ARTICLE: Seaside natural history and divinity: a science-inclined Scottish cleric’s avoidance of evolution (1860–1868)

New in Archives of Natural History:

Seaside natural history and divinity: a science-inclined Scottish cleric’s avoidance of evolution (1860–1868)

P.G. Moore

Abstract The Reverend Robert William Fraser (1810–1876), a Presbyterian minister in Edinburgh, published on religious, historical and scientific (physical science, natural history) themes. His natural history titles Ebb and flow (1860), Seaside divinity (1861) and The seaside naturalist (1868) were aimed at the popular market. Appearing in the years immediately after Darwin’s On the origin of species (1859), the tone of Fraser’s books sheds light on the response of a popular, science-inclined clergyman in Scotland’s Enlightenment capital to the idea of evolution. His avoidance of the issue of evolution by natural selection is evident but was not shared by all contemporary clerics.

ARTICLE: Abandoning Evolution: The Forgotten History of Antievolution Activism and the Transformation of American Social Science

Published in the most recent issue of Isis:

Abandoning Evolution: The Forgotten History of Antievolution Activism and the Transformation of American Social Science

Michael Lienesch

Abstract From its inception, antievolution activism has been aimed not only at the natural sciences but also, and almost as often, at the social sciences. Although almost entirely overlooked by scholars, this activism played a significant part in the development of American social science in the early twentieth century. Analyzing public writings and private papers of antievolution activists, academic social scientists, and university officials from the 1920s, this essay recalls this forgotten history, showing how antievolution activism contributed to the abandonment of evolutionary theory and the adoption of a set of secular, scientific, and professional characteristics that have come to define much of modern social science.

ARTICLE: Buckland, Darwin and the attempted recognition of an Ice Age in Wales, 1837–1842 ☆

From the Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association in August 2012:

Buckland, Darwin and the attempted recognition of an Ice Age in Wales, 1837–1842

Michael B. Roberts

Abstract The concept of a former Ice Age was introduced to Britain by Agassiz, first, through Buckland in 1838 and then by his tour of Britain in 1840. The reception was mixed due to the Iceberg theory, which was held by Darwin, Lyell and Murchison and others. After 1840, Murchison looked for a compromise between Glaciers and Icebergs and this came in the work of Bowman and Buckland in 1841 and Darwin during 1842 in Snowdonia and the Marches. There were three geologists visiting Wales, all familiar with glaciation; Bowman failed to find any glaciation and Buckland and Darwin, who identified both alpine-glacier and “ice-berg” glaciation and reinterpreted their previous work. Thus both a Catastrophist and a Uniformitarian came to similar conclusions, but it was several decades before a consensus was found, which was delayed by Darwin’s emphasis on submergence.

ARTICLE: Monkeys into Men and Men into Monkeys: Chance and Contingency in the Evolution of Man, Mind and Morals in Charles Kingsley’s Water Babies

From the Journal of the History of Biology:

Monkeys into Men and Men into Monkeys: Chance and Contingency in the Evolution of Man, Mind and Morals in Charles Kingsley’s Water Babies

Piers J. Hale

Abstract The nineteenth century theologian, author and poet Charles Kingsley was a notable populariser of Darwinian evolution. He championed Darwin’s cause and that of honesty in science for more than a decade from 1859 to 1871. Kingsley’s interpretation of evolution shaped his theology, his politics and his views on race. The relationship between men and apes set the context for Kingsley’s consideration of these issues. Having defended Darwin for a decade in 1871 Kingsley was dismayed to read Darwin’s account of the evolution of morals in Descent of Man. He subsequently distanced himself from Darwin’s conclusions even though he remained an ardent evolutionist until his death in 1875.

ARTICLE: “Darwin and the Tree of Life: the roots of the evolutionary tree”

Also in Archives of Natural History:

Darwin and the Tree of Life: the roots of the evolutionary tree

Nils Petter Hellström

Abstract To speak of evolutionary trees and of the Tree of Life has become routine in evolution studies, despite recurrent objections. Because it is not immediately obvious why a tree is suited to represent evolutionary history – woodland trees do not have their buds in the present and their trunks in the past, for a start – the reason why trees make sense to us is historically and culturally, not scientifically, predicated. To account for the Tree of Life, simultaneously genealogical and cosmological, we must explore the particular context in which Darwin declared the natural order to be analogous to a pedigree, and in which he communicated this vision by recourse to a tree. The name he gave his tree reveals part of the story, as before Darwin’s appropriation of it, the Tree of Life grew in Paradise at the heart of God’s creation.

ARTICLE: “Darwin’s two competing phylogenetic trees: marsupials as ancestors or sister taxa?”

In Archives of Natural History:

Darwin’s two competing phylogenetic trees: marsupials as ancestors or sister taxa?

J. David Archibald

Abstract Studies of the origin and diversification of major groups of plants and animals are contentious topics in current evolutionary biology. This includes the study of the timing and relationships of the two major clades of extant mammals – marsupials and placentals. Molecular studies concerned with marsupial and placental origin and diversification can be at odds with the fossil record. Such studies are, however, not a recent phenomenon. Over 150 years ago Charles Darwin weighed two alternative views on the origin of marsupials and placentals. Less than a year after the publication of On the origin of species, Darwin outlined these in a letter to Charles Lyell dated 23 September 1860. The letter concluded with two competing phylogenetic diagrams. One showed marsupials as ancestral to both living marsupials and placentals, whereas the other showed a non-marsupial, non-placental as being ancestral to both living marsupials and placentals. These two diagrams are published here for the first time. These are the only such competing phylogenetic diagrams that Darwin is known to have produced. In addition to examining the question of mammalian origins in this letter and in other manuscript notes discussed here, Darwin confronted the broader issue as to whether major groups of animals had a single origin (monophyly) or were the result of “continuous creation” as advocated for some groups by Richard Owen. Charles Lyell had held similar views to those of Owen, but it is clear from correspondence with Darwin that he was beginning to accept the idea of monophyly of major groups.

ARTICLE: “Evolution and Biogeography: Leading Students in Darwin’s and Wallace’s Footsteps”

The following article is from the journal Evolution: Education and Outreach:

Evolution and Biogeography: Leading Students in Darwin’s and Wallace’s Footsteps

Joshua Rosenau

Abstract Exploring life’s diversity and geography’s effect on it was central to Darwin and Wallace’s parallel discoveries of evolution. Those discoveries required the two to overcome their own misconceptions about species and biology. By helping students to see the world through the eyes of explorers and placing life’s diversity into a geographic context, teachers can help students overcome those same barriers to the acceptance of evolution and deepen students’ appreciation of biodiversity.

ARTICLE: Evolution Born of Moisture: Analogies and Parallels Between Anaximander’s Ideas on Origin of Life and Man and Later Pre-Darwinian and Darwinian Evolutionary Concepts

From the Journal of the History of Biology:

Evolution Born of Moisture: Analogies and Parallels Between Anaximander’s Ideas on Origin of Life and Man and Later Pre-Darwinian and Darwinian Evolutionary Concepts

Radim Kočandrle and Karel Kleisner

Abstract This study focuses on the origin of life as presented in the thought of Anaximander of Miletus but also points to some parallel motifs found in much later conceptions of both the pre-Darwinian German romantic science and post-Darwinian biology. According to Anaximander, life originated in the moisture associated with earth (mud). This moist environment hosted the first living creatures that later populated the dry land. In these descriptions, one can trace the earliest hints of the notion of environmental adaptation. The origin of humans was seen as connected in some way with fish: ancient humans were supposed to have developed inside fish-like animals. Anaximander took into account changes in the development of living creatures (adaptations) and speculated on the origins of humans. Similar ideas are found also in the writings of much later, eighteenth and nineteenth century authors who were close to the tradition of German romantic science. We do not argue that these later concepts are in any way directly linked with those of the pre-Socratics, but they show surprising parallels in, e.g., the hypothesis that life originated in a moist environment or the supposition that human developed from fish-like ancestors. These transformations are seen as a consequence of timeless logic rather than as evolution in historical terms. Despite the accent on the origin of living things, both Anaximander and the later Naturphilosophen lack in their notions the element most characteristic of Darwin’s thought, that is, the emphasis on historicity and uniqueness of all that comes into being.

Darwin issue of Journal of Cambridge Studies

In 2009, the Journal of Cambridge Studies devoted an issue to Darwin, and the articles are freely accessible as PDFs:

Charles Darwin’s Cambridge Life 1828-1831 by John van Wyhe

Darwin’s years in Cambridge were some of the most important and formative of his early life. For the rest of his life he felt a particular affection for Cambridge. For a time he even considered a Cambridge professorship as a career and he sent three of his sons there to be educated. …

Christian Evolutionists in the United States, 1860-1900 by Bernard Lightman

In this paper I will examine the theistic evolutionism of four important American Christian leaders, Minot Judson Savage, Joseph Cook, Henry Ward Beecher, and Lyman Abbott. From the late 1870¡¯s to the 1890¡¯s these men played a key role in the construction of a theory of evolution congenial to various forms of Christianity. …

The Secret History of Victorian Evolution by James A. Secord

I have a confession to make. For the past three years I have been Director of the Darwin Correspondence Project, and have spent much of this time (and certainly most of 2009) making Darwin better known. It is a part of my job. …

What Does Evolutionary Science Provide for Contemporary Philosophy? On Ernst Mayr’s “New Philosophy of Biology” by Jianhui Li

Ernst Mayr is a well-known biologist and philosopher in the twentieth century. Being a biologist, he is an important person in constructing the synthesis theory of evolution; being a philosopher, he has advocated a new philosophy, which, he claims, synthesizes the achievement of different biologies and physics, while at the same time getting rid of the influences of the traditional philosophy of science. …

A Non-Darwinian in the Darwin Year by Jim Secord and Haiyan Yang

no summary

ARTICLES: Science, Literature, and the Darwin Legacy

In 2010, the journal 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century devoted an issue to Darwin and literature, and the articles are available for free online:

Articles

	Introduction: Science, Literature, and the Darwin Legacy	ABSTRACT PDF HTML
	Paul White

	Losing the Plot: the Geological Anti-Narrative	ABSTRACT PDF HTML
	Adelene Buckland

	‘By a Comparison of Incidents and Dialogue’: Richard Owen, Comparative Anatomy and Victorian Serial Fiction	ABSTRACT PDF HTML
	Gowan Dawson

	Narrating Darwinian Inheritances: Fields, Life Stories and the Literature-Science Relation	ABSTRACT PDF HTML
	David Amigoni

	After Darwin’s Plots	ABSTRACT PDF HTML
	Gillian Beer

	Field Studies: Novels as Darwinian Niches, Poetry for Physicists and Mathematicians	ABSTRACT PDF HTMLGALLERY
	Daniel Walter Brown

	‘The Lay of the Trilobite’: Rereading May Kendall	ABSTRACT PDF HTML
	John Robert Holmes

	Darwin as Metaphor	ABSTRACT PDF HTML
	Emily Ballou

	The Curatorial Turn in the Darwin Year 2009	ABSTRACT PDF HTMLGALLERY
	Julia Voss

	Darwin and Reductionisms: Victorian, Neo-Darwinian and Postgenomic Biologies	ABSTRACT PDF HTML
	Angelique Richardson

	Darwin and Genomics: Regenia Gagnier interviews John Dupré	ABSTRACT INTERVIEW
	John Dupré, Regenia Gagnier

ARTICLE: Did Darwin read Mendel?

This was from 2009 in the QJM: An International Journal of Medicine, but I just came across it:

Did Darwin read Mendel?

David Galton

Read no further if you want a definite answer to this question. It is a sort of detective story with clues scattered around. The circumstances surrounding the question however are so interesting since they involve two of the most important scientific publications of the 19th century.

Read the rest here.

ARTICLE: The ‘Annie Hypothesis’: Did the Death of His Daughter Cause Darwin to ‘Give up Christianity’?

John van Wyhe and Mark Pallen have published their long-awaited article on Darwin and the death of his daughter in the journal Centaurus:

The ‘Annie Hypothesis’: Did the Death of His Daughter Cause Darwin to ‘Give up Christianity’?

Abstract This article examines one of the most widely believed episodes in the life of Charles Darwin, that the death of his daughter Annie in 1851 caused the end of Darwin’s belief in Christianity, and according to some versions, ended his attendance of church on Sundays. This hypothesis, it is argued, is commonly treated as a straightforward true account of Darwin’s life, yet there is little or no supporting evidence. Furthermore, we argue, there is sufficient evidence that Darwin’s loss of faith occurred before Annie’s death.

ARTICLE: Darwin’s laws

From Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences:

Darwin’s laws

Chris Haufe

Abstract There is widespread agreement among contemporary philosophers of biology and philosophically-minded biologists that Darwin’s insights about the intrusion of chance processes into biological regularities undermines the possibility of there being biological laws. Darwin made references to “designed laws.” He also freely described some laws as having exceptions. This paper provides a philosophical analysis of the notion of scientific laws that was dominant in Darwin’s time, and in all probability the one which he inherited. The analysis of laws is then used to show how it could have been natural for Darwin to believe in designed laws that had exceptions, and to highlight the continuity between the metaphysics of pre-Darwinian, Darwinian, and contemporary biological science. One important result is the removal of one motivation for the anti-laws sentiment in philosophy and biology.

ARTICLE: The secret life of plants: Visualizing vegetative movement, 1880–1903

In the journal Early Popular Visual Culture (10:1, 2012):

The secret life of plants: Visualizing vegetative movement, 1880–1903

Oliver Gaycken

Abstract As devices of motion analysis were introduced into botanical research in the late nineteenth century, Charles and Francis Darwin, Wilhelm Pfeffer, and investigators at the Marey Institute used a variety of techniques to visualize plant movements whose slowness rendered them otherwise imperceptible. These ‘time-lapse’ images provided novel visual records that initially were seen as providing evidence of an evolutionary link between the plant and animal kingdoms. While time-lapse plant growth images ultimately could not provide proof that plants are evolutionarily related to animals, time-lapse images did remain useful as a means to demonstrate the remarkable vitality of plants to students and lay audiences, and Oskar Messter’s exhibition of a time-lapse plant growth film was the first of a long tradition of time-lapse plant growth films that circulated in popular culture.

ARTICLE: Evolution, Medicine, and the Darwin Family

From the journal Evolution: Education and Outreach:

Evolution, Medicine, and the Darwin Family

Michael F. Antolin

Abstract The common scientific roots of evolution and medicine are deep, as these fields of science developed in parallel from the Enlightenment in the late 1700s to the modern genomics era. The influence of the medical sciences on the discovery of evolution in the 1700s and 1800s is typified by how the medical family of Charles Darwin, including his grandfather Dr. Erasmus Darwin and father Dr. Robert Waring Darwin, directly and indirectly guided Charles’ scientific development and eventual discovery of natural selection. In particular, in the 1700s, Erasmus Darwin was a prolific writer, legendary doctor, and published extensive descriptions of both the process of adaptation and common descent among all of life (including humans). The influence began with Charles’ years in medical school at Edinburgh and is recorded in Charles Darwin’s own letters and notebooks. Despite scientific overlap, evolution and medicine have remained distant from each other, in part because of the same religious and political reasons that many oppose the view of a world changing via evolution. But evolution also has been limited in its influence on the biomedical sciences because of abuses and misunderstanding. The three issues discussed here are (1) typological application of medical “constitutions,” (2) teleological thinking in how adaptations evolve, and (3) the misapplication of evolution during the eugenics period up to the 1940s. The modern-day surge of interest and synthesis between evolutionary biology and the biomedical sciences, medical practice, and public health can build on a long legacy that spans more than two centuries. The large role played by the Darwin family of doctors can bring this history to life, can be used to illustrate potential pitfalls as the synthesis moves forward, and may be of interest to students both as undergraduates and in medical schools.

ARTICLE: A new theory to explain the receipt of Wallace’s Ternate Essay by Darwin in 1858

A new article by John van Wyhe (Darwin Online and Wallace Online [coming soon!]) and Kees Rookmaaker looks at the claim that Darwin held on to Wallace’s letter from Ternate for two weeks and used it to modify his own theory (essentially, that Darwin stole from Wallace). In the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society for January 2012:

A new theory to explain the receipt of Wallace’s Ternate Essay by Darwin in 1858 

John van Wyhe and Kees Rookmaaker

Abstract In early 1858, when he was in the Moluccas, Wallace drafted an essay to explain evolution by natural selection and posted it to Darwin. For many years it was believed that the Ternate essay left the island in March on the monthly mail steamer, and arrived at Down House on 18 June 1858. Darwin immediately wrote to Lyell, as requested by Wallace, forwarding the essay. This sequence was cast in doubt after the discovery of a letter written by Wallace to Bates leaving on the same steamer with postmarks showing its arrival in Leicester on 3 June 1858. Darwin has been accused of keeping the essay secret for a fortnight, thereby enabling him to revise elements of his theory of evolution. We intend to show that Wallace in fact sent the Ternate essay on the mail steamer of April 1858, for which the postal connections actually indicate the letter to have arrived precisely on 18 June. Darwin is thus vindicated from accusations of deceit. Wallace’s Ternate essay and extracts from Darwin’s theoretical manuscripts were read at a meeting of the Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858, which is now recognized as a milestone in the history of science.

ARTICLES: “Darwin’s “Beloved Barnacles” & “What Would Have Happened if Darwin Had Known Mendel”

Two Darwin articles from Vol. 33, no. 1 (2011) of the journal History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences:

Darwin’s “Beloved Barnacles”: Tough Lessons in Variation

 

Costas Mannouris

 

Abstract In 1846, burdened by insecurity and self-doubt, and having been convinced that he needed to study some group of organisms closely, Darwin embarked on an eight-year odyssey in the protean and perplexing world of barnacles. At the time, he was searching for evidence in support of his theory of evolution by natural selection. In the course of his long study of barnacles, however, he was not just validating his preexisting theoretical system, but was also modifying his views on such fundamental aspects as the universality of individual variation, which is the focus of this paper. According to this notion, the members of any population of living things are expected to exhibit sufficient differences from one another for natural selection to operate. By emphasizing the theoretical value of the barnacle project, my analysis contributes to the historiographic tradition which highlights the significance of the period between the first comprehensive formulation of the theory of evolution by natural selection in 1844 and its urgent publication in the late 1850s. In the course of these years, Darwin’s theory was not just accumulating empirical laurels, but was also expected to adapt to a changing conceptual landscape.

and:

What Would Have Happened if Darwin Had Known Mendel (or Mendel’s Work)?

 

Pablo Lorenzano

 

Abstract The question posed by the title is usually answered by saying that the “synthesis” between the theory of evolution by natural selection and classical genetics, which took place in 1930s-40s, would have taken place much earlier if Darwin had been aware of Mendel and his work. What is more, it nearly happened: it would have been enough if Darwin had cut the pages of the offprint of Mendel’s work that was in his library and read them! Or, if Mendel had come across Darwin in London or paid him a visit at his house in the outskirts! (on occasion of Mendel’s trip in 1862 to that city). The aim of the present paper is to provide elements for quite a different answer, based on further historical evidence, especially on Mendel’s works, some of which mention Darwins’s studies.

ARTICLE: Darwin’s Other Bulldog: Charles Kingsley and the Popularisation of Evolution in Victorian England

In the journal Science & Education:

Darwin’s Other Bulldog: Charles Kingsley and the Popularisation of Evolution in Victorian England

 

Piers J. Hale

 

Abstract The nineteenth-century Anglican Priest Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) was a significant populariser of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. Kingsley was successful in this regard because he developed such diverse connections throughout his career. In the 1840s he associated with Chartists and radical journalists; in the 1850s and 1860s he moved freely in scientific circles and was elected Fellow of the Linnean Society of London in 1856 and Fellow of the Geological Society of London in 1863. In 1859 he was appointed Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen. In 1860 the Prince Consort was willing and able to secure Kingsley appointment as the Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University and he subsequently became tutor to the Prince of Wales. Thereafter he was frequently invited into high Victorian Society. A friend of ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’ Thomas Huxley, of the eminent geologist Charles Lyell and a correspondent of Darwin, at every turn he sought to promote Darwin’s ideas as theologically orthodox, a life-long campaign in which he was eminently successful.

ARTICLE: On Suffering and Sympathy: Jude the Obscure, Evolution, and Ethics

From the journal Victorian Studies:

On Suffering and Sympathy: Jude the Obscure, Evolution, and Ethics

 

Caroline Sumpter

 

Abstract This article links Thomas Hardy’s exploration of sympathy in Jude the Obscure to contemporary scientific debates over moral evolution. Tracing the relationship between pessimism, progressivism, and determinism in Hardy’s understanding of sympathy, it also considers Hardy’s conception of the author as enlarger of “social sympathies”—a position, I argue, that was shaped by Leslie Stephen’s advocacy of novel writing as moral art. Considering Hardy’s engagement with writings by Charles Darwin, T. H. Huxley, Herbert Spencer, and others, I explore the novel’s participation in a debate about the evolutionary significance of sympathy and its implications for Hardy’s understanding of moral agency. Hardy, I suggest, offered a stronger defence of morality based on biological determinism than Darwin, but this determinism was linked to an unexpected evolutionary optimism.

ARTICLE: Historical Science, Over- and Underdetermined: A Study of Darwin’s Inference of Origins

From the December 2011 issue of the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science:

Historical Science, Over- and Underdetermined: A Study of Darwin’s Inference of Origins

Aviezer Tucker

Abstract The epistemology of the historical sciences has been debated recently. Cleland argued that the effects of the past overdetermine it. Turner argued that the past is underdetermined by its effects because of the decay of information from the past. I argue that the extent of over- and underdetermination cannot be approximated by philosophical inquiry. It is an empirical question that each historical science attempts to answer. Philosophers should examine how paradigmatic cases of historical science handled underdetermination or utilized overdetermination. I analyze such a paradigmatic case, Darwins phylogenetic inferences. Darwin proceeded in three consecutive stages. The initial inference that there was some common cause of homologies was usually overdetermined. The final inference of the character traits of ancestor species was usually underdetermined. The second stage inference of the causal net that connected the species that share some common cause was inbetween. A comparison with Comparative Historical Linguistics demonstrates similar three stages of inference that move from the over- to the underdetermined.

Two articles about Darwin, evolution, and books by Bernard Lightman

In Notes & Records of the Royal Society:

The many lives of Charles Darwin: early biographies and the definitive evolutionist

Bernard Lightman

Abstract This article focuses on the early book-length biographies of Darwin published from his death in 1882 up to 1900. By making 1900 the cutoff point I can examine the biographies produced when the iconic figure was not yet set in stone, and before the rediscovery of Mendel’s work in the early twentieth century and the anniversary celebrations of 1909 changed the way in which Darwin was regarded. Darwin’s biographers dealt with three major themes. First, several biographers emphasized his scientific abilities, in particular his powers of observation and his prowess in conducting experiments. Second, many biographers discussed his character, a key issue in determining whether or not he could be trusted as a scientific guide. Finally, his scientific theories and religious beliefs, and how they related to the evolutionary controversy, formed a topic taken up by most biographers. By focusing on these three themes, the biographies published before 1900 were important in shaping the image of Darwin that was forming in American and British culture.

In Science & Education:

Evolution for Young Victorians

Bernard Lightman

Abstract Evolution was a difficult topic to tackle when writing books for the young in the wake of the controversies over Darwin’s Origin of Species. Authors who wrote about evolution for the young experimented with different ways of making the complex concepts of evolutionary theory accessible and less controversial. Many authors depicted presented evolution in a non-Darwinian form amenable to religious interpretation.

ARTICLE: Making a Theist out of Darwin: Asa Gray’s Post-Darwinian Natural Theology

Online first from the journal Science & Education:

Making a Theist out of Darwin: Asa Gray’s Post-Darwinian Natural Theology

T. Russell Hunter

Abstract In March of 1860 the eminent Harvard Botanist and orthodox Christian Asa Gray began promoting the Origin of Species in hopes of securing a fair examination of Darwin’s evolutionary theory among theistic naturalists. To this end, Gray sought to demonstrate that Darwin had not written atheistically and that his theory of evolution by natural selection had not presented any new scientific or theological difficulties for traditional Christian belief. From his personal correspondence with the author of the Origin, Gray well knew that Darwin did not affirm God’s “particular” design of nature but conceded to the possibility that evolution proceeded according to “designed laws.” From this concession, Gray attempted to develop a post-Darwinian natural theology which encouraged theistic naturalists to view God’s design of nature through the evolutionary process in a manner similar to the way in which they viewed God’s Providential interaction with human history. Indeed, securing a fair reading of the Origin was not Gray’s sole aim as a promoter of Darwinian ideas. In Darwin’s theory of natural selection, Gray believed he had discovered the means by which a more robust natural theological conception of the living and evolving natural world could be developed. In this paper I outline Gray’s efforts to produce and popularize a theistic interpretation of Darwinian theory in order to correct various misconceptions concerning Gray’s natural theological views and their role in the Darwinian Revolution.

ARTICLE: A Yahgan for the killing: murder, memory and Charles Darwin

A new Darwin article from the British Journal for the History of Science:

A Yahgan for the killing: murder, memory and Charles Darwin

Joseph L. Yannielli

Abstract In March 1742, British naval officer John Byron witnessed a murder on the western coast of South America. Both Charles Darwin and Robert FitzRoy seized upon Byron’s story a century later, and it continues to play an important role in Darwin scholarship today. This essay investigates the veracity of the murder, its appropriation by various authors, and its false association with the Yahgan people encountered during the second voyage of the Beagle (1831–1836). Darwin’s use of the story is examined in multiple contexts, focusing on his relationship with the history of European expansion and cross-cultural interaction and related assumptions about slavery and race. The continuing fascination with Byron’s story highlights the key role of historical memory in the development and interpretation of evolutionary theory.

ARTICLE: Inspiration in the Harness of Daily Labor: Darwin, Botany, and the Triumph of Evolution, 1859–1868

From the journal Isis (September 2011):

Inspiration in the Harness of Daily Labor: Darwin, Botany, and the Triumph of Evolution, 1859–1868

Richard Bellon

Abstract Charles Darwin hoped that a large body of working naturalists would embrace evolution after the Origin of Species appeared in late 1859. He was disappointed. His evolutionary ideas at first made painfully little progress in the scientific community. But by 1863 the tide had turned dramatically, and within five years evolution became scientific orthodoxy in Britain. The Origin‘s reception followed this peculiar trajectory because Darwin had not initially tied its theory to productive original scientific investigation, which left him vulnerable to charges of reckless speculation. The debate changed with his successful application of evolution to original problems, most notably orchid fertilization, the subject of a well‐received book in 1862. Most of Darwin’s colleagues found the argument of the Origin convincing when they realized that it functioned productively in the day‐to‐day work of science—and not before. The conceptual force of the Origin, however outwardly persuasive, acquired full scientific legitimacy only when placed “in the harness of daily labour.”

ARTICLE: Questions of Inscription and Epistemology in British Travelers’ Accounts of Early Nineteenth-Century South America

From the Annals of the Association of American Geographers (published online May 2011):

Questions of Inscription and Epistemology in British Travelers’ Accounts of Early Nineteenth-Century South America

Innes M. Keighren & Charles W.J. Withers

Abstract This article examines the problems of truth and of trust in travelers’ narratives. Following a review of work on travel writing and the place of printed travel narratives in the making of geographical enquiry, we discuss how issues of inscription and credibility are intrinsic to the material and epistemic transformation of narratives from their manuscript beginnings to their printed form. Particular attention is paid to the narratives of travel in early nineteenth-century South America issued by the London publisher John Murray. By interrogating the embodied practices of travel writing, this article investigates the ways in which Murray’s authors sought to establish a correspondence between their lived experiences and the textual representations of those experiences. The article focuses on the epistemological bases to travelers’ claims to truth and how they evaluated differently the significance of direct observation and the oral and textual testimony of third parties in the production of travel accounts that sought to reveal a newly independent South America to the reading public. In its examination of the complex connections linking author, publisher, and audience, the work has implications for scholars interested in the relationship between writing and the printed word in geography.

A brief mention is made of Darwin: “What was taking place there and with these authors was more common than might be supposed: Darwin modified his written reports on South America and on much else for fear of offending his wife and peers; African travelers regulated their published work for fear of audience reproof; polar explorers commonly redacted their narratives between the field and the study Because this is so, the way in which travelers chose to write their accounts matters as a subject of scholarly attention, as does the relationship between narrative as practice and audiences’ and publishers’ perceptions of texts’ value and credibility” (p. 13)