Well, it took a patent clerk to find the missing pieces to Newton's laws, and that took 150 years , so an "amateur biologist" evolving Darwin's theories? Why not.
But I'll agree it's unlikely. After all, the first comment on this site "I couldn't put it down once...etc" is from Don Burke on Radio 2UE ... well-known to all Australians as the long-running host of our favourite gardening program.
There were quite a few people who discovered evolution by natural selection before Darwin published the origin of the species, but the reason Darwin is given credit is because his explanation was so complete. It is in someways similar to Einstein and special relativity.
What's most incredible about Darwin is how readable and essential (and fundamentally correct) his two major treatises, Origin and Descent, have remained.
It's like Newton not only discovering calculus but also inventing its modern syntax and writing the best textbook on the subject.
Yes it is true. Alfred Russel Wallace was on the other side of the world doing his own independent work and looked to Darwin for advice about his own theories. ARW is a bit of an unsung hero with regard to what he contributed to this part of Biology (at least to those that are not deeply involved in Biology).
Yes, if Charles Darwin would publish a book today, with a focus on a layman reader, and then give interviews, instead of publishing his findings in journals, I would be skeptical.
"Wallace sent his ideas to the English naturalist Charles Darwin, with whom he often exchanged letters. As it happened, Darwin had been working for 20 years on his own theory of natural selection, partly inspired by his 1835 visit to the Galápagos Islands.
Darwin had not published his ideas, because he was afraid of a backlash. He quickly realised that Wallace's discoveries matched up with his own, and resolved to take the plunge. He decided to present both their papers at the same time, so that both men would get credit for having independently discovered evolution.
In the immediate aftermath, they both became famous. But after Darwin published his book On the origin of species by means of natural selection in 1859, he became known as the man who discovered evolution. Most people forgot about Wallace."
No I've not read that. My background is in botany and I took coursework in evolutionary biology and evolutionary theory.
Its much more technical than the book you referenced, but I highly recommend:
But I'll agree it's unlikely. After all, the first comment on this site "I couldn't put it down once...etc" is from Don Burke on Radio 2UE ... well-known to all Australians as the long-running host of our favourite gardening program.
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