1794: Scottish Scientist Developed Evolution Theory Before Darwin

[Richard W Travsky <rtravsky@uwyo.edu>]

http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200wales/content_objectid=13518472_method=full_siteid=50082_headline=-Welsh-academic-uncovers--new--Darwin-name_page.html


Welsh academic uncovers 'new' Darwin
Oct 15 2003

A Welsh professor has bought to light new evidence suggesting that a
Scottish geologist came up with the theory of natural selection long
before Charles Darwin.

Dr James Hutton is said to have developed an almost identical explanation
for evolution 65 years before The Origin of the Species was published in
1859.

Professor Paul Pearson, from the University of Cardiff, uncovered a whole
chapter on selection theory in a rare 1794 publication by Dr Hutton.

The find supplements a similar but briefer account in an unpublished
manuscript by the geologist entitled Elements of Agriculture, which dates
from about the same time.

Professor Pearson located the new work, which runs to three volumes and
more than 2,000 pages, in the National Library of Scotland.

Writing in the journal Nature, he explained how Dr Hutton's experiments in
animal and plant breeding led him to observe new traits arising with every
generation.

Dr Hutton argued that this 'seminal variation' was passed on to offspring
by individuals who adapted and survived.

He wrote that "those which depart most from the best-adapted constitution
will be most liable to perish".

Species would be continually adapting to local conditions, and meeting the
demands of a changing environment.

"Although he never used the term, Hutton clearly articulated the principle
of evolution by natural selection," said Professor Pearson.
...