Talk:Reactions to On the Origin of Species

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A summary of this article appears in Charles Darwin.

Identity of Lady Aylesbury[edit]

"Huxley reported of Kingsley that 'He is an excellent Darwinian to begin with, and told me a capital story of his reply to Lady Aylesbury'" -- I posted to Talk:Aylesbury (disambiguation): "I'm unable to find any Wikipedia article which seems an appropriate link for Lady Aylesbury. Can anyone help out with this?", and received the reply "Try Marquess of Ailesbury. Alternatively there is also a page, Reynold Heatherington, Lord Aylesbury, however no pages link to it, and the page Lord Aylesbury doesn't exist yet." -- Roleplayer 13:21, 7 August 2007 (UTC) -- Does this sound appropriate to the Darwinologists? -- 201.19.11.75 23:36, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Source of quote[edit]

The Arguments with Owen section contains:

...but got little sympathy from Darwin who teased him that "Our ancestor was an animal which breathed water, had a swim bladder, a great swimming tail, an imperfect skull, and undoubtedly was a hermaphrodite! Here is a pleasant genealogy for mankind... mankind will progress to such a pitch [that 19th century gentlemen will be looked back on] as mere barbarians".

I wanted to insert a citation. I could only find the end of the quote: "I have been much interested by your closing remarks. I cannot explain why, but to me it would be an infinite satisfaction to believe that mankind will progress to such a pitch, that we shd. be looked back at as mere Barbarians" Letter 2771 — Darwin, C. R. to Lyell, Charles, 27–8 Apr (1860) The letter has a footnote: 'Lyell discussed this point in his scientific journal (see Wilson ed. 1970, pp. 374--5, 379).' I haven't followed this up. Where did the quote come from? Aa77zz (talk) 11:36, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Desmond & Moore p. 505, who cite the paragraph to – "T. Huxley to W. Sharpey, 13 and 16 Nov. 1862, UCL, Sharpey Correspondence MSS Add 277 (no. 122, 124); MLD, 2:30; LLD, 2:264, 266."

MLD is More Letters of 1903, LLD is Francis Darwin's Life and Letters of 1887, which turns up the first part as a footnote to a letter.[1] Looks like you've found the latter part, though a search in DarwinOnline doesn't show it. . dave souza, talk 12:43, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Found the first half: "Our ancestor was an animal which breathed water, had a swim-bladder, a great swimming tail, an imperfect skull & undoubtedly was an hermaphrodite! Here is a pleasant genealogy for mankind." - a PS in the Letter from Darwin to Lyell 10 Jan (1860). It seems that the quote in the article is actually a conflation of text taken from two separate letters - not obvious from the ellipsis. Aa77zz (talk) 12:45, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, ny error. D&M have two consecutive sentences, with "Even pleasanter, ..." dividing the parts rather than ellipsis. The second part is in MLD but a search didn't work. . . dave souza, talk 12:51, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

worldwide reaction[edit]

A series on the worldwide reaction to Darwin's theory was published in NAture recently, AND I Thought I'd add some of the info here. Where do I put it, though <font: Monial>[[User:Innotata|''innotata'']]<font> <small>([[User_talk:Innotata|Talk]] &#124 [[Special:Contributions/Innotata|Contribs]])</small> (talk) 21:37, 11 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think this meant from the Nature 2009 Opinion articles

29 Oct 2009 Global Darwin: Eastern enchantment
5 Nov 2009 Global Darwin: Contempt for competition
11 Nov 2009 Global Darwin: Revolutionary road
18 Nov 2009 Global Darwin: Multicultural mergers

Markbassett (talk) 14:04, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Narrative plots[edit]

Not seeing the narrative connection too much or chronology out further, where it seems almost predictable ways of then like now how things unfolded. Each viewpoint brings forward what their local view is, and particularly where they have a problem or motivational differences, and skipping forward to latest rather than an overall or finishing the point. (It hasn't changed much how folks make their mark or that they want to do so. "Me too" isn't really useful or print-worthy, and being third in a discussion will not be as big as starting a new one.) I'm seeing the relationship flowing from prior event rather than Origins per se, narrative of events like so:

Botanist buddy Gray immediately gives approving revieww
Other department in Harvard, the Zooologist chief Assize differs
Spencer reworks the language into "Survival of the fittest"
Other school than Harvard, Yale inputs but to that presentation ...

I'm thinking the article should stick to simply the timeline rather than trying to catch the narrative plots of why too much, but thought I'd Talk to make that explicit for review - any thoughts regarding all this ? Markbassett (talk) 14:20, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]