Posted: Jan 23, 2016 10:01 am
OnNavalTimber wrote:There are many facts here that people appear unable - weirdly - to see. I think the psychological phenomenon is called "blindsight" - a negative illusion. In other words: You don't see the obvious and significant fact = because to see it (cognitively) is too distressing (see Stanley Cohen's 'States of Denial for an explanatory example of this phenomenon) .
Let me take just one of the many facts. It is an obvious and (arguably significant) fact that in his two letters to the Gardener's Chronicle Matthew informed Darwin that the orignal "ideas" in his book had been read. The point is that Matthew informed Darwin that (1) John Loudon read his ideas, and that (2) that an unnamed professor (Matthew refers to him as a naturalist) read the ideas but feared to teach those ideas for fear of pillory punishment - for teaching heresy on species and (3) thirdly that the the Perth Public Library in Scotland (Matthew calls it by its nickname "the Fair City" banned his book. And so to ban it the heretical ideas in it were obviously read). Here then we have written evidence supplied by Matthew that the ideas in his book had been read.
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Calling for more such data, I ask: Is it unreasonable for me to hope that members of a site called "Rational Skepticism" might be rationally skeptic when presented with hard and obvious facts that dis-confirm major 'prior 'knowledge claims' made in the literature by leading, Royal Society Darwin Medal winning, scholars in the history of discovery of the unifying theory of biology?
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So can we please address the facts presented for debate and not be in a classic "state of denial" about their existence?
For the purposes of this discussion, Patrick Matthew put forward two ideas in his book:
1) The idea of evolution
2) The idea of natural selection as the mechanism of evolution.
The idea of evolution was not new, for example, Lamarck and Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin’s grandfather, had both written on the subject well before Matthew. Charles Darwin did not need to read Matthew in order to pick up the idea of evolution. Then as now, Christian fundamentalists objected to the idea of evolution, and that would have been the reason why the unnamed professor did not want to promote the book, and why the city of Perth banned it.
For modern readers, the far more significant idea in Matthew’s book is that the mechanism of evolution is natural selection. It is clear that Matthew published that idea long before Wallace and Darwin, and he rightly holds an honourable position in the history of science on that account. The question at issue here, is whether Wallace and/or Darwin were aware of Matthew’s idea of natural selection as the mechanism for evolution.
While you have shown evidence that Wallace and Darwin could have been aware of Matthew’s book, and that it promoted the (already well-known) idea of evolution, I see no evidence that anyone was interested in Matthew’s idea of natural selection. The people who objected to evolution would not have been interested in such details. The closest evidence appears to be the line which you quote from Loudon’s 1832 review of Matthew’s book (when Alfred Russell Wallace was 9 years old and Charles Darwin was on the Beagle):
One of the subjects discussed in this appendix is the puzzling one, of the origin of species and varieties; and if the author has hereon originated no original views (and of this we are far from certain), he has certainly exhibited his own in an original manner.
This is an offhand one-liner which may not even be about the idea of natural selection. Supposing that it is, the line suggests that Loudon was unimpressed by Matthew’s idea of natural selection as the mechanism for the evolution of species: he effectively dismisses Matthew’s possibly “original views” by categorising them as offbeat and not saying what they are; he only mentions them at all because he’s reviewing the book?
By all means look for more data, but it would need to be data showing that someone had picked up on the idea of natural selection as the mechanism for macro evolution, not just on the idea of evolution, from Matthew’s book.
Even after the Origin of Species was published and convinced most educated people that evolution had happened, the idea of natural selection as the primary mechanism for adaptive evolution remained controversial until the “modern synthesis” in the 1930s, because it seemed too chancy and undirected for the fantastic degree of adaptation shown in living things. Natural selection is now a cornerstone of biological thinking, but it was off the radar before the Origin was published. It is not too surprising if naturalists who had read Matthew’s book still failed to notice the significance of his idea of natural selection, and I don’t think you have presented any clear evidence that they did, though as you say more evidence may still come up.
Wikipedia on the slow uptake of the idea of natural selection:
Wikipedia wrote:Debate over Darwin's work led to the rapid acceptance of the general concept of evolution, but the specific mechanism he proposed, natural selection, was not widely accepted until it was revived by developments in biology that occurred during the 1920s through the 1940s. Before that time most biologists regarded other factors as responsible for evolution. Alternatives to natural selection suggested during "the eclipse of Darwinism" (circa 1880 to 1920) included inheritance of acquired characteristics (neo-Lamarckism), an innate drive for change (orthogenesis), and sudden large mutations (saltationism). Mendelian genetics, a series of 19th Century experiments with pea plant variations rediscovered in 1900, was integrated with natural selection by Ronald Fisher during the 1910s to 1930s, and along with J. B. S. Haldane and Sewall Wright he founded the new discipline of population genetics. During the 1930s and 1940s population genetics became integrated with other biological fields, resulting in a widely applicable theory of evolution that encompassed much of biology—the modern evolutionary synthesis.
Also discussed in Wikipedia here (Darwin himself took the modern view that natural selection was probably the main but not the only mechanism underlying evolution):
Darwin thought of natural selection by analogy to how farmers select crops or livestock for breeding, which he called "artificial selection"; in his early manuscripts he referred to a Nature, which would do the selection. At the time, other mechanisms of evolution such as evolution by genetic drift were not yet explicitly formulated, and Darwin believed that selection was likely only part of the story: "I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification."[45] In a letter to Charles Lyell in September 1860, Darwin regretted the use of the term "Natural Selection," preferring the term "Natural Preservation."[46]
For Darwin and his contemporaries, natural selection was in essence synonymous with evolution by natural selection. After the publication of On the Origin of Species, educated people generally accepted that evolution had occurred in some form. However, natural selection remained controversial as a mechanism, partly because it was perceived to be too weak to explain the range of observed characteristics of living organisms, and partly because even supporters of evolution balked at its "unguided" and non-progressive nature,[47] a response that has been characterised as the single most significant impediment to the idea's acceptance.[48]
The same Wikipedia article points out that a Mr Wells read papers to the Royal Society in 1813 (published in 1818) which included the idea of natural selection, though only in connection with the evolution of humans. Patrick Matthew could have read those essays?
In 1813, William Charles Wells read before the Royal Society essays assuming that there had been evolution of humans, and recognising the principle of natural selection. Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace were unaware of this work when they jointly published the theory in 1858, but Darwin later acknowledged that Wells had recognised the principle before them, writing that the paper "An Account of a White Female, part of whose Skin resembles that of a Negro" was published in 1818, and "he distinctly recognises the principle of natural selection, and this is the first recognition which has been indicated; but he applies it only to the races of man, and to certain characters alone."[74]