Darwin's first draft goes online

BBC ^ | 08:32 GMT, Thursday, 17 April 2008 09:32 UK | BBC Staff

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Darwin's first draft goes online

Darwin's theory on evolution influenced many science disciplines

The first draft of a book which changed the world's attitude to evolution is available for the first time online.

Papers which led to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution were previously only available to scholars at Cambridge University's library.

The draft notes are among 20,000 archive items created by the 19th Century naturalist during his lifetime.

Dr John van Wyhe, a Darwin specialist at Cambridge University, said: "He changed our understanding of nature."

World-changing ideas

The online archive about Charles Darwin is so vast it would take someone two months to view it all if they downloaded one image per minute.

"His papers reveal how immensely detailed his researches were. The family has always wanted Darwin's papers and manuscripts to be available to anyone who wants to read them," said Dr van Wyhe.

"The fact that everyone around the world can now see them on the web is simply fantastic.

"Charles Darwin is one of the most influential scientists in history. The collection of his papers now online is extremely important and therefore very exciting.

"This release makes his private papers, mountains of notes, experiments and research behind his world-changing publications available to the world for free."

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Charles Darwin's works go online

Charles Darwin's works go online

His theory on evolution has influenced many science disciplines

The complete works of one of history's greatest scientists, Charles Darwin, are being published online.

The project run by Cambridge University has digitised some 50,000 pages of text and 40,000 images of original publications - all of it searchable.

Surfers can even access downloadable audio files to use on MP3 players.

The resource is aimed at serious scholars, but can be used by anyone with an interest in Darwin and his theory on the evolution of life.

"The idea is to make these important works as accessible as possible; some people can only get at Darwin that way," said Dr John van Wyhe, the project's director.

One big collection

Dr van Wyhe has spent the past four years searching the globe for copies of Darwin's own materials, and works written about the naturalist and his breakthrough ideas on natural selection.

The historian said he was inspired to build the library at darwin-online.org.uk when his own efforts to study Darwin while at university in Asia were frustrated.

Images as well as texts are available online

"I wrote to lots of people all over the world to get hold of the texts for the project and I got a really positive reaction because they all liked the idea of there being one big collection," he told BBC News.

Darwin Online features many newly transcribed or never-before-published manuscripts written by the great man.

These include a remarkable field notebook from his famous Beagle voyage to the Galapagos Islands, where detailed observations of the wildlife would later forge his scientific arguments.

Free use

The real artefact was stolen in the 1980s and is still missing, but the text has been transcribed from a microfilm copy made two decades earlier.

"It is astonishing to see the notebook that Darwin had in his pocket as he walked around the Galapagos - the scribbled notes that he took as he clambered over the lava," said Randal Keynes, the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin.

"If people can read it on the web and they learn that it was stolen then I think there is more chance that this very important piece of national heritage is recovered," he told BBC News.

Darwin travelled to the Galapagos in The Beagle

Other texts appearing online for the first time include the first editions of the Journal Of Researches (1839), The Descent Of Man (1871), The Zoology Of The Voyage Of HMS Beagle (1838-43) and the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th editions of the Origin Of Species, the pivotal tome that elucidated his thoughts on evolution.

There is no charge to use the website. Most texts can be viewed either as colour originals or as fully formatted electronic transcriptions. There are also German, Danish and Russian editions.

Users can also peruse more than 150 supplementary texts, ranging from reference works to contemporary reviews of Darwin's books, obituaries and recollections.

At the moment the site contains about 50% of the materials that will be provided by 2009, the bicentenary of the naturalist's birth.

"The family has always wanted Darwin's papers and manuscripts available to anyone who wants to read them. That everyone around the world can now see them on the web is simply fantastic," said Mr Keynes.

[Lokibob]

BTTT

[PetroniusMaximus]

I wonder if they include the removed portions of Origin where Darwin says Africans are a lower evolved, lesser species.

[PetroniusMaximus]

Darwin says,

“at some future period ... the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate the savage races of the world. The anthropomorphous apes will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla.”

[ASA Vet]

[CondorFlight]

Darwin also cribbed a lot of his work, including some paraphrases of quotes and actual quotes, from his grandfather Erasmus Darwin’s work.

It’s very doubtful that he was ‘inspired’ for the idea of evolution from a visit to the Galapagoes.

[higgmeister]

Yes, they probably have posted a special edited version for those that believe Darwin wrote “we is condescended from monkeys!”

[Coyoteman]

Sorry, I can't come out and play right now.

Off to some professional meetings for the rest of the week.

I'll check in Sunday or so and see if the creationists have come up with anything new, or if they are just relying on the same old, tired anti-science nonsense.

[ASA Vet]

Well have fun Doc. Is getting together to play with a bunch of old bones is called “Professional Meetings?

[UndauntedR]

The context:

"The great break in the organic chain between man and his nearest allies, which cannot be bridged over by any extinct or living species, has often been advanced as a grave objection to the belief that man is descended from some lower form; but this objection will not appear of much weight to those who, from general reasons, believe in the general principle of evolution. Breaks often occur in all parts of the series, some being wide, sharp and defined, others less so in various degrees; as between the orang and its nearest allies—between the Tarsius and the other Lemuridæ—between the elephant, and in a more striking manner between the Ornithorhynchus or Echidna, and all other mammals. But these breaks depend merely on the number of related forms which have become extinct. At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla."

Which basically says as civilization continues to expand, it tends to eliminate or influence the "missing links" from which civilization came. He was using this as one explanation for the absence of living intermediate forms in his day. Life as competition, imagine that.

[LiteKeeper]

Coyoteman once again drags out "the same old, tired anti-science nonsense" accusation against creationists...and once again is wrong. Creationists are NOT anti-science, they are anti-methodological naturalism.

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

While in some ways Darwin may have been a scientist his infamous theory remains a theory.

But the fascists of faith insist that only this theory be worshipped, and as fact.

[bert]

A theory with strong emperical basis as opposed to a myth with nothing at all but conjecture.

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

Incorrect. Two theories with the same empirical evidence and vastly differing premises about the outset—and consequences.

Both are theories.

Both are faiths, because either way one must believe in it as a first principle and one’s weltanschaung (worldview) follows, and/or precedes.

Faith in the one unscientifically proven premise of origins leads to purpose and hope and led to the founding of America for the free exercise of such faith.

Faith in the other unscientifically proven premise of origins has been epitomized in totalitarian regimes that have outlawed God, regarded man as supreme sovereign and slaughtered a hundred million, plus abortions.