Edward Blyth: Perbedaan antara revisi

Edward Blyth wrote three articles on variation, discussing the effects of [[artificial selection]] and describing the process in nature (later called [[natural selection]]) as restoring organisms in the wild to their [[archetype]] (rather than forming new [[species]]). However, he never actually used the term "natural selection".<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1086/282076|last=Dobzhansky|first= Theodosius |year=1959|title= Blyth, Darwin, and natural selection|journal=The American Naturalist|volume=93 |issue=870|pages=204–206}}</ref> These articles were published in ''The Magazine of Natural History'' between 1835 and 1837.<ref>Blyth, E., ''The Magazine of Natural History'' Volumes 8, 9 and 10, 1835–1837.</ref><ref>[http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/biogeog/BLYT1835.htm An attempt to classify the "varieties" of animals, with observations on the marked seasonal and other changes which naturally take place in various British species, and which do not constitute varieties]" by Edward Blyth 1835. ''Magazine of Natural History'' Volume 8 pages 40-53.</ref>

In February 1855 [[Charles Darwin]], seeking information on variations in domesticated animals of various countries, wrote to Blyth who was "much gratified to learn that a subject in which I have always felt the deepest interest has been undertaken by one so competent to treat of it in all its bearings" and they corresponded on the subject.<ref name=Letter1670>{{cite web |url=http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-1670.html |title=Darwin Correspondence Project - Letter 1670 — Blyth, Edward to Darwin, C. R., 21 Apr 1855 |accessdate=2009-05-19}}</ref> Blyth was among the first to recognise the significance of [[Alfred Russel Wallace|Wallace's]] paper "On the Law which has regulated the introduction of Species" and brought it to the notice of Darwin in a letter written in [[Calcutta]] on December 8, 1855:

:"What think you of Wallace's paper in the ''Ann. M. N. H.'' ? Good! Upon the whole! ... Wallace has, I think, put the matter well; and according to his theory, the various domestic races of animals have been fairly developed into ''species''. ... A trump of a fact for friend Wallace to have hit upon!"<ref>{{cite book|last=Shermer|first= Michael|year=2002 |title=In Darwin’s shadow : the life and science of Alfred Russel Wallace|url=https://archive.org/details/indarwinsshadowl0000sher|publisher= Oxford University Press|isbn= 0-19-514830-4}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-1792.html |title=Darwin Correspondence Project - Letter 1792 — Blyth, Edward to Darwin, C. R., 8 Dec 1855 |accessdate=2009-05-19}}</ref>

In a 1959 paper, [[Loren Eiseley]] claimed that "the leading tenets of Darwin's work – the struggle for existence, variation, natural selection and sexual selection – are all fully expressed in Blyth's paper of 1835".<ref>{{cite book|author=Eiseley, L. |year=1979|title=Darwin and the Mysterious Mr X|url=https://archive.org/details/darwinmysterious00eise |publisher=Dutton, New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/darwinmysterious00eise/page/55 55]|isbn=0-525-08875-X}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=Eiseley L.|year= 1959|title= Charles Darwin, Edward Blyth, and the theory of natural selection|journal=Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society|volume= 103|pages=94–114}}</ref> He also cited a number of rare words, similarities of phrasing, and the use of similar examples, which he regarded as evidence of Darwin's debt to Blyth. However, the subsequent discovery of Darwin's notebooks has "permitted the refutation of Eiseley's claims".<ref name=biothought>{{cite book|last=Mayr|first=Ernst|year=1984|title=The growth of biological thought|publisher=Harvard University Press|page=489|isbn=0-674-36445-7}}</ref> Eiseley argued that Blyth's influence on Darwin "begins to be discernible in the Darwin Note-book of 1836 with the curious word 'inosculate'. It is a word which has never had a wide circulation, and which is not to be found in Darwin's vocabulary before this time." This was incorrect: an 1832 letter written by Darwin commented that [[William Sharp Macleay]] "never imagined such an inosculating creature". The letter preceded Blyth's publication, and indicates that both Darwin and Blyth had independently taken the term from Macleay whose [[Quinarian system]] of classification had been popular for a time after its first publication in 1819–1820. In a mystical scheme this grouped separately created genera in "osculating" (kissing) circles.<ref>{{Cite book |last = Barlow |first = Nora, ed. |title = Darwin and Henslow. The growth of an idea |url = http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=F1598&pageseq=82 |publisher = London: Bentham-Moxon Trust, John Murray |year = 1967 |accessdate = 28 June 2012 }}</ref>

* [http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwin/search/advanced?query=author:%22Blyth%2C+Edward%22+addressee:%22Blyth%2C+Edward%22 Archives of Charles Darwin and his correspondence with Blyth] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071025071931/http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwin/search/advanced?query=author:%22Blyth%2C+Edward%22+addressee:%22Blyth%2C+Edward%22 |date=2007-10-25 }}