Talk:History of evolutionary thought

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There ought to be a bit in the recent developments section or discipline section about problems in evolutionary biology being the origin of philosophy of biology, which differentiated itself considerably from general philosophy of science (which was and remains mainly physics-oriented).--ragesoss 15:21, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Modboddo again

I've removed the following recent addition:

Between 1767 and 1792 James Burnett, Lord Monboddo included in his writings the concepts that man was derived from primates, and that creatures had found methods of transforming their characteristics over long time intervals in response to their environment. He also produced important research on the evolution of linguistics. Jan-Andrew Henderson states (Henderson, 2000) that Monboddo was the first to articulate the theory of natural selection:

"He [Monboddo] was a minor celebrity in Edinburgh because he was considered to be very eccentric. But he actually came up with the idea that men may have evolved instead of being created by God. His views were dismissed because people thought he was mad and in those days it was a very controversial view to hold. But he felt it was a logical possibility and it caused him a great deal of consternation. He actually did not want to believe the theory because he was a very religious person."

This credit to Monboddo is echoed by numerous other scholars including Lovejoy, Cloyd and Bailey.

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon published extensive taxonomic volumes on species; he agreed with Monboddo regarding the common ancestry of apes and man, but Monboddo rebutted Buffon's work, indicating that Buffon did not understand that man had transformed to a higher state by adaptive change over long periods of time to produce a better (or altered) species. In fact, Monboddo did not have a deep understanding of taxonomy and would not have used the term "different species" to discuss apes and man.

This is way too much credit to Monboddo, and none of the scholars mentioned are historians of evolution. This content above also conflates natural selection with common descent -- they are not the same thing. Sayiing that you think humans and apes (monkeys, to be specific in Monboddos case, if I remember correctly) are related is not the same thing as having a theory of natural selection. Considering that Monboddo is generally not even mentioned in most definitive textbooks on the history of evolutionary thought, any reference to him should be short and fleeting if we are to include it in this article. He was not influential, his theories were not well articulated, and his theories had little to do with any future evolutionary thought which came along. The above excerpt conveniently leaves out all of the aspects of Monboddo's theories which are now seen as ridiculous in an attempt to give him some sort of ridiculous amount of priority which nobody serious attributes to him. I do not know what motivates this on-going attempt to label Lord Monboddo as the creator of the theory of natural selection but it seems to me most misguided. --Fastfission 17:01, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

first of all ff, you are incorrect that the material you removed was a recent addition . the intitial part has been standing for quite some time and was written at your express suggestion that this article was the proper venue to comment on Monboddo's role along with other early precursors. you have had about a month to examine that portion of the monboddo text along with everyone else in the world and that initial text had stood unopposed for all that time!

secondly you specifically asked me to bring in more recent sources than some of the older ones. i just brought two new sources and you eliminate them without taking the time to read the original sources i provided.

i think your censorship of the monboddo role is clearly POV. what makes the scholars you cite the "only ones" that are the "true scholars of evolution". all this makes me think that you are not open to hearing all sides of the real story.

monboddo clearly understood more than the morphological similarities of species. his works are full of references to adaptation and selection of trait development.

just because a number of scholars havent given monboddo credit doesnt mean they are correct. it just shows they havent read his work. (Erasmus Darwin read it and charles darwin read eramus work; erasmus clearly understood evolution as well)

now as for your ad hominem remark that my editing seems misguided, i would encourage you to give other scholars the same good faith sentments as we give you.

i shall not make a reversion at this time, but shall give you the benefit of the doubt and let you read some of the new references and have time to digest what is at stake here. isnt wikipedia the place to report what all credible scholars think, whether we personally agree with them or not? best regards Anlace 20:28, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be completely agreeing with me that mainstream scholars do not ascribe Monboddo the role you are trying to have him labeled as, so either you do not agree with our WP:NPOV policy or you do not understand it. The only additional perrson I've seen added to the list of sources is Jan-Andrew Henderson (and the quote you have from him does not support at all the claim that Henderson ascribed Monboddo with having created natural selection), who seems to be a local Edinburg historian who runs ghost tours and is not, to my knowledge, someone known for his historical work (the Emperor's New Kilt, from what I can tell, seems to explicitly be positing itself as revisionist history).

All of the respected historical sources here, ones which aren't trying to be a booster for one person or one country, are against the idea that Monboddo had anything substantial to do with the history of evolution, and our articles must reflect that. I am happy if the Monboddo article itself has a description of his work and mentions some of the hyperbolic accolades that a small minority of writers have given him (as long as it states that these are not mainstream opinions), but giving him more space on this page than Lamarck is simply ridiculous. --Fastfission 22:55, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Add external link

I suggest you add the link <http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk> to the web links in the article on History of evolutionary thought. The website is of the Darwin Correspondence Project, which is editing and publishing all of the correspondence of Charles Darwin. Since Darwin did a very large part of his work through his correspondence, the development of his thought, including his ideas on evolution, can be studied by studying his correspondence. I am not editing the page itself, since I work for the Project. Eadp 11:51, 20 April 2006 (UTC)