Mind the gap: did Darwin avoid publishing his theory for many years?

Abstract

It is widely believed that Charles Darwin avoided publishing his theory of evolution for many years. Many explanations have been proposed to identify Darwin's reasons or motives for doing so. This essay demonstrates that Darwin's delay is a recent historiographical theme for which there is no clear evidence, and indeed is overwhelmingly contradicted by the historical evidence. It is also shown that Darwin's belief in evolution was not a secret before publication. Instead of a man afraid of his secret theory's being revealed to his prejudiced contemporaries, it is demonstrated that Darwin was understandably very busy and began his species book when he had completed work in hand, just as he had intended all along. This essay therefore rewrites a fundamental chapter in the story of Darwin's life and work as usually told.

Human skin pigmentation as an adaptation to UV radiation

“…His aversion to the separation of humans into discrete species was also motivated by his vehement aversion to slavery, which in his lifetime was defended and promoted on the basis of the superiority and inferiority of allegedly distinct human species (2). It is also well known that early in his career, Darwin collected copious notes on human origins and descent (3), but "without any intention of publishing on the subject, but rather with a determination not to publish, as I thought that I should thus only add to the prejudices against my views" (1, p. 1). Darwin thus deflected potential criticism of natural selection in the first decade after publication of The Origin by avoiding almost entirely discussion of humans in an evolutionary context.…”

“…Vitamin D 3 is made in the skin when UVR penetrates the skin and is absorbed by 7-dehydrocholesterol (7-DHC) in the epidermis and dermis to form previtamin D 3 . This reaction only occurs in the presence of wavelengths of 290-310 nm in the UVB range, with peak conversion occurring at 295-297 nm.…”

The ‘Annie Hypothesis': Did the Death of His Daughter Cause Darwin to ‘Give up Christianity’?

“…Here would have been a perfect opportunity for Darwin to successfully counter Aveling, if Darwin could have replied that he had delayed the Origin for many years. His failure to capitalize at this point is yet more evidence that Darwin did not postpone publication of the theory of evolution ( van Wyhe, 2007). And then when asked why he gave up his belief, Darwin stated simply: 'It is not supported by evidence.…”

“…Aveling countered: ‘Had he [Darwin] kept silence [rather than publishing Origin of species ], the tremendous strides taken by human thought during the last 21 years would have been shorn of their fair proportions, perhaps had hardly been made at all.’ Here would have been a perfect opportunity for Darwin to successfully counter Aveling, if Darwin could have replied that he had delayed the Origin for many years. His failure to capitalize at this point is yet more evidence that Darwin did not postpone publication of the theory of evolution (van Wyhe, 2007). And then when asked why he gave up his belief, Darwin stated simply: ‘It is not supported by evidence.’…”

“…However, as this article demonstrates, there is no direct documentary evidence to support these claims in anything written by Darwin or his contemporaries—instead, scrutiny of such evidence suggests that Annie's death had no connection at all with Darwin's loss of faith. Therefore we argue that the ‘Annie hypothesis' should be classified, along with ‘Darwin’s finches' (Sulloway, 1982) the Darwin‐Marx letter (Colp, 1982), the death‐bed conversion (Moore, 1994) and ‘Darwin’s delay’ (van Wyhe, 2007) as a modern Darwin myth, which has arisen only in recent times and was wholly unknown to Darwin, his contemporaries and generations of subsequent commentators.…”