame him? I mean, pigeons
      - defrost 3y ago
        He really dug deep into worms ... The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms was a total spade turner.
  - kryptiskt 3y ago
    Patrick Matthew wrote about natural selection in the 1830s, but he did it in an appendix to a book about naval timber, so it didn't register with anybody at the time.
himinlomax 3y ago
To understand what makes species evolve, you first must acknowledge that they do, to what extent and at what time scale. Buffon clearly was the first to understand the latter. There is a similar story with geology, and a similar pushback. A natural philosopher reported in the 18th century that locals in the Alps thought that there had been extinct glaciers, as the cause of massive solitary rocks in places where they couldn't just have rolled from a mountain. To established savant, this was clearly fanciful, as it contradicted the infallible Bible.
sjducb 3y ago
Exactly. It was well understood that animals and plants evolved before Darwin. I have a popular science book from about 1890. It is called “Evolution for the normally intelligent gentleman”. The first thing it does is say that the dispute between Darwin and Lemarc is beyond the scope of this book. If you just look at plant morphology and animal anatomy then evolution is kind of obvious.
- evv555 3y ago
  >If you just look at plant morphology and animal anatomy then evolution is kind of obvious. Before evolution this was the "great chain of being" ontology which tried to explain the continuous gradation of structures in the world. Ideas like "missing link" appear within this worldview before Darwin's theory[1]. It's mostly accurate to say evolutionary theory is the great chain of being worldview with an added temporal dimension. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_chain_of_being#Scala_Naturae_in_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_chain_of_being#Scala_Nat...

defrost 3y ago

Darwin's theory? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Russel_Wallace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Russel_Wallace https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/alfred-wallace/ https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/alfred-wal...

graemep 3y ago
Wallace never gets due credit. Darwin did give him credit - e.g. referring to "our theory" in a letter to him. There are probably multiple reasons for this. I can think of multiple reasons Darwin was more appealing to people. Wallace was religious, and he was not racist (not that Darwin was any worse than most of his time, but Wallace was different). It was not always so: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-21549079 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-21549079 There are a number of people who came close to the idea including Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin's grandfather.
- defrost 3y ago
  Darwin did give him a shout out, the biggest difference here was very likely the levels of self promotion; Wallace failed to promote his role in formulating the theory as effectively as Darwin. ~ your bbc link and Darwin was very much on home ground in the UK actively riding on Wallace's extensive field work and spreading a Darwin flavoured spin on the very material Wallace was writing in from the tropics. Both were very good writers, Darwin had greater visibility during the early days simply by being there to meet, greet, and lecture. Many of the "Darwin" ideas in the popular mind came from elsewhere; Survival of the fittest was Spencer and although later taken up as a phrse by both Darwin and Wallace it's almost the active opposite of the more passive (and more correct) notion of Survival of the best adapted.
  - graemep 3y ago
    > Both were very good writer Not sure about that that. Darwin goes on and on and on sometimes - especially about pigeons.
    - apricot 3y ago
      Well can you blame him? I mean, pigeons
    - defrost 3y ago
      He really dug deep into worms ... The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms was a total spade turner.
- kryptiskt 3y ago
  Patrick Matthew wrote about natural selection in the 1830s, but he did it in an appendix to a book about naval timber, so it didn't register with anybody at the time.

himinlomax 3y ago

To understand what makes species evolve, you first must acknowledge that they do, to what extent and at what time scale. Buffon clearly was the first to understand the latter. There is a similar story with geology, and a similar pushback. A natural philosopher reported in the 18th century that locals in the Alps thought that there had been extinct glaciers, as the cause of massive solitary rocks in places where they couldn't just have rolled from a mountain. To established savant, this was clearly fanciful, as it contradicted the infallible Bible.

sjducb 3y ago

Exactly. It was well understood that animals and plants evolved before Darwin. I have a popular science book from about 1890. It is called “Evolution for the normally intelligent gentleman”. The first thing it does is say that the dispute between Darwin and Lemarc is beyond the scope of this book. If you just look at plant morphology and animal anatomy then evolution is kind of obvious.

evv555 3y ago
>If you just look at plant morphology and animal anatomy then evolution is kind of obvious. Before evolution this was the "great chain of being" ontology which tried to explain the continuous gradation of structures in the world. Ideas like "missing link" appear within this worldview before Darwin's theory[1]. It's mostly accurate to say evolutionary theory is the great chain of being worldview with an added temporal dimension. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_chain_of_being#Scala_Naturae_in_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_chain_of_being#Scala_Nat...