Allen Esterson wrote: > "Mind the gap: Did Darwin avoid publishing his theory for many years? > http://tinyurl.com/cobvtn > > It is by John van Whye, historian of science at=2 > 0Cambridge University, > and Director of The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. > http://darwin-online.org.uk/people/van_wyhe.html > > A brief (though inadequate) summary of Whye's views is given here: > "Contrary to the beliefs of many Darwin scholars, the great > evolutionist did not delay publishing his theory for fear of > professional ridicule or social shame. According to a new analysis of > Charles Darwin's correspondence, the real reason was much more prosaic > - he was snowed under with work." > http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/mar/28/uk.books > >
Allen, I've read van Wyhe's article. Although it cleared out a lot of underbrush (like the Bowlby stuff), I must say that I didn't find his "too many other important things to do" account to Darwin's "delay" wholly convincing. The urgency of the barnacle book can't really be made to bear quite so much weight, IMHO. The issue, it seems to me, was not so much whether he was "afraid" of religious authorities but, rather, that he knew the theory would be extremely controversial, and he wanted to collect in advance as many lines of evidence as possible in order to be able to most effectively defend his position (having seen all too well what happened in the /Vestiges/ controversy of the late 1840s). The issue of his wife's conventional Christianity seems to have been played up a lot recently in order to "personalize" the matter (making for better drama, but perhaps not for better history). That said, I, too, was a little underwhelmed by the trailer for the PBS show: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/darwin/program-q-300.html Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 chri...@yorku.ca http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ========================== --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
