Re: Date limit set on first Americans

On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 11:17:18 +0100, Peter Ashby
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> Eric Stevens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> >Re peer review, it would be accurate to point out that the final
>> >prompter for him to go public with his views was when he was asked to
>> >"peer-review" Alfred Russell Wallace's exposition of natural
>> >selection...
>> 
>> I don't know so much that he was asked to 'peer review' as he was
>> asked for his opinion.
>
>For goodness sake Eric, you are making yourself look silly. Just stop 
>the semantic games and have some good grace.

I have already replied to this once but it seems as good a point as
any to inject the results of some digging I have been doing:

I have been investigating the circumstances of the publication of
"Origin of Species" and have come across
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/darwin/leghist/desmond.htm which seems
to summarise Darwins life reasonably well. In particular, I noted that
it states:

  " ... Huxley started challenging 'Creation' in his lectures at the
   Government School of Mines in Piccadilly, while Darwin finally
    -  the years of procrastination over - began a huge tome,
    projected at three volumes, which he called Natural Selection.

    then on 18 June 1858 came a letter from a specimen-collector
    Alfred Russel Wallace from the Malay Archipelago, detailing a
    similar theory. It frightened Darwin into starting a shorter book
    to retain priority. Darwin's and Wallace's papers were read
    jointly at the Linnean Society on I July 1858 to a resounding
    silence. Darwin, his eighteen-month-old retarded son having
    just died, stayed away - but it was the kind of absenteeism
    that would mark his last years. His hastily-finished popular
    book, one to go over the heads of the experts - On the Origin
    of Species by Means of Natural Selection - was published by
    John Murray in November 1859. "

This deals with a lot of the matters raised in this part of the
thread. From my point of view, and with respect to 'peer review', the
important aspects are:

1.  The reception at the Linnean Society of both Darwin's and
      Wallace's ideas suggested that they would not in general
      have been approved by a contemporary general editorial
      or peer review committee of his peers formulated in the 
      fashion of such bodies today. 

2.  'Origin of Species' was never subject to any independent 
     review process.

3.  If it is correct that his book was "one to go over the heads
     of the experts", it is likely that a peer review committee
     composed of the 'experts' of the time would neither have
     understood nor approved of the publication of Darwin's ideas.

The first edition of 1859 comprised 1,250 copies (all sold the first
day) and was published by John Murray. John Murray was a specialty
publisher founded in 1768 and published the works of authors as varied
as Lord Byron and Jane Austen. I have not yet established whether or
not John Murray took on the publication of 'Origin of Species' as a
commercial proposition or whether Darwin paid for the publishing
himself. Certainly Darwin's financial circumstances were such as to
enable him to have done that. It seems not unreasonable that he should
do so if he was motivated by the desire to beat Wallace to the draw.

I stand by my original point that Charles Darwin would have
experienced considerable difficulty having 'Origin of Species'
published if in 1859 he had to run the gauntlet of 21st century peer
review process composed of his 19th century fellows.



Eric Stevens