One of the most important scientific books in history, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, was published on this day in 1859. Darwin used his researches since the 1830s to formulate a testable mechanism for biological development: in the struggle for existence, a variation in an organism that is conducive to survival and reproduction is passed to the organism's descendants.
Various writers influenced Darwin: Malthus on population and resources, de Candolle on struggle, Lamarck on biological development, Lyell on geology, the anonymous Vestiges of Creation on species change, Humboldt on the interconnectedness of natural phenomena, and others.
If you know the story, Darwin had considered biological and geological origins since his 1830s world trip, but delayed publishing his hypotheses and was, in the 1850s, researching marine invertebrates when his friend, the pioneering geologist Charles Lyell, alerted him that Alfred Russel Wallace, doing his own research in the Malay islands, was developing a similar theory of species transmutation. Though ill, and bereaved about his young son's death, Darwin hurried to complete this book, and published several more books over the next twenty years about botany and species development. Wallace never seemed chagrined at all that Darwin established priority on theory, dedicated his own classic book The Malay Archipelago to Darwin, and contributed his own insights about natural selection. Darwin used his own fame and influence to help Wallace (who unlike Darwin was not of the aristocracy) gain his proper standing in the scientific community.
Subsequent researchers were able to incorporate Mendel's research in heredity with Darwin's principles. The first edition of 1250 copies of "Origin" sold out the same day. The first American edition appeared in January 1860. This is the Missouri Botanical Garden's copy of the first edition.
No comments:
Post a Comment