Talk:Charles Darwin

Small fix on the lead
Charles Robert Darwin FRS FRGS FLS FZS JP (/ˈdɑːrwɪn/ DAR-win; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist,geologist and biologist ...

There should be a space: naturalist, geologist ... 2804:14D:BE81:84F2:E081:8EEA:3208:A16F (talk) 23:54, 4 November 2023 (UTC)


 * ✅: well spotted, thanks! AntiDionysius (talk) 23:57, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Lede image
Wouldn't it be better to use this Featured image of Darwin instead of the current one?

GuardianH (talk) 04:40, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
 * The current article is fine. It includes the above image with a suitable caption (search for "between 1862 and 1866"). Johnuniq (talk) 05:14, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

1860 debate
The account here is the popular one, but it is probably apocryphal. Wikipedia has a page on this debate which gives a more accurate version. MirrorSquirrel (talk) 18:32, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Darwin's support for the inheritance of acquired characters
It should be made clear that in "The Origin" Darwin attributes several adaptions to what he calls "use and disuse" which involves the inheritance of acquired characteristics which is a component of Lamarck's theory of evolution. Currently the article mentions that three of Darwin's contemporaries (Robert Grant, Ernst Haeckel and Herbert Spencer) held Lamarckian views. It also describes one of Darwin's notes as dismissing as absurd the Lamarckian view of progression to higher forms. This gives the impression that Darwin had discarded Larmarckian thinking which is wrong. Darwin argues for Lamarckian evolutionary mechanisms in "The Origin" and even more so in the later editions and other subsequent published material. References:

"Darwinian evolution includes Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characters", International Journal of Epidemiology, Yongsheng Liu, Volume 45, Issue 6, December 2016, Pages 2206–2207 (https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyw182) [This paper notes the (apparently) growing support for the inheritance of acquired characters today and suggests that Darwin was actually correct in his adherence to it]

"Lamarckism" in Encyclopedia Britannica (https://www.britannica.com/science/Lamarckism) [See the section titled "The influence of Lamarckism"]

It should also be stated in the article that Darwin did not understand that natural selection was responsible for species conformity (stabilizing selection) and this led him to articulate, in "The Origin" a confusing theory about variation being dependent on a change to the "conditions of life" (see the second sentence of "The Origin").

Reference: "Darwin on Variation and Heredity", Rasmus G. Winther, Journal of the History of Biology 33: 425–455, 2000 (https://philpapers.org/archive/WINDOV)

"The Development of Darwin's Theory" (book) by Dov Ospovat, Cambridge University Press [pages 77-83 (paperback edition) talk about Darwin's ideas on variation].

These two intimately related issues are interesting and noteworthy and, by including them in the article, will give a fuller, more balanced and more interesting account of Darwin. Failing to appreciate these points makes reading the Origin of Species a confusing exercise. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gourdiehill (talk • contribs) 23:05, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Do you have any thoughts on this? To me, it seems a bit unnecessary to mention that 160-year old initial investigations concerning a ground-breaking theory might have had some rough edges. Is there something in the current article that is misleading? Is there a reason the reference in the article concerning the issue should be doubted? Johnuniq (talk) 04:02, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The meaning of "Lamarckism" changed after Darwin's time, see On the Origin of Species: Charles Darwin's grandfather Erasmus Darwin outlined a hypothesis of transmutation of species in the 1790s, and French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck published a more developed theory in 1809. Both envisaged that spontaneous generation produced simple forms of life that progressively developed greater complexity, adapting to the environment by inheriting changes in adults caused by use or disuse. This process was later called Lamarckism. Lamarck thought there was an inherent progressive tendency driving organisms continuously towards greater complexity, in parallel but separate lineages with no extinction. .... Some anatomists such as Robert Grant were influenced by Lamarck and Geoffroy. This article rightly describes one of Darwin's notes as dismissing as absurd the Lamarckian view of progression to higher forms – Darwin discarded that central Larmarckian idea. Lamarckism notes that CD proposed natural selection as the main mechanism for development of species, but (like Lamarck) gave credence to the idea of heritable effects of use and disuse as a supplementary mechanism. There's a case for a very brief mention of this, but the focus has to remain on concisely outlining Darwin's theory of natural selection. . . dave souza, talk 06:43, 24 June 2024 (UTC)