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Removed Anaximander Claim

I deleted the line that evolution had been proposed by 'Anaximander's theory of aquatic descent in the sixth century B.C.,'. Anaximander said that a man's embryo grew inside a fish till he hit puberty, then the fish 'burst open' and man was born. He said nothing about natural selection. Magneticstockbrokingpetdetective

This edit was reverted because its inclusion is valid. According to History of evolutionary thought, Anaximander claimed that life had originally developed in the sea and only later moved onto land. Natural selection is not the only idea of evoloution. —Fred114 08:44, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I am reverting once again because Anaximander made no claim that man had evolved from fish, or was descended from fish, but rather that the first man lived inside a fish in the form of an embryo until he hit puberty, at which point the fish split open. Evolutionary theory says man is descended from fish, this theory is something completely different, there is no mention of natural selection/speciation through mutation, it says man literally lived inside a fish. I suggest you open a book before reverting the edit of someone who actually knows what they're talking about. Magneticstockbrokingpetdetective

Irrespective of whether or not Anaximander made some evolutionary claim, to include it in this article we need a reliable secondary source showing its significance for this particular book, not just sources showing some general relevance to evolutionary thought. . dave souza, talk 13:08, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
I believe Darwin did mention Aristotle's summary of Empodocles's ideas (without mentioning Empodocles) in the Historical Sketch of the Recent Progress of Opinion on the Origin of Species he added to the 3rd edition. I think mentioning that might be more appropriate than talking about Anaximander or Lucretius in this section. The other big omissions from this section are Buffon, Grant (but he is discussed in a later section of the article), and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire all of whom had a signficant influence on Darwin's thinking. If no one beats me to it I will try and rework the section a little. Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:26, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

If you want to say they influenced him that's fine, but don't say they developed theories that were in any way evolution, the closest to that is Lucretius's natural selection and Plato's Lamarckian devolution, but it still isn't evolution at all, and shouldn't be referred to as such. Magneticstockbrokingpetdetective

It's significant that Herschel was already looking for a natural explanation rather than a miraculous origin of species, so I've added that. Perhaps we should also clarify the point that Darwin was writing in "creationist" terms right up to the last months of the Beagle voyage, so the transmutation ideas from his grandfather and Grant seem to have had no effect on him at the time, as he said in his autobiography. . dave souza, talk 21:26, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
My (admittedly limited) reading puts his change of heart even later, with the first cracks appearing after he returned, when he submitted his specimens for expert classification and received a number of startling results. This set off a process of cautious & meticulous investigation that, decades later, led to Origin. HrafnTalkStalk 03:20, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Compatibility with Lamarckian inheritance section way too long

This section is far too long and goes into way too much detail about developments that occurred after the publication of Origin. It also duplicates information already in the section on variation and heredity. I think we need to add a lot more material summarizing the actual contents of the book. In particular we need to talk about Darwin's discussions of biogeographic, fossil, embryonic, and morphological evidence for evolution as well as his treatment of possible objections to the theory and his conclusion, and if there is going to be room for all that we need to watch the level of detail in any one topic. I propose to get rid of this section all together after merging some material into the variation and inheritance section. Does anyone object to this approach? Rusty Cashman (talk) 19:30, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

His belief in Lamarckian inheritance and his one erroneous hypothesis (gemmules), deserve a mention. But I agree that the section is way too long. CABlankenship (talk) 19:57, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree, the "use and disuse" idea and its relation to Lamarckian inheritance should be briefly but clearly covered under Variation, which is its place in the book. A few new sections can then summarise the remaining chapters, starting with chapter VI, Difficulties on the theory.. dave souza, talk 20:13, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Blogging the Origin

Blogging the Origin has an interesting take on the book, tho of course not a reliable source itself. . dave souza, talk 21:09, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

This article is not ready for GA nomination!

This article is not stable enough or comprehensive enough for GA. There is still important material that needs to be added to the summary (as presented) section to cover the last 4 chapters of the book! I plan to do this (unless someone else beats me to it) over the course of the next week or so. As it stands now it should not pass GA. Rusty Cashman (talk) 19:29, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I'm happy to put my GA nomination on hold until you feel the article is ready. SP-KP (talk) 11:00, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
Ok, I have finally finshed the summary of the contents. The article is now complete enough for GA. I beleive that another editor, Dave Sousa, intends to condense some of the early sections, which is a good idea since the article is now rather long. So you might want to wait for him to make those edits. Rusty Cashman (talk) 08:44, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Religious ideas vs creation myths in lead

I much prefer the phrase "religious ideas" to "creation myths" in the lead because to me "creation myths" implies Genesis. By the 1850s most educated Christians had already given up on a literal reading of Genesis (the re-emergence of biblical literalsim in America that is the root of modern creationism was an early 20th century development). The religeous concepts that were still underlaying biology (especially in Britain) were natural theology and the argument from design much more than specific creation myths. I think the text of the article now relfects this and the lead should as well. Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:42, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

The current lead is "The book was controversial because it contradicted religious ideas that underlay the 19th century theories of biology, and it generated much discussion on scientific, philosophical, and religious grounds." That, rather than "creation myths", is better in that context, but still tends to the idea that it disrupted a religious consensus, and gives credence to anachronistic framing in terms of 20th century antievolution arguments. Perhaps better to say that "The book was controversial because the subject of transmutation of species had been at the centre of political and theological debates, and while there was considerable support for evolutionary ideas among a new generation of professional anatomists and the general public, the mid 19th century scientific establishment in England was closely tied to the Church of England and an older generation of naturalists brought up on ideas of natural theology found it very hard to accept that humans shared descent with other animals. The mass of evidence presented by a scientist of Darwin's eminence generated respectful discussion on scientific, philosophical, and religious grounds. Religious debates were overshadowed by the greater controversy over higher criticism, and scientific debates were involved in a movement to make science secular and professional rather than being dominated by the church and wealthy amateurs." . . OK, maybe the last sentence is getting rather detailed, but that's at the heart of the religion vs. science conflict myth that was promoted by pro-secular science advocates from then on. . . dave souza, talk 22:46, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
I agree with you although mentioning the effect of the debate over higher criticism should be left to the section on religious impact rather than appearing in the lead (which I think should focus on the impact the book had). I do like the rest of your proposed last sentence though because I do think the lead should allude to the effort to professionalize and secularize British science, because the book most definately played a direct and important role in that. However, I also think the last sentence of the lead, which I think is is pretty good now, should continue to allude to the current (non-scientific) controversy. Like it or not this book stil features prominently in an ongoing public debate in some English speaking countries. I think you should just go ahead and edit the lead. For the momement everyone working on the article seems to be editing in good faith and in a reasonably cooperative manner, which makes now as good a time as any. Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:17, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
Dave, are you going to take a shot at rewording the 2nd paragraph of the lead along the lines you suggest or do you want me to have a go at it? I think this discussion has been up long enough to declare consensus. Rusty Cashman (talk) 02:19, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
OK, have had a go, tweaking the idea a bit to include the link to the history of biology. The last two sentences (unchanged) make a good closing paragraph in my view, separating out modern views from the historical context. . dave souza, talk 11:49, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm a little bit concerned about this sentence:
The book was controversial because the subject of transmutation of species had been involved in political and theological debates, and there were competing ideas of biology.
It seems a little loose in that it doesn't give hard links between the book, the controversy, debates about transmutation of species and competing ideas of biology. I've sat here for a little while thinking of ways to revise it, but I'm not happy with anything I've come up with. I hate to complain without bringing a suggestion, but I thought a little discussion here would help move things along. Cheers, Ben (talk) 16:25, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
I made some improvements (I hope) that I think might address your concerns.Rusty Cashman (talk) 09:19, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

<ri> Thanks, Rusty, that's an improvement. I've tried to further clarify the issue,[1] by changing "The book was controversial because the transmutation of species had been the subject of political and theological debates, and it contradicted the long accepted idea that species were unchanging parts of a designed hierarchy, which had played an important role in the development of biology." to "The topic of evolution had been highly controversial during the first half of the 19th century, since transmutation of species contradicted the long accepted idea that species were unchanging parts of a designed hierarchy. It had been the subject of political and theological debates, with competing ideas of biology trying to explain new findings." Hope that helps. . dave souza, talk 10:40, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

More religion, less background

The 1874 critique by Hodge was out of sequence and left unanswered, so I've cited Asa Gray's response: it's also interesting how many theologians Gray cites as reconciling science with natural theology, and also his description of Hodge's charges as gratuitous: "Dr. Hodge must have overlooked the beginning as well as the end of the volume which he judges so hardly." Having added information there, the Background sections seem to me a bit large and unfocussed, so if no-one minds I'll try to condense them significantly when time permits. . . dave souza, talk 21:55, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, in particular there is information in the background section that duplicates stuff covered in the religion portion of the public reaction section. Speaking of the religion section can someone add a little text to relate the following sentence to the rest of the article?
While few religious controversies continue to this day, some scientific and religious thinkers dismiss apparent contradictions by simply rationalising that not all questions that can be asked have answers "in terms of the alternatives that the questions themselves present."
Otherwise I am going to delete it because I have no idea what it means. Rusty Cashman (talk) 05:11, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Good call, it does lead into the section about Pope Pius XII in 1950, but that's related to the 20th century controversy rather than the reception of the book and it could also be deleted. If anything's needed, we'd be better off with a suitably sourced statement that evolution was widely accepted by the 1880s, or something on those lines, perhaps a reference to Darwin's state funeral. . dave souza, talk 10:12, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for trimming that a bit, I do think we can remove or severely trim the Pope Pius XII bit. Thanks also for tightening up the translations bit, I'm looking into how Haeckel came into it: he was corresponding with Darwin by late 1863, and evidently his life was changed by reading the Origin well before his wife died in March 1864.[2] That also mentions the breadth of support by then. Browne goes into more detail about Victor Carus spreading the word before the revised version was issued, and also gives info on the Russian translation and its reception as well as the slightly later and more complex issue in France. So, hope to find a form of words to accommodate all that concisely. Will also think over pruning the background hard: it seems to me that it would work best with one section as a very brief outline of pre-1859 evolutionary ideas, cutting out nearly all the earlier detail but perhaps expanding on the implications of ideas from 1830 onwards. The Darwin part would then focus on the main events in relation to the theory and sketches of what became the Origin. Any problem with changing the subsection titles? . . dave souza, talk 23:35, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Cross-fertilisation

This section was removed in recent edits: "He draws attention to cross-breeding between varieties giving "vigour and fertility to the offspring", with close interbreeding having the opposite effect, in what he thinks may be a universal law. This explains features found in flowers which avoid self-fertilisation and attract insects to cross-pollinate.< ref >Darwin 1859, p. 87-101.< /ref > Not sure if it's covered elsewhere, but it's a common theme of Darwin's thought that cross-breeding has advantages, explaining sexual reproduction. This runs directly counter to the claim that Darwin inspired ideas of "racial purity", which actually come from pre-Darwinian ideas like those of Gobineau. Worth a brief mention. . . dave souza, talk 10:25, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok I put it back. Rusty Cashman (talk) 06:18, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
I have removed it once more as part of the effort to slim down the content section per the GA review. It simply is not possible in a reasonable length summary of the contents of the book to mention everything Darwin disucsses at length in Origin. I have reread several summaries of the book's contents in books by historians, Quammen (2006), Larson (2004), Bowler (2003) as well as a couple of summaries I have found on the internet, with an eye towards what historians have considered important enough to mention, and none of them have mentioned this topic. I just don't see it belonging in a high level summary of the sort that is appropriate to an encyclopedia article. However, if you still feel strongly about it I will restore it. Rusty Cashman (talk) 21:09, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Fair enough, though it is a good idea to keep a sandbox version of the untrimmed section. I'm a bit more concerned about not explaining the "mystery of mysteries" being by Herschel, am thinking about how to deal with it. Probably a brief note that the eminent philospher is Herschel would suffice. Interestingly, this shows when Darwin read it, and his "Hurrah" about "intermediate causes" meaning a natural explanation rather than miracles would be expected. That's a detail I'll develop more in the Inception of Darwin's theory article. . dave souza, talk 21:57, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Yeah I thought about mentioning Herschel as well, but I think you might be right. The best place to mention it might be in the background section. I will look at recovering an untrimmed version to a sandbox. It won't be hard to find since it was pretty stable for a while before the review. I do prefer the trimmed version however, it is easier to read and the key points stand out better. For better or for worse there are some subjects that Darwin treated in great technical detail that most modern accounts of his work more or less ignore and hybridization is chief among them. Rusty Cashman (talk) 07:24, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Clarification needed

The following text that was just added makes no sense as written:

The intelligentsia in Russia had accepted reception for several years before Darwin had published his theory,

I am guessing it should say that they had accepted transumtation of species or something similar, but i don't have the cited source so I am not sure. Would someone with the cited source please fix it? Thanks. Rusty Cashman (talk) 21:18, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Blast, sorry about that. Browne p. 258 says "The dispatch with which Russian scientists took account of these developments was for the most part probably due to the intelligentsia's acceptance of the general phenomenon of evolution some years before the Origin of Species was published." Glitch in my rephrasing. . . dave souza, talk 23:41, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Fixing quoted text

I've been admiring Rusty Cashman's edits of On the Origin of Species, particularly where some quotes are fixed ("fully practised and perfected" → "fully practical and perfected" and "the most beautiful" → "a most beautiful"). The original text may have been copied from Charles Darwin to this article, and to Development of Darwin's theory and Inception of Darwin's theory and Charles Darwin's views on religion.

Before I join in and help fix the other articles, it would be good if someone could clear up the reference given in Charles Darwin as the source:

Desmond, Adrian; Moore, James (1991), Darwin, London: Michael Joseph, Penguin Group, ISBN 0-7181-3430-3, p. 273–274

Does that reference justify the quote? I imagine that it does not, so presumably the reference should be removed, and the direct links to darwin-online.org.uk should be specified instead? Johnuniq (talk) 04:07, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually as I look at this closely I am less surprised at the different renderings of the quotation. I used the text specified in the text version of the notebook at the complete works of Charles Darwin online, which is the source I cite, but that site also has scanned images of the notebook as well. When I look at the image the word "fully" is clear and the "pract" portion of the next word is clear, but last few letters are an almost illegible scrawl ("perfected" is pretty clear). This is always a potential problem with hand written sources, especially for hand scrawled notes. So it wouldn't shock me if before the notebooks were put online some authors interpreted the scrawled word ending differently. Every quotation in any article should match the source cited. The quotes in this section didn't have a source cited so I went out to find sources to cite. I then had to modify the quotes to match the source I cited. Whether a different version of the quote that cites a different source should be changed is a judgement call. Personally for anything from the notebooks I would recommend going with the version at the Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online website because not only is it a fairly recent and highly reputable source that is online and thus easy to check, but if a reader is really interested, they can click on the "image" button and try their hand at interpreting Darwin's scrawl themselves. Rusty Cashman (talk) 07:25, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I am more puzzled by the 2nd quote you mentioned. There is no way, even given Darwin's hand writing, that it could have been mistaken. It is "a" not "the" and there is no "most" (I forgot to take that word out) either. The difference is of course quite significant. Rusty Cashman (talk) 23:13, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for picking this up, the "practised" is from Desmond & Moore, but the "the most" is outside their quote mark, and was incorrectly included in the quote by me. My bad. Have sorted this out in Charles Darwin and Inception of Darwin's theory, will check the others soon. Thanks again, . . dave souza, talk 21:24, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
It happens. When I was typing in quotes from books for Alfred Russel Wallace I caught myself translating from British to American a couple of times :) Rusty Cashman (talk) 04:20, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I hope that I fixed the remaining two articles so the quotations and citations are accurate. There is a remaining issue concerning how the word "chance" is used. Sometimes it appears in quotes, which might suggest that it is a quotation, or might suggest "scare quotes" (it's not really chance). Perhaps to avoid that, the word is sometimes in italics. Here is a summary:

Another issue is that I can't find a reference where Darwin uses the word "chance" in the context suggested in the articles above. Any thoughts? Johnuniq (talk) 09:49, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Again, this may come from me condensing Desmond & Moore: on p. 273, in the paragraph before the quotations, they say "Still Malthus was being digested, and it was a slow bovine process.. Darwin was breaking new ground. He had assumed that habitual behaviour becomes instinctive and causes the necessary changes in mind and body; that is how variations occur. Now he introduced a strikingly different image, suggesting that odd variants might be thrown up by chance. Perhaps event instincts appear randomly, with selection keeping only the useful ones." Their italics, and that sentence is cited to Notebooks N42; Hodge & Kohn 'Immediate Origins' 197–200, R. Richards Darwin, 102. The quotations are cited to Notebooks D104 n. 5, E63, 71, 75, 136; Foundations, 6; etc. Notebooks is Barrett et al, Charles Darwin's Notebooks (1987), and Foundations is Francis Darwin, 1909, which by coincidence I've just cited at Development of Darwin's theory#First writings on the theory for the Pencil sketch of 1842: interesting how close its conclusion is to the last sentences of On the Origin of Species#Concluding remarks. Hope that helps. . dave souza, talk 11:04, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Here we are, "An habitual action must some way affect the brain in a manner which can betransmitted. — this is analogous to a blacksmith having children with strong arms. — The other principle of those children, which chance? produced with strong arms, outliving the weaker ones, may be applicable to the formation of instincts, independently of habits."[3] This is followed by discussion of hybrid offspring, and is interpreted in Barrett 1974 (1987 not available at DarwinOnline) as "This passage, then, makes reasonably explicit three possible sources of evolutionary variation: inheritance of acquired characteristics, chance variation, and hybridization. It is noteworthy that this first explicit reference to natural selection as applied to man comes at just this moment....."[4] Note that the current transcription uses italics, the original seems to be ringed. . dave souza, talk 14:48, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Descending from animals

Regarding this revert, the reason for my change from 'animals' to 'lower species' was that in the context, it appears that the article presents it as fact; that humans descended from animals. Of course this is not true, since human are, and always have been classified as animals. Now, if the disputed portion was a quote that an older generation naturalist had said, that would be fine, but reading the paragraph in context, it seems like the article endorses that humans descended from animals, which is misleading. Thoughts? Artichoker[talk] 20:01, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

It's a good point, but "lower species" doesn't seem to work in the context of that time. The concern was that humans were held to be above animals, not descended from brutes. Nothing better springs to mind just now, time to try looking for a source. . dave souza, talk 20:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't see why 'lower species' doesn't fit. Reading the paragraph again, I don't see any time context present. It simply states that and older generation of naturalists found it hard to believe the ramifications of evolution: that humans descended from lower species. Artichoker[talk] 20:25, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
"Lower species" is a bit of a superseded idea, which Darwin rejected in his notebook jottings but may have used in places – harks back to the great chain of being, and progressive Lamarckism that was absorbed into "Darwinism". From van Wyhe, "Most disturbing of all, however, were the implications for the cherished uniqueness of man.... Darwin showed that there is no difference of kind between man and other animals, but only of degree. Rather than an unbridgeable gulf, Darwin showed there is a gradation of change not only between man and other animals, but between all organic forms which is a consequence of the gradual change continuously and cumulatively operating over time."[5] Probably more useful, Bowler 2003 p. 207 "Christians had assumed that animals had no spiritual facilities, so there was a complete gulf between human and animal kingdoms. Evolution would bridge this gulf and imply that all human characters are parts of nature, subject to natural law. To preserve the uniqueness of humankind, evolution would have to be rejected outright, or qualified by the assumption that something very special, presumably supernatural, had happened on the branch leading to humans." Will think it over, back later. . . dave souza, talk 21:15, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes I would agree with the use of one of those sources. Not sure which one though. Artichoker[talk] 21:27, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

<undent> What we have at present is "An older generation of naturalists found it very hard to accept that humans descended from animals." Perhaps "An older generation of naturalists brought up in the belief that spiritual facilities were unique to humans, and that there was a complete gulf between humans and animals, found the implications of common descent very hard to accept." . . dave souza, talk 22:11, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

That works fine, go ahead and make the edit. Artichoker[talk] 22:38, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Have done, we can review if a source is needed for the whole paragraph, or multiple sources. . dave souza, talk 22:52, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
I tweaked it to be a little more compact. I think all that was really needed, incidentally, was to stick the word other infront of the word animals in the original text. Rusty Cashman (talk) 23:53, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Incidentally, the use of the term "animals" as short hand for "all animals other than humans" was far from uncommon then and only a little less common today. Rusty Cashman (talk) 00:00, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
For example the first sentence of the autopsy artice starts: "An autopsy, also known as a post-mortem examination, necropsy (particularly as to animals)". One usually tells the difference (including humans or excluding them) based on context.Rusty Cashman (talk) 00:06, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
Wow, the thought never even occurred to be of simply sticking 'other' in front of 'animals'. That would have worked fine too. In fact I might have even preferred that more than this current, more wordy, version. Artichoker[talk] 01:32, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Done. I agree shorter is better in this case. Rusty Cashman (talk) 03:40, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Agree that short is good in the lead, this is something to develop a little in the background section. At the moment I'm pulling together ideas for a revision of the background, mainly based on Bowler 2003, but it's going slowly. Anyway, the idea that humans aren't animals still persists, as in the concluding remarks of the interview at The Root of All Evil?#Colorado Springs. Not sure what the usage was in the 1860s, there did seem to be the idea of "animal spirits" in people's behaviour. Will leave this alone for now. . . dave souza, talk 08:58, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
If I'm allowed a suggestion, I'd go for the last sentence of the van Wyhe quotation: "Rather than an unbridgeable gulf, Darwin showed there is a gradation of change not only between man and other animals, but between all organic forms which is a consequence of the gradual change continuously and cumulatively operating over time." It's concise, which this long article needs, but I think it covers all the points that need to be made. --Philcha (talk)

Old version of "content" section

Just in case I cut something that someone thinks absolutely has to be there. Here is a subpage of this talk page with the version of that section prior to any of the GA review inspired edits: Talk:On the Origin of Species/oldcontent.

Contents- formatting

When referring to a specific chapter it is usual to use capitals for the first letter eg Chapter ii. Use of quotation marks around a block quote might make it even clearer that the text was a quotation. Aa77zz (talk) 19:34, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Muslim reception

As stated at #Structure above, there's a question as to whether Origin was translated into Arabic even by 1977, and the following section is of doubtful notability in relation to the book, though more significant in relation to other subjects.

Muslims were also being introduced to Darwinism, but a religious crisis as seen in the West did not arise.< ref> Quadri, M.M., MA Integration of Islam with Science (Ripon Printing Press LTD. 1967) 8< /ref> The immediate response was an overall rejection of the theory, but this was not caused so much by direct religious objections as it was by poor translations of the book.< ref >Mahmoud M. Ayoub “Creation or Evolution? The Reception of Darwinism in Modern Arab Thought” in Science and Religion in a Post Colonial World. Ed. Zainal Abidin Bagir. (Australia: ATF press. < /ref> Little debate about the theory occurred until many years later when better translations began to circulate. Its controversy rooted from the origination of the theory from the west. Science from the west is viewed as materialistic and is subject to rejection.< ref > Afghani Refutation des Materialistes 1942 tr. by A. M. Goichon, Paul Geuthner, Paris p136</ref > As time passed and better translations of the book were available the scientific side of the theory was promoted and became integrated into the Islamic religion by some scholars.

Since we're cutting information to deal with article length problems, I've moved it here. . dave souza, talk 07:42, 1 April 2009 (UTC)


Query

I take it this is a planned FA for the 150th anniversary of its publication that's coming up? Anything I can do to help? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 08:57, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes that is the goal. Feel free to pitch in. Copyediting is particularly badly needed.Rusty Cashman (talk) 18:27, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

A few things

I just wanted to note a few things - 1. Aristotle isn't discussed that often on the page, but Darwin refers to Aristotle quite a bit (subtle and not so subtle). 2. The work is used in literature quite often. Those like George Eliot, Charles Dickens, and Thomas Hardy all have -major- allusions to the work and to the social changes that came from it. Perhaps have a small section on the cultural impact? Ottava Rima (talk) 17:34, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

As to your first point Aristotle's contributions to the development of biological thinking is discussed in a couple of FA class articles — history of biology and especially history of evolutionary thought. I don't think anything more than a brief allusion is appropriate for this article. The current "reception" and "reception outside of Britain" sections have a little on this (Spencer and Tolstoy). I think Dave Souza is planning to significantly rework those sections but frankly I don't think there will be room for much more in that area. Reaction to Darwin's theory has a little more, but frankly I suspect there should be a "cultural impact of Darwin's theory" article and probably a "philosophical impact of Darwin's theory" article to really cover this stuff in any depth. There is just too much to cover.Rusty Cashman (talk) 23:08, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Reference for "survival of the fittest"

The reference for Spencer's "survival of the fittest" (currently #46) includes a dead link to "Pioneers of Psychology [2001 Tour - School of Education & Psychology"]. http://educ.southern.edu/tour/who/pioneers/spencer.html. Retrieved on 2007-08-29.

Do we need this link? Identical references are used in this article, in the "survival of the fittest" and in the article on Herbert Spencer.

I have checked the page number in Herbert Spencer's Principles of Biology of 1864, vol. 1, p. 444 using Google books.

Page 444 Vol 1 contains:

But this survival of the fittest, implies multiplication of the fittest. Out of the fittest thus multiplied, there will, as before be an overthrowing of the moving equilibrium wherever it presents the least opposing force to the new incident force. And by the continual destruction of the individuals that are the least capable of maintaining their equilibria in presence of this new incident force, there must eventuallv be arrived at an altered type completely in equilibrium with the altered conditions. The Principles of Biology By Herbert Spencer

Although the book has a date of 1864 on the title page, a footnote on the following page is dated 1874!

I suggest we include the link to the paragraph in Google books using the link at the end of the blockquote above. Aa77zz (talk) 14:36, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, good work. Deleting the Southernedu link and adding this reference will be welcome. The currently cited paragraph "This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called ‘natural selection’, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.” starts on the same page, continuing on to p. 445, and seems to me more appropriate for this article. . dave souza, talk 12:05, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
By the way, the Preface is dated December 1874 and indicates that this is the third impression of the 1864 text, presumably with minor alterations such as the footnote. . dave souza, talk 12:09, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I've also added Mivart's On the Genesis of Species and wanted to link to Google books - but it would appear that although Google have scanned the book several times, they do not allow full view. It seems that Google do not allow one to view a book when a facsimile version is available - even when the book is clearly in the public domain - and in this case available from Gutenberg. I've come across this before but have not seen a statement from Google stating that this is their policy. Aa77zz (talk) 22:10, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

We actually have it on Wikisource, s:Genesis of Species, and there's a Commons Category:Genesis of Species with its illustrations. . dave souza, talk 10:53, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks - I didn't realize that the text was available on Wikisource - I'll link to that rather than Gutenberg. I have a question about putting in dates for links to external sites. I find them ugly and useless. I wondered whether they were required when the url is part of a full reference to a book or article. I looked in the MOS and in WP:LINKS but haven't found anything about quoting the date accessed - in fact all I found for External links section was: "For instance, a concise description of the contents and a clear indication of its source is more important than the actual title of the page, and access dates are not appropriate in the external links section." Aa77zz (talk) 18:45, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

OK - I think I now understand the logic. Many pages on the web are continually being updated - thus if one wants to cite a web page for a particular fact then one includes a date in case the page changes. A case in point is the reference
Now John van Wyhe obviously updates this page and the article and the dates in the article are confused. According to my logic, it make no sense to give an access date to a web page that gives text that isn't going to be updated. Thus a link to the text of a journal artcle doesn't need an accessdate. One would hope that the text of Darwin's works at darwin-online aren't going to change - so the accessdate serves no purpose. On the other hand a link to BBC news article which is continuously updated certainly needs a date. Aa77zz (talk) 20:05, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
Yup, was surprised to find Mivart there. The van Wyhe article is a good case, as he's changed it a bit since 2006 and there's a need to check that the text is currently supported, and change all the references to 2009: File last updated 20 January, 2009, to date! It's probably true that the text of the works won't change much, but there are occasional corrections when an ocr error hasn't been noticed, and as discussed above, there can be changing views about transcriptions from handwriting. So dates are useful as a practice, and it's not worth trying to guess when they're superfluous. . dave souza, talk 21:08, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Darwin and design: historical essay

This reference (currently #102) is cited 3 times in the Reception/Religious section:

I believe it would be better to use a scholarly article rather than an anonymous(?) web page but I am struggling. Before removing the citations I need to find suitable alternatives. I've introduced 2 additional citations to primary sources - but I need suitable secondary sources for "Darwin’s old Cambridge tutors Adam Sedgwick and John Stevens Henslow dismissed his ideas". I haven't Miles to check whether he/she mentions importing pamphlets - I notice this fact is mentioned in the Intro to The correspondence of Charles Darwin, volume 9: 1861 CUP 1994 here. Suggestions? Aa77zz (talk) 16:33, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi Aa77zz, I looked into your point about the webpage being anonymous, since I am in general a fan of using web-based resources whenever possible. It turns out that in this case this meets the standard criteria of being a reliable source. The particular webpage that you refer to is just one in a series of pages that make up the "Darwin Correspondence Project", which to date, has collected and transcribed into electronic format (by hand, I assume since OCR would not work on handwritten letters) and dated more than 14000 letters to and from Darwin [6]. The correspondence project is headed by a Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University (who thus has independent recognition of his authority) [7] [8], and involves the contributions of other recognized experts from around the world. So, I don't think referencing the page (or really family of pages) itself is problematic. Indeed, given his appointment as a Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, the integrative historical essay seems to be well within Prof. Secord's professional activities. What might be better, though, it to try and directly cite the relevant letters, where possible. This will require a search of the archives for the relevant passages, but it is possible. For example, I was able to find the first quoted phrase, "just as noble a conception of the Deity" in the archives here [9]. Cheers, Edhubbard (talk) 17:26, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Actually, this exercise demonstrates the importance of carefully checking, since in the essay, the quote is "just as noble a conception of Deity", which matches the text of Charles Kingsley's letter, while Darwin paraphrases as "just as noble a conception of the Deity" in the second Edition of Origin. It's only a one word difference, but it is important to make sure that we get it right. Edhubbard (talk) 17:39, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Oops... sorry, I just saw that you had added this reference when I looked at the history more carefully. Edhubbard (talk) 17:56, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

<undent, edit conflict while I was pulling this together> :It's unfortunate that these essays aren't signed, as they seem pretty good and the credentials of the project itself are excellent, so there should at least be editorial oversight. As they're readily available online they make a useful link for readers, and we can back them up with more scholarly sources as much as possible. Desmond & Moore pp. 487–488 covers the reaction of Sedgwick and Henslow, quoting a large part of Sedwick's letter, and for some reason I found CUL-DAR226.1.29 Printed: Sedgwick Adam 1860.05.19 Review of `Origin' (abstract) `Cambridge Chronicle': 4e-5a [3 cut cols] Image which is rather difficult to read, some of it appeared in a reference but I've forgotten which. Henslow's reaction wasn't entirely dismissive, as he defended Darwin's right to express the ideas while not going along with them, and did distance himself when it was suggested that he was a supporter of Darwin. Anyway, we should certainly leave out Henslow. I've been slogging away very slowly at a sandbox version of the Reception section, putting the emphasis on science rather than religion, it's far too large and needs some drastic pruning. My current thinking is that it could form the basis of a new article, provisional title Reception of Darwin's theory, which would provide the broader picture while Reaction to Darwin's theory continues to cover Darwin's life from November 1859 to March 1861. Will try to strip it down to essentials very shortly, for consideration. dave souza, talk 19:16, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

The credentials might be excellent - but in Wikipedia, where possible, we should use secondary sources that cite primary sources. For the Wilberforce-Huxley debate compare Lucas 1979 with the essay - both available online. Aa77zz (talk) 21:03, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
I checked out both links, and my initial reaction was, like I assume yours was Aa77zz, that the Lucas paper was much better in terms of referencing, but that it was narrowly focused on the Wilberforce-Huxley debate, while the essay is dealing with larger historical trends. So, for the W-H debate, we should certainly cite this essay (I assume it appeared in print somewhere, and this is just the web-version of it?). It is focused exclusively on this debate, so we can't use it for any other background information, but it is a good reference for the W-H debate, as you have already done.
But then, I went back and started to look more carefully at the essay and realized that it was adequately referenced, but not in the in-line citation method that immediately jumps out to the eye. The referencing is insufficient for wikipedia (for example: "In a series of publications in the 1840s, Owen argued...") but I think this comes from the choice the essay writers originally made of citing their references in long-form. Citing the whole series there would have been much easier if the authors had used the numbered in-line style that we have converged to in wikipedia. Similarly, there are numerous quotes from different authors, but they are integrated into the text, rather than set off with block quotes, so again, they jump out to the eye less (and most of them need page numbers). This might seem to be sloppiness on the part of the Darwin project authors, but rather, I think it is consistent with the goal of providing a broader, synthetic view of some of the issues around how Darwin's ideas fit into the religious climate of the day. Naturally, to cover a broader historical theme requires less detail on any one quote. Overall, it is clear that the Lucas essay is better prepared for easy digestion into wiki-format, but I am not certain that it actually contains more or better scholarship. I'm not even sure why I'm still talking about this... the reference you suggested is clearly better. Sorry. Edhubbard (talk) 14:35, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
I've trimmed this section a bit, and introduced a source giving clarification of Hodge's views as well as indicating when the current imbroglio began. A bit more tightening up is in order. . dave souza, talk 19:09, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Reception restructure

Having made the Impact on the scientific community subsection a bit more informative, my suggestion is that it should be moved up to become the first subsection of the Reception section, and could simply be titled Science, followed by the somewhat trimmed Religious subsection. The Reception outside Great Britain subsection would be moved up as Publication outside Great Britain subsection to Publication, following on immediately after Publication and subsequent editions. If need be the French and Russian reactions could be moved into the Impact on the scientific community subsection, but that's not a big deal. So, any comments or suggestions? . . dave souza, talk 19:24, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. I think the two subsections would need to be Science and Religion, or Scientific and Religious (I think I prefer the latter). Johnuniq (talk) 01:38, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
The suggested moves look sensible to me. As the article is clearly rather long, I wondered whether we could artificially restrict the article to the 19th century and remove the "Even The Fundamentals,..." paragraph - but this is short and it would have little effect on the overall length. Perhaps the last section 'Comparison with Wallace's ideas' should be shortened and moved into the Scientific reception section. The fact that Wallace would eventually embrace Spiritualism is probably not directly relevant here.Aa77zz (talk) 09:53, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
I have been waiting for someone to recommend removing the comparison with Wallace's ideas section. I have been thinking about and, I think it could be replaced with just a couple of sentences in other sections. I will take a shot at it. I am glad the section on religion was trimmed, but I kind of like the order of subsections and the current sub section names.Rusty Cashman (talk) 19:09, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
Ok I got rid of the Wallace section. Now that it is gone. I think I kind of like having "Impact on the scientific community" at the end of the "reception" section because that makes it the last real content in the article and I think it is a strong way to end. So I would say leave the order as it is.Rusty Cashman (talk) 07:14, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for these worthwhile changes. I do feel quite strongly that the current order implies that OtOOS is essentially a religious argument, and putting the publication / reception outwith Britain before the scientific reception is confusing, as the reception in other countries was clearly part of the scientific reception. In the case of the US and Germany that's now explicitly shown in the scientific section, as their scientists were closely involved in the British discussions. The publication information belongs with the other publication information, where it's not a distraction from the reception aspects. Religion was part of the science of the day, and that aspect of religion is appropriately discussed in the Reception lead paragraphs, and in the Scientific section. The actual response in the Church of England was relatively muted, as Bowler pp. 202–203 states. Darwin's theory was not opposed for contradicting Genesis, but because of its implications for natural theology which was intimately involved with the science of the day, and is appropriately covered in relation to science. Bowler points out that the church was more concerned with debates about Evangelicalism, converts to Catholicism, and of course the liberalism of Essays and Reviews. The current structure gives too much weight to this relatively minor debate within churches. . dave souza, talk 10:08, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
Taking your point about a strong ending, it could make sense to have a concluding section on the post-1870s developments, possibly headed Eclipse of Darwinism to the Modern Synthesis, briefly covering the sidelining of natural selection, the various alternatives, and including a brief mention of the evo-creo controversy starting in the 1920s. The religion section could lead into this by covering the social implications, reflecting Bowler's analysis on the need for purpose leading to acceptance of progressive evolution as Spencer's philosophies, and Mivart's support for Owen's unfolding plan, and ignoring the implicaions of natural selection. Thus, the Reception structure would be scientific, religious and social, outcome post 1880. . dave souza, talk 10:28, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
Ok, I understand that much of the stuff in "Reception outside of Great Britain" is publication detail and that was not my intent when I created the subsection. I had meant to comment on the relative lack of impact in France, the much greater impact in Germany and you added some valuable stuff about the reaction in Russia. I would also like to put back a brief mention of the US or maybe better rename the section to reception outside of Britain ant the US (which might make sense since reception within the US is pretty well covered now in scientific impact and the Religous section). If you wanted to separate out the publication detail and move it up to publication and leave a paragraph on "reception" outside of Britain under that heading in reception that would be fine. I appreciate the fact that you trimmed down the religious reactionm section and expanded the scientific impact section it makes reception better balanced. I think the current balance is appropriate. I think the scientfic impact section covers the "Dclipse of Darwinism" issues appropriately given that there is already an article on that and History of evolutionary thought I really don't care that much about the order of the three subsections, but I think all three of them belong under reception even if some of the publication info is shifted out. Right now we are pretty much following a standard format for an article on a historically importgant book - Background - composition and publication - Summary of contents - Analysis of text - Discusssion of reception. I think that is a good outline and we should stick with it. Rusty Cashman (talk) 17:45, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, I'm not arguing against the basic outline, it's the subdivisions within the discussion of reception that seem doubtful to me, so if you're willing to go along with moving the scientific reception ahead of the religious reception within that section I think we can work out a suitable end to the article. Would it suit you to move the publication details into a new Publication outside Great Britain subsection of Publication, but have Reception outside Great Britain as a final subsection of Reception? That could briefly mention the US and Germany as well as incorporating the sentences about the reception in France and Russia. . . dave souza, talk 18:14, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
That sounds fine. Hopefully this will be the last big change we need before we can get this thing through GA. By the way I particularly liked the Haeckel's tree diagram you added to the reception section. What would you think of adding Gould's 1841 illustration of Darwin's Rhea with a suitable caption to the "Inception" section? The section is big enough to support 2 diagrams. The other one that comes to mind is the famous Gould diagram of four different Galapagos finch heads, but that one is heavily used and frankly the finch story is somewhat over hyped in connection with the historical development of Darwin's theory. Rusty Cashman (talk) 21:24, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
Thsnks, that sounds good and I'll aim to get on with it in the morning. The rhea illustration's a very good idea, off the top of my head something about the geographical distribution of species of rheas is mentioned in the opening paragraphs of OtOOS as an inspiration for the theory. Since we've already got the first tree diagram illustrating the inception, the rhea could illustrate Title pages and introduction. .. dave souza, talk 21:44, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
OK, have revised the subsection order and added a publication outside UK subsection as discussed, have also tried out the rhea illustration as well as mentioning the identity of the philosopher who coined the "mystery of mysteries"phrase, which Quammen covers well. . . dave souza, talk 11:33, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
'The range of evolutionary theories during what Peter J. Bowler has called "the eclipse of Darwinism"' - Perhaps better to omit Peter Bowler's name here - Julian Huxley used the phrase for a chapter section when discussing the issue in his 1942 book Evolution: the modern synthesis. Aa77zz (talk) 15:36, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Ever willing to omit surplus words, I've cut it down to the linked title itself, keeping it in quotation marks so that it's clear that this is a title or phrase. It's cited to Bowler, the linked article gives more detail for those interested. . dave souza, talk 18:25, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Uncited references removed from article

I've deleted those references in the article that do not appear to be cited. I'm pasting them here in case I've made an error or the reference will be cited in the future.

I could easily have made an error in doing this. Is there a script to check whether refs are cited? I kept two refs that were not cited - Huxley 1863 - mentioned but not cited - I'll add an inline citation - and Malthus 1826 - mentioned but not cited. Malthus's essay is wikilinked and perhaps doesn't need a citation. Aa77zz (talk) 10:52, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

We may want to include a couple of these in the further reading section. The one that comes to mind is Life and Letters. We also might want to included the 1979 illustriated Origin edited by Leaky. If we do we should also probably include the new 2009 illustrated version edited by David Quammen. Maybe Descent of man should be included as further reading as well. What do people think? Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:06, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
We have a reference to the 1958 Nora Barlow unexpurgated Autobiography, all the autobiographies are available at DarwinOnline and the Darwin infobox at the foot includes links to The Autobiography of Charles Darwin and Correspondence of Charles Darwin, so the Life and Letters seems superfluous here. In the same way, the Descent of Man is linked, and frankly it seems to me a pretty tough read :-/ The Leakey abridged version is good, but well out of print. It might be worth using as a reference if we want to confirm what Darwin got right and wrong by 1986 standards, but we seem to have done enough without it. The new illustrated version sounds nice, but we've already linked to online editions and people can find plenty of versions in bookshops so it's verging on advertising unless it adds something very specific. . . dave souza, talk 21:25, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Ok you convinced me. Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:26, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Reception revised

I've revamped the introductory paragraphs to the Reception section,[10] and have removed the following sentences which seemed rather unfocussed and only vaguely related to the topic:

At the time of publication, the educated public generally held the belief that science was a "friend of humanity"[ref name=Burns962>Burns, Ralph, Lerner, & Standish 1982, p. 962] and that the natural world was orderly. This belief was based in part on advances made by the French scientist Louis Pasteur, who, in 1859, finally laid to rest the theory of spontaneous generation,[[[#CITEREFLevineEvers1999|Levine & Evers 1999]]] and Newton's laws of motion and gravitation, which were perceived as timeless and absolute.[ref name=Burns962/>
A version of evolution loosely related to Darwin's ideas was popularised by people such as Herbert Spencer, later labelled Social Darwinists, who promoted the virtues of competition outside of biology. [[[#CITEREFBurnsRalphLernerStandish1982|Burns, Ralph, Lerner, & Standish 1982]], p. 965]

The point about Spencer's early influence is now covered in more detail, ref. Bowler, but I've left out the point about Social Darwinism which is rather later and too detailed for this intro. I'm thinking of mentioning in the Religious section how Spencer's ideas fitted with the Protestant work ethic and were welcomed by US industrialists, whose ethics were later given the derogatory term Social Darwinism. . .dave souza, talk 12:47, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

As the related references are now unused, have deleted them from the article and move them here for possible review. . dave souza, talk 08:58, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Duplicate image of Asa Gray removed

I recently added an image of Asa Gray to the "outside of Great Britain" subsection of publication without realizing that Dave had used exactly the same image to replace the Hodge image in the "religious" subsection of reception. So I have replaced the image of Gray in religious reception with one of Baden Powell, which I think serves as well. Rusty Cashman (talk) 22:19, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Suggestions

1) Much of the content of "Reception outside Great Britain" repeats material presented in earlier sections. I wondered whether it could be deleted and the unique material added elsewhere. The reception outside GB is already discussed in the "Impact on the scientific community" (Gray, Louis Agassiz, Ernst Haeckel, Karl von Nägeli etc). The French translation by Clémence Royer is mentioned in "Publication outside Great Britain".

2) The "Modern influence" section is a strong way to finish the article - but it might be better at level 2 instead of level 3 - ie not a subsection of "Reception". Aa77zz (talk) 23:14, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, these points are worth thinking about. .dave souza, talk 17:04, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
I don't know. I like what we did in separating the details about publication outside of GB from the text on how the book was recieved outside of GB. I don't think it worked well when we had them combined in a single section. The publication detailed obscured how the book was received. I think both these sections work fine as they are. I understand the point about moving the finale up a level but now that the beginning of the "modern influence" section essentially has the ending of the "scientific impact" I think it might seem a little strange to have them at different levels. Rusty Cashman (talk) 05:28, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
The details of translation were requested to be filled out a bit in the publication section, so I've moved them up there. Trimming duplication from the "outwith UK" section left Germany, France and Russia, and these have merged pretty well into the "scientific" reception section, so I've done that. Don't have strong views about "Modern influence" being a section or subsection. . .dave souza, talk 10:38, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

While Dave's edits merging much of the material from "Reception outside of Great Britain" section into "Impact on the scientific community" worked well from a conent point of view I think they left "Impact" as an awfully long unbroken chunk of text. So I have experimented by breaking it up with sub headers. Rusty Cashman (talk) 08:54, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I think that the sub headers work well. Aa77zz (talk) 10:32, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, that looks much better. The Natural selection issues included the scientific objections of Kelvin, Jenkin and Mivart, so I've moved the header and tweaked it a bit as Mivart was anti-natural selection but favoured directed evolution on Owen's model. One forlorn request: Impact outside of Great Britain is clumsy, can't we just say Impact outwith Great Britain? . . dave souza, talk 11:01, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Concern over ordering of the subsections of publication

The "Background" and "Publication" sections largely follow a chronological order but the "Time taken to publish" subsection is out of order. It should either be the first subsection of publication or (and this might even be my preference) the last subsection of background, but where it is now it is jarringly out of place. Rusty Cashman (talk) 18:27, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

You should have posted this in the GA review - according to the rules it's not a private fight, anyone can join in. :-)
Now you've mentioned it, it seems rather obvious, which is usually a sign of a good idea.
However I think I'd prefer it to be the first subsection of "Publication", since: it's not about the intellectual process of "Inception of Darwin's theory" and "Further development"; putting it in "Publication" invites readers to wonder when D would have published (? posthumously) if Wallace hadn't put the cat among the pigeons.
Are you listening, Dave? --Philcha (talk) 22:26, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
Quick comment before bedtime. The first section of publication opens with the 1855 incident when Darwin ignored the implications of Wallace's paper, but accepted the need to get a move on to publish, and ends with him starting the "abstract" in 1858 and agreeing the title with Murray. The usual assertion of delay is "almost 20 years", not 16 years. In other words, the time given is presented as a delay from first thinking of "my theory" to the actual date of publication, and the current location presents a look back from that point. Part of the "delay" was the four years from Wallace's published paper to the publication of the Origin. Of course another part was roughly four years from getting the idea, recorded in his notebooks, to putting together his rough "pencil sketch", and another two years before getting that into the readable format of the "essay". If you want to add a date of likely publication if Wallace hadn't put the cat amongst the pigeons with his Ternate theory, van Wyhe says "Darwin's estimate on the first page of the Origin is that it would take 'two or three more years to complete it'; that is, by 1861–62. If we subtract the 13 months spent writing the Origin this would mean he could have published it in about 1860." So, indication of 1860–62 would cover it. Think there was a statement by the editor of the published version of Natural Selection somewhere, but can't find it right now. So, the current position seems logical to me, rephrasing could be needed for another location. . dave souza, talk 23:17, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
When I suggested this section, I suggested putting it at the end. The more I look at it, the more I think that's best:
  • At present it's before the article actually says first publication was 1859, which is illogical.
  • Darwin became a "Darwinist" in 1837 according to one of his letters (dated 1843; says he would have ridiculed his current ideas 6 years previously). That would have been 2/3 of the way through "Inception of Darwin's theory", just before the para about reading Malthus in 1838. Placeing it there would break up the development of his ideas. In any case D was writing retrospectively in 1843. Is there any sign of a "St. Paul on the road to Damascus" moment in 1837?
  • It might be possible to move then sentences "On the Origin of Species was first published on 24 November 1859, at a price of fifteen shillings. The book had been offered to booksellers at Murray's autumn sale on 22 November, and all available copies had been taken up immediately. In total 1,250 copies were printed, but after deducting presentation and review copies, and five for Stationers' Hall copyright, around 1,170 copies were available for sale" to the end of the section "Events leading to publication". Then the section on the alleged delay, then "Publication and subsequent editions". But that would obscure the fact that the 2nd printing came only 2 months later and was 2.5 times as big, i.e. the book was in demand. Not so good.
  • If there had been any contemporary suggestions that D delayed publication that would have showm us a natural place for it. But no-one's produced any such evidence.
  • The idea of a delay seems to have arisen in the 1840s. In strict chrono order it's after the modern synthesis, which started in the late 1930s. --Philcha (talk) 06:17, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
  • By at the end, do you mean as a new full section right at the end? That would be weaker than the current conclusion.
  • The chronological concern would be met by going for the intro. sentence in my first draft of this section, replacing "It had taken nearly twenty years, and Darwin was still not ready to publish his theory." with "By December 1838 Darwin had his basic theory of natural selection “by which to work”, yet when Wallace's letter arrived on 18 June 1858 Darwin was still not ready to publish his theory." Will change this in the interim so that it can be seen in context.
  • In mid 1836 Darwin showed a new willingness to accept transmutation, Browne p. 360 says that Gould's revelation about the rheas, "more than any other point in his life, deserves to be called a turning point".
  • If anything needed moved, the part last paragraph of "events leading to publication" from "Darwin had initially decided to call his book..." on could be moved into the "Publication and subsequent editions" subsection, but in my opinion that's not needed.
  • This is a modern perception according to van Wyhe, but more historians hold it to be about Darwin's life 1837–1858. . dave souza, talk 07:31, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I think that with the new wording it is clear that this is a comment on the entire pre-publication period rather than a piece of the chronological narrative, so it is probably Ok now. Rusty Cashman (talk) 06:29, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I think you're right that the clarification of the timing was needed to make it work in that place. . dave souza, talk 11:03, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Ready for FA?

I realize that several editors/reviewers have just put a lot of effort into getting this article through the GA review process, but given the goal of having this article listed as FA in time to be featured on the main page on Nov. 24th for the 150th anniversary of first publication I am hoping we can take it to FAC in a couple of weeks (probably first week in June). Therefore, if anyone can think of any weaknesses that ought to be addressed before FAC, it would be nice to know about them in the next couple of weeks. Thanks. Rusty Cashman (talk) 18:59, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I notice a general paucity of informaion about the book as a book, and rather a good deal about Darwin's ideas. This is fair enough in a way, because most readers will be interested in the man and his ideas, but if we don't find basic information about the book here, where can we find it? Translations, dates of, are lacking. Basic factual data on what the changes were are not systematic (lists, changes, dates: all in Morse Peckham and summarised in Freeman). As a start, I offer a list of essential reference works on the book as a book:
Bibliographic tools The following (except Stauffer) are works of textual criticism: they concern the Origin of Species as a book, a physical object. Biological commentary is incidental but, nevertheless, they are essential tools for a historical study of Darwin's ideas as expressed in the book.
1. Peckham, Morse (ed) 1959. The Origin of Species: a variorum text. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. A variorum contains all variants of a text; this records every change made by Darwin to the first edition up to 1890.
2. Horblit H.D. 1964. One hundred books famous in science. Grolier Club. Contains the first full bibliographic description of the first edition.
3. Barrett, Paul H., Weinshank D.J. and Gottleber T.T. 1961, reprint 1981. A concordance to Darwin's Origin of Species, first edition. Cornell, Ithaca & London. This takes every substantive word in the book in alphabetical order, and lists every occurrence with context and page number. Same idea as concordances to the bible.
4 Stauffer R.C. (ed) 1975. Charles Darwin's Natural Selection being the second part of his big species book written from 1856 to 1858. Edited from Manuscript. Cambridge.
5. Freeman, Richard Broke 1965, 2nd ed 1977. The works of Charles Darwin: an annotated bibliographical handlist. Dawson, Folkestone. Includes all the editions and reprints of all Darwin's works, as far as could be ascertained. Also, an on-line version with a few later corrections:
The complete work of Charles Darwin online: Table of contentsbibliography of On the Origin of Species: Both web pages provide links to text and images of all editions of The Origin of Species, including translations in German, Danish, and Russian.
Of these five works, only the last is referenced in the article, rather suggesting (perhaps wrongly) that contributors did not avail themselves of these sources. So I would suggest thinning down content well explained elsewhere, and plumping up the factual information on the book, based on a perusal of the above sources. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:37, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Hmmm. What specific aspects do you think are worth mentioning and why? Especially why are any such points important enough to displace summary and explanation of / commentary on the content? Unlike e.g. the Old Testament or the works of Homer, Origin is not a compilation from an oral tradition and AFAIK does not suffer from the transcription errors that afflicted these works. A concordance is just a very detailed index produced by someone other than the author(s) - what does it actually tell us about the book, Darwin or his theory?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Philcha ( (talk • contribs) 13:42, 19 May 2009
Note that an outline noting the most significant changes to the various editions is included in #Publication and subsequent editions, and the dates of the translations in Darwin's lifetime are shown under #Publication outside Great Britain. This article is an overall outline, and so does not show more detail on this particular aspect, which is available online on the Freeman page, cited in the references. . . dave souza, talk 15:10, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
I mostly agree with Dave and Philcha on this, especially about the important facts about publication, translation, and subsequent editions already being covered, but one thing that might be worth mentioning briefly is that the text of Origin of Species has been so extensively analyzed that a conconrdance and a variorum exist. This could be handled in sentence or two at the end of "modern influence" (alternatelyh the Variorum could be mentioned at the end of pulication and subsequent edditons) where it talks about the ongoing interest in Darwin's writings. Personally, I am a little worried that the "Structure and style" section is a little thin, and I am in the process of getting my hands on a new (just published this month) annotated version of the first edition, in hopes that it will help with that. I note that a new companion book for Origin has just be published by Cambridge university. Someone with access to better libraries than I have might want to get a quick look at that as well. Rusty Cashman (talk) 18:49, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I added a brief mention of the variorum, concordance and the Darwin Industry in general into the "modern influence" section where I think it works well. I just got ahold of the Annotated Origin (Darwin, Costa 2009). It is quite interesting and I suspect it will inspire a few tweaks to the article after I have had a little more time to peruse it. Rusty Cashman (talk) 19:26, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I've got a copy of the Variorum (2006 reprint). So if there's anything in particular that needs checking, I could have a look. Bit of a tricky book to get your head around, mind you. Also I've got the Cambridge Companion to the Origin. --Dannyno (talk) 22:30, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Mivart piece

"In January 1871 George Jackson Mivart's On the Genesis of Species listed detailed arguments against natural selection, and claimed it included false metaphysics.[54] Darwin took this personally, because Mivart had been a friend in his younger days. He made revisions to the sixth edition of the Origin, using the word "evolution" for the first time[55] and adding a new chapter VII, Miscellaneous objections, to refute Mivart.[56]"

I was concerned about two things in this paragraph:
1. The possibility that a reader might, from the (correct statement) that "Darwin took this personally", infer that Darwin's controversions in the new Chapter VII were ad hominem rather than objective. I'm sure we agree that D's points were entirely objective, and I tried to insert this into the para.
2. I object to the misuse of refute to describe D's counters. What Darwin did was to argue persuasively that the various Mivart examples could be explained by the action of natural selection, especially in the general case of the origin of 'new' parts. This is a consistency argument, not a refutation. Since then, in some cases, palaeontological or other evidence has helped Darwin's case to be even more convincing. In general, I'm for exactness of expression: so I felt it necessary to be explicit. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:38, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Ok you have a point, sometimes less is more, and my last edits have tried to address you concerns by cutting back the personal details and leaving just the bare facts necessary at the level of this article. Mivart wrote a book that criticized natural selection and Darwin responded by adding a chapter to the 6th addition of Origin that addressed those criticisms. The detials about the animosities between Mivart and Darwin and Huxley are covered in the article St. George Jackson Mivart and would take up too much space to rehash here.Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:03, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

'Creator'

I am somewhat troubled by the discussion of the word 'Creator' in Publications and subsequent editions. If it is necessary to raise the unanswerable question as to what CD meant by it, then at least the scene should be set with some foundations as to CD's beliefs at the time. We have some quotes from the man himself on this question. Both Browne and Desmond & Moore give the same quotes:

"I think generally (and more and more as I grew older), but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind." [1]
"I never gave up Christianity until I was 40 years of age. It is not supported by evidence" [2]

The Aveling quote comes from a visit to Down House by Aveling and Ludwig Büchner. They were renowned (or notorious) atheists, at the time attending the Freethinkers Congress in London. The meeting with CD also included Frank Darwin and Brodie Innes, the local vicar, so the content of the discussion is well attested. (Desmond & Moore p656–658 and Browne CD: the power of place p484–485) Section VII on p431 of Browne deals with CD's religious views more generally, and she notes "In [his] autobiography Darwin expressed startlingly harsh views on Christianity".

The point of all this is that it gives a sound foundation to the general conclusion that CD was an agnostic as he wrote the Origin at about 50 years of age, and that discussion as to what he meant by Creator &c. should start from that point. (I see no grounds at all for James Moore's interpretation, and it's hardly a refereed source -- but that's incidental) Surely what CD himself said takes precedence over anyone else's opinion?

The question is whether we should expand the section, and include some of the above to give readers a fair chance, or leave it out entirely. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:45, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

"Another source of conviction in the existence of God, connected with the reason and not with the feelings, impresses me as having much more weight. This follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.
This conclusion was strong in my mind about the time, as far as I can remember, when I wrote the Origin of Species; and it is since that time that it has very gradually with many fluctuations become weaker. But then arises the doubt—can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?"[1][11]
That seems to have been his belief, varying between what we'd call deism and agnosticism. Will think about improving the paragraph, see also Charles Darwin's views on religion for other sources. . . dave souza, talk 16:14, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
  1. ^ a b Barlow, Nora (ed) 1958. The autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–1882, with original omissions restored. Collins, London.
  2. ^ Aveling, Edward 1883. The religious views of Charles Darwin. Freethought, London.
I've just remembered the smart comment someone (but who?) made that Darwin was agnostic about being an agnostic! Incidentally, I had not read the WP article you mention on CD's religious views, but I see it draws liberally on D&M's account of the Aveling visit. Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:35, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Dave's response is very good, but I want to add to it that what is most important for the purposes of this article is not necessarily Darwin's own personal beliefs at the time of writing, but rather the viewpoint presented by the book. That is particularly important when it comes to this topic because Orign has so often been characterized as an atheistic book. However, it is not written with an atheistic or even agnostic viewpoint. Rather it is written from a deist viewpoint; that is with idea that a creator created a universe governed by certain natural laws, and that the creator allowed the universe to operate and unfold in accordance with those laws, rather than routinely interferring with that operation with adhoc miracles like the creation of new species. This is very clear from the quotes Darwin selected to preface the work to the famous text he used to end the work, and at several places in between. None of this is to say that Darwin's own personal beliefs are of no interest, but for the purpose of this article they are of entirely secondary importance compared to what he actually wrote. Rusty Cashman (talk) 17:23, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Your comments hold true if and only if the text is read absolutely literally, and one ignores all possibility of rhetorical layering. Any work, even a scientific text, is an argument constructed to achieve an end. Darwin nowhere goes as far as you do on the Deist line, and in the Natural Selection 'big book' (Stauffer) there are places where 'Creator' has been inserted at a later stage than the main text. This would support a reading where the biology was the real content, and the 'Creator' bits the camouflage (many did read it this way). In such a case his beliefs are critical, insofar as they can be ascertained. Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:00, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
I agree with the position that since there are so many ways this article could be derailed, it is essential to remain rather narrowly focused on the topic of the article, the book. —Mattisse (Talk) 17:52, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
There is a simple solution, which is to say that Darwin makes these remarks (quote, quote) but opinion is divided as to whether they should be taken at face value. But if you say more than that, you have to lay the groundwork properly. Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

There is another factor here. Darwin's opinions changed over time. He didn't jump from conventional Christianity all the way to agnosticism in a single step. What matters for the purpose of this article is his state of mind in the late 1850s when he was working on the book, not later in his life (ie the meeting with the free thinking philosophers). Here is what (Quammen 2006 p. 119) has to say on the matter:

Had an impersonal first cause of some sort, a Supreme Being in the fuzziest sense, given rise to the universe and set it in motion according to the mechanics of those fixed laws? Maybe. For much of his adult life, including the period when he wrote the Origin of Species, thats what Darwin felt inclined to believe. Later "with many fluctuations", he grew gradually more doubtful.

This seems consistent with what he wrote in Origin and with the statements in this article.Rusty Cashman (talk) 08:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Ever helpful, I've stripped the mention in the Publication and subsequent editions section down to:
"and incorporated numerous corrections as well as responding to religious objections with a new epigraph on page ii, a quotation from Charles Kingsley and the phrase "by the Creator" added to the closing sentence."
citing Browne, and have added to the Religious attitudes section:
"In the second edition of January 1860, Darwin quoted Kingsley as "a celebrated cleric", and added the phrase "by the Creator" to the closing sentence, which from then on read "life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one". While some commentators have taken this as a concession to religion that Darwin later regretted, Darwin's view at the time was of God creating life through the laws of nature, and even in the first edition there are several references to "creation"."
That moves discussion of the phrase to after the quotation of the last paragraph in the Concluding remarks section, and cites Darwin's religious views, all with more reliable sources than the broadcasts by Dawkins and Moore. My intention is to add these now removed sources and more detailed discussion to the article on Charles Darwin's views on religion. Hope that helps, dave souza, talk 14:20, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll buy that! Macdonald-ross (talk)
Yes that works well.Rusty Cashman (talk) 19:02, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Literary style

In my FAC comment I noted that the Literary style section could be fleshed out further; let me expand on that comment. The current section is mainly focused on documenting opinions of the book's readability, which is fine but it would be good to also add greater analysis of its literary style. For example, questions like:

  • What rhetorical devices did Darwin use ?
  • How did he structure his arguments ? Through examples and case-studies ? Axiomatically ? Reference to authority ? The Nature and structure of Darwin's argument talks about the macro-organization, but what about within each chapter or sub-section ?
  • How rich was the technical and non-technical vocabulary ?
  • Did he footnote ? Use scientific or common names for species ? (I know the answer to these, but that's besides the point.)
  • How often did he reference or quote other authors ?
  • Who influenced his style ? (John Herschel is already mentioned)

Now, I don't know if and how such information can be properly sourced (we certainly don't want OR!), but given the rich literature in the area I would guess that someone has written about it. This chapter and its references may be relevant. Should be worth looking into, even if it cannot be addressed immediately (that is the reason I am posting the comment here). PS: my comment applies broadly to the whole Structure and style section and not only the subsection.

Aside Is there any data of how many reprints OtOoS has been through in the last 150 years and how many copies it has sold ? Abecedare (talk) 18:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

This last Q can be answered for the editions published by Murray: 39000 by 1890. Publisher's accounts published in Morse Peckham's Variorum edition of OofS. It would be a huge task to discover world sales up to date in all languages, and I have never seen a detailed study. The Origin was well outsold by Vestiges during the 19thC, but sells well today, much better than in CD's lifetime! Expansion of higher education probably responsible. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:23, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
I don't think the 1890 statistics are worth including since that is just an arbitrary time-point, and we have already mentioned the first print numbers that are of some interest. Yes, I guess the current statistics would be impossible to compile since, once the book went out of copyright, anyone is free to print and distribute it. Abecedare (talk) 17:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
The suggestions as to how the article might be improved all seem very reasonable but the result is that the article continues to grow. I’m not in favour of salami slicing articles but it is already 110kB. (The article on the front page today is 17.7kB). Perhaps we should consider what could be removed rather than what could be added. Aa77zz (talk) 20:22, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
It is not unusual for an article to gain a little weight (5-10k) when going through FAC as people usually do request additions, especially early in the process. However, I suspect that phase is winding down. The article is long, but not inordinately so for FAs in this area. Examples include Alfred Russel Wallace~ 85K, History of evolutionary biology ~91K (I remembered that it gained about 10K in the FAC process), Charles Darwin ~117K, Evolution ~140k. I do think I will make a pass tightening things, but as long as we don't grow much more I think we are Ok. It is something to watch however. Rusty Cashman (talk) 21:02, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Natural selection

I think the article could be clearer on the importance of natural selection and the reasons why the concept of evolution was accepted while there remained reluctance and ambivalence over accepting this key mechanism of evolution. Also, in the section "Natural selection" in the article, there are mixed in the discussion the issue of the age of the Earth. I feel the brilliance and originality of Darwin's thinking is somewhat obscured. What interests me is that he conceived of natural selection through examining empirical data, understanding the work of animal breeders, his own observations, etc. and put it forth years before gene theory and other supportive evidence appeared. —Mattisse (Talk) 15:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

That section's really about difficulties and the "eclipse of Darwinism", so a different heading could work better. Perhaps rephrase
"By the mid 1870s, most scientists accepted evolution, but relegated natural selection to a minor role as they believed evolution was purposeful and progressive." on the lines of
"By the mid 1870s, most scientists accepted evolution, but many believed that evolution should be purposeful and progressive, so they relegated natural selection to a minor role."
The triumph of natural selection is in the Modern influence section, and we could perhaps rephrase that to be more positive as you suggest. Another issue with that section is that the caption to the illustration hasn't much to do with Darwin or the book. Perhaps a caption like "Darwin's phylogenic tree has been expanded and clarified by modern discoveries." . . dave souza, talk 19:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
I would fully support a change in the heading, as it is sort of out of place anyway. I was thinking of doing it myself but decided to question here instead. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 19:26, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Have a go! Nothing springs to my mind, and it's rather late in the evening for me. Your comments on the other ideas would also be welcome. . . dave souza, talk 19:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
I renamed the section. Rusty Cashman (talk) 21:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Good call. . . 21:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Religious attitudes

I believe this section is too general and does not maintain the focus on the book. It refers to Darwin's ideas in general and even to some of his other writings. This would be appropriate in a more general article on the impact of Darwin's ideas. This article is about a specific book, and I think any discussion of impact should be restricted to effects of this specific book. Many of the references in this section are not to discussions of the impact of this specific book but to the ideas of Darwin in total. The article focus has remained so marvelously and refreshingly focused on the book itself that it is jarring to come across this section that leaps out of that framework to rehash, from my point of view, general religious/philosophical issues that surely are discussed in many other articles. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 16:13, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

For me, similar thoughts about Developments before Darwin's theory, which repeats material on related pages, and is of peripheral relevance. (see "I would suggest thinning down content well explained elsewhere, and plumping up the factual information on the book" -- Ready for FA, above). Both the length and the readability of the article are barriers to readers. Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:54, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
First to address Mattisse's concerns. As for your comments on the "Religious attitudes" section as a whole, I understand your concern, but I don't see how you could cover the reception of Origin without touching on these theological issues. The general histories of the theory of evolution like (Larson 2004) and (Bowler 2003) spend time discussing these topics when discussing the reception of Darwin's book for a reason. For one thing it is impossible to separate the theological debates from the scientific debate when you have scientists like Asa Gray, Mivart, and Agassiz, whose scientific opinions were so strongly influenced by theology involved. The sharp clear line separating questions of theology and science (especially in the case of biology)that we take for granted now did not exist in the mid 19th century. In fact, as the article points out, the debate over Origin played a significant role in the creation of that line. Your comments on the recent additions to that section seem to me to have much more merit. I think that is a judgement call. Most of the reception subsections cover material prior to the modern evolutionary synthesis where as the Pope's encyclical came right at the end of the synthesis in 1950. At one time there was much more coverage of this in the article (with an actual block quote from the encyclical). I believe that was way too much, but I wasn't completely happy when Dave cut it out completely. Therefore I was willing to restore a brief mention of it when the issue came up in FAC. However, I recognize that that was a judgement call and if a consensus exists among editors and FAC commentsrs to remove it I won't make a fuss. Finally as to the brief reference to the current controversy added to the "Modern influence" section, I think it is probably best to have it there. There used to be a similar brief allusion in the lead. Other editors removed it over my objection, but in hindsight they were probably correct that it did not belong in the lead. However, I knew the issue would come again in FAC. I think we are all agreed that we don't want to spend much space on this topic in this article. However, to talk about "Modern influence" and not mention it at all I think will just puzzle many readers (as it obviously did the FAC commenter). Therefore I think a very brief allusion is appropriate, but again if I am over ruled by consensus I won't make a big fuss.
As to Macdonald-ross's comments. I believe that the approach taken by this article is consistent with the way books are generally treated in Wikipedia articles. That is to emphasize concepts and historical context (particularly for older books) over editorial detail. In particular I think historical context is very important for understanding this book and its impact. Rusty Cashman (talk) 18:27, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Looking over the religious section, it's fair to say that we've treated it as the context and reaction to Darwin's views, and it may be possible to focus more tightly on responses to the book itself. While I was reluctant to give attention to a couple of points which were removed earlier, Rusty's edits have given them suitably concise treatment. Regarding the historical background, that has been tightly focussed on the ideas and developments that influenced Darwin, and is not replicated in the more general historical surveys. We don't expect readers to study the other articles before coming to this one, but background is needed to understand how and why Darwin wrote the book as he did. . . dave souza, talk 18:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Have tightened the religious section, and refocussed it more on the book, as well as moving the mention of Descent of Man to relate to the various scientific ideas about human origins. Revert if it's not wanted. . dave souza, talk 19:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
In particular there are a lot of myths around this book and two of the most persistent are the impression that Darwin invented the concept of organic evolution, and the opposite view, which is that he actually didn't do anything paricularly original because Lamarck and/or Darwin's grandfather had already thought of everything. Another common myth is that the debate in the 19th century was like much of the current creation-evolutionary controversy and revolved around Darwin vs a literal reading of Genesis. Another is that the debate had the church on one side and scientists on the other. The only way to avoid or combat these myths/simplifications is give the appropriate historical context so that the book and the debate can be compared to what had come before. Rusty Cashman (talk) 22:15, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Well, my objection is to possible unnecessary detail in this section. I think you could address the above mentioned issues, the "myths" that are perennial, as that addresses general issues, although I think the article is clear on these issues without further discussion. That is what I liked so much about it. But I question mentioning what the Pope did in the 1950s, as it seems to come from left field. ("The Roman Catholic Church did not have an official position until Pope Pius XII's 1950 encyclical Humani Generis stated that there was no conflict between evolution and Catholic teaching, resulting in acceptance that God's creation occurred in a way consistent with evolution while rejecting any efforts to use the theory to deny divine design.") They did not have a position for almost 100 years, and then when they do state their position they say there is no conflict with evolution. Seems gratuitous. What about other religions that didn't have a position until xxxx year? If the Catholic teaching did say something in reaction to the book at the time, I could see possibly a reason for mentioning it, but not if they waited almost 100 years to have a position. Also, were such specifics as miracles an issue that Darwin addressed in the book? Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 22:45, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
One of the the sources of confusion we have here is that we have two completely different threads. For the record my comments about addressing myths was aimed at Macdonald-ross's proposal to cut the background section not your comments about the religious attitudes section. To return to those objections. It sounds to me as if your primary concern is not with the contents of most of the section but rather with the last couple of sentences recently added about the Catholic church. Would you be happier with something like this:"Some conservative Roman Catholic writers and a conservative group of jesuits who were influential in Rome around 1900, criticized evolution, but other writers starting with theistic evoluton proponent St. George Jackson Mivart pointed out that early church fathers had not interpreted Genesis literally in this area. (Bowler 2003 pp. 323-324). The Church did not take an official position until a papal encyclical in 1950 said that evolution did not conflict with church teachings. (cite the Papal enclyclical)". This has a little less detail and ties a little more directly to reaction immediately after the book was published. Rusty Cashman (talk) 04:03, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
I don't see why a church that did not have a position on evolution until 1950, and then said only that there was no conflict, has to be mentioned at all. What does that have to do with this book? Also, the statement "Baden Powell argued that miracles broke God's laws, so belief in them was atheism," seems out of place, unless Darwin specifically addressed musicales in his book.
I am barely tolerant of "By the early 20th century, even four noted authors of The Fundamentals were explicitly open to the possibility that God created through evolution, but fundamentalism inspired the American creation–evolution controversy which began in the 1920s ...", as I assume that you have some pressure from somewhere to mention this to forestall further objections. But I think it plays into the idea that Darwin is justly targeted for the problems science may cause for religion. And I would strike "even" as it seems a little POV. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 20:09, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
IMO the last paragraph of the Religious attitude section illustrates (without saying so explicitly) how religious attitudes generally evolved (!) towards greater acceptance of naturalistic evolution. So the fact that this took almost a 100 years in the case of the Catholic Church, does not makes much of a difference.
However it is true that the opinions of the Protestants, Catholics and Fundamentalists cited in the paragraph are more related to evolution as a whole rather than OtOoS itself. As such one could argue that these ideas belong in the Modern influence section (which takes the longer term view of the book and the field it arguably started) rather than the Reception section (which concentrates on the contemporaneous reviews and debates). But I am agnostic as to whether a move would be an improvement.
Matisse, I would be interested in your thoughts ?
That aside, I agree with Matisse's objection to "even". Also I think, "though he accepted that Asa Gray did not reject design." can be removed since Hodge's opinion of Asa's opinion is not really too important. Finally, the Hodges opinion contrasts nicely with Powell's views, in that one objects to the book/Darwinism as an argument for atheism, while the other welcomes it as an argument against atheism! Is there a way to reorganize the sentences to makes this contrast clearer (I am not sure why the Hodges view is in the last paragraph anyway) ? Abecedare (talk) 20:44, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

<ec, ri> Rusty's idea looks promising to me, perhaps we could avoid the detail of "and a conservative group of jesuits who were influential in Rome around 1900," covering it by "some conservative Roman Catholic writers and groups". Bowler 2003 pp. 322–324 also covers the endorsement of purposeful evolution by British Anglican and Free Churches, and views of modernists and fundamentalists in the US. I'd like to rethink the paragraph to cover all these issues concisely in very broad terms without giving as much detail as at present. Think that's a useful way forward? Will be a bit tied up by other things until tomorrow afternoon. Rather agree with the points Mattisse makes, the Powell issue was aimed at showing the range of opinions, but we've already got Kingsley. Think it's still worth mentioning his statement about Origin? The above stands about the Catholic part, the fundamentalist part is mentioned by Bowler and goes against the common perception that fundamentalists were anti-evolutionists from the outset, but using Bowler as a source we can probably cover it more concisely and avoid giving the false impression suggested above. . . dave souza, talk 20:59, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I would strongly oppose the removal of the material on Baden-Powel especially the quote about "miracles vs natural law" as this, whether new species were introduce on the basis of natural law or were the product of adhoc miracles, is the heart of the early debate over Origin as Darwin himself was quite aware it would be, which is why he chose the quotes he did, especially the Whewell quote, to preface the book, and why he worded the conclusion the way he did. I will take a shot at some rewording to address some of Matisse's concerns tonight, but there is a limit to how far I think we can go and still completely cover the debate and the issues raised. Rusty Cashman (talk) 23:07, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
Not sure if it helps, but the miracles issue is covered in Baden Powell (mathematician) which cites Darwin's historical essay covering the point in the #Evolution section, and gives more of the text of Powell's discussion of the Origin – note that he refers specifically to "the origination of new species by natural causes" hence dismissing miracles as their source. . . dave souza, talk 23:30, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
Ok, I think I trimmed quite a bit of the detail that may have been bother Matisse, and she was certainly correct about the word "even". In the end I did cut the quote by Baden Powell on miracles since the caption of the picture actually covers the issues more succinctly. I hope the new version will be seen as a step forward by everyone.Rusty Cashman (talk) 23:38, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
I see it as a clear improvement and removes most of my objections. I guess I still wonder why we care what the Catholic Church did in 1950, since as far as I can tell from the article, it did not address the issue before then. Was the Catholic Church's opinion extremely weighty in Darwin's England? —Mattisse (Talk) 00:41, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
Not as important as the church of England certainly, but Mivart was important enough that Darwin devoted most of an entire chapter in the 6th edition to disputing his criticisms of natural selection, and some of the "Catholic writers" alluded to like Belloc and Chesterfield were quite influential with the public. I look at the brief mention of the 1950 encyclical as helping to illustrate how the 19th century debate played out into the 20th chentury. The American fundamentalists went one way in the 1920s and the Catholic Church went another way in 1950. Look on the bright side at least we didn't try and touch upon the Mormons. They still haven't made up their mind officially :) Rusty Cashman (talk) 02:50, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
Among other things, I added some days ago a link to Evolution and the Roman Catholic Church where you can see that it is not the case that the RCC "did not address the issue before" 1950, although it refrained from adopting a direct Papal position until then, probably wisely. The earliest high-level statement was in 1860; if you want to focus more tightly on the book, this could be mentioned, but given some context. There are several whole books on the issue referenced there, that are available (or largely so) online. While the CofE reaction was more important in the UK, it would be hard to argue this globally. Huxley must have been disgusted at the RCC's failure to oppose the Origin, given his statements beforehand. Johnbod (talk) 12:16, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
Johnbod's suggestion seems good. If the reaction of the Catholic Church was important in Britain, then I think some context should be given in the article regarding this, rather than just 20th century examples. A 1950 action seems meaningless and geared toward 20th century concerns about evolution rather that the book's publication. I have no knowledge of the Catholic Church's specific role in all this and would appreciate knowing of it earlier in the article. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 14:34, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
The current information is from Bowler, who doesn't seem to suggest any significant early response in the UK other than Mivart. Roman Catholic Cardinal John Henry Newman said in 1868, “the theory of Darwin, true or not, is not necessarily atheistic; on the contrary, it may simply be suggesting a larger idea of divine providence and skill.”[12] He seems to have expressed an early version of NOMA,[13] but that seemed a bit detailed for this article. Bowler does describe problems evangelicals and Roman Catholics had with progressive evolution conflicting with the doctrine of original sin, and Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton being the most effective opponents of evolutionism, presumably into the 20th century. Will aim to review this. . . dave souza, talk 15:37, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
I liked Johnbod's tweaks, especially the link to the article on the Church's position. I think it is Ok to spend a sentence on the fundamentalists in the 1920 and another on the 1950 papal encyclical, because otherwise I think readers would wonder how these debates played out in the 20th century (I surely would). I think what we have now is a pretty good compromise. I have reworded the final sentence to be a little less controversal. I think that as long as Dave has a reliable source the cardinal's statement could be paraphrased as something like: "in 1868 Cardinal John Henry Newman said that Darwin's theory was not necessarily atheistic and might suggest a larger idea of divine providence", which could be added to the sentence that mentions Mivart's comments about the church fathers not interpreting Genesis literaly. Rusty Cashman (talk) 09:19, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Pigeon skulls

I've changed the caption to Image:Charles Darwin - Pigeon skulls.png to "Darwin researched how the skulls of different pigeon breeds varied, as shown in his Variation of Plants and Animals Under Domestication of 1868." to focus attention on his research at the time the section is dealing with. While the scan may be from a later edition, the same image appears in the 1868 first edition. . dave souza, talk 15:07, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

External links could be reduced to:

1. Darwin On-line: darwin-online.org.uk
2. Darwin Correspondence Project: darwinproject.ac.uk/darwin letters
3. The Darwin Digital Library of Evolution at the AMNH. darwinlibrary.amnh.org/index

There seems no need for sites which duplicate parts well covered by these. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:17, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Good idea, in my opinion. . dave souza, talk 15:15, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
I agree, certainly there is no need to link to 3 different online renditions of the first eidtion! Rusty Cashman (talk) 18:34, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
Have reduced obvious duplicates. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:08, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Reviews of the Origin

This is a most useful section. I suggest the inclusion of several more reviews from The complete works of Charles Darwin on-line, on grounds of their influence & notability.

Gray, Asa 1860. Review of Darwin's theory on the origin of species by means of natural selection. American Journal of Science and Arts (Ser. 2) 29 (March): 153-184.

Gray, Asa 1861. A free examination of Darwin's treatise on the Origin of Species, and of its American reviewers. Reprinted from the Atlantic monthly for July, August, and October, 1860. London: Trübner & Co., Boston: Ticknor and Fields. (This is the pamphlet sponsored by Darwin)

Huxley T.H. Review in the Times, Dec 26 1859. His first review of the Origin, which elicited a wonderful letter from Darwin, 28th Dec 1859.

The source notes that there are many more reviews, most not yet available on-line. We might one day find we had material for a complete article on this topic. I would also recommend switching all entries in this section to The complete works of Charles Darwin on-line instead of Victorianweb. It makes sense to concentrate on the most complete source, and Vicweb is prone to small type size. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:21, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Darwin's own collection of reviews: 347 reviews, plus 1571 general articles, plus 336 items of large size, and 2 vols of newspaper clippings. Browne 2, p104. All in the Darwin Collection at Cambridge, DAR 262. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:02, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
Reviews & Responses to Darwin gives their main reviews, and links to lists of the others, mostly available only as images. . . dave souza, talk 15:40, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
So shouldn't we explicitly add that cite to the external links section? Like was done with the bibliography? Rusty Cashman (talk) 19:21, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
Since the section is just above the external links section, it seemed to work to include it below the review links. Have implemented the suggestion using the same formatting, not sure that it's 100% consistent. Would it be worthwhile putting them all into citation templates? . . dave souza, talk 21:50, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
I think everything looks pretty good now.Rusty Cashman (talk) 08:18, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
Yes, that's good. Thanks. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:01, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Interesting coincidence :-)

I was just scrolling through the "On this day..."s at the top of the page, and it's funny, and oddly appropriate, that Lucy was discovered on November 24, 1974, 125 115 years, to the date, after the publication of the Origin [14]. I have no idea how to make that help the article, but perhaps it's something for the main page again on November 24. This also means that November 24 will be the 25 35th anniversary of the discovery of Lucy. Is there anything planned for that article? Cheers, Edhubbard (talk) 23:38, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Not at the moment, but if someone wanted to find/add some DYK material to that article it would be a good idea. The plan (at least so much as some of us have one) is to have this article be the featured article for that day in honor of the 150th anniversary of publication. Lucy would be an interesting article to try and bring up to FA standards so that it could be featured on the front page by next year. Rusty Cashman (talk) 10:11, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
Sounds like a good idea to put it up for WP:SA, and as with Darwin's birthday we could prepare some new articles in user space for timed going mainstream to appear in WP:DYK. . . dave souza, talk 15:29, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
(Fixed my math above, yesh!) I'll start looking around to see if there is anything interesting, like a recent book, or article, that we could use as a tie in. I know that Lucy was on tour for a while, but that was a while ago, so not exactly newsworthy. I guess I should also start a similar conversation on the Lucy page, and associated pages. Cheers, Edhubbard (talk) 16:15, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
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