Edward Blyth: Perbedaan antara revisi

| name = Edward Blyth

| image = EdwardBlyth.jpg

| alt = Edward Blyth

| caption = Edward Blyth

| birth_name =

| birth_date = [[23 Desember]] [[1810]]

| birth_place = [[London]]

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1873|12|27|1810|12|23}}

| death_place = [[London]]

| nationality = [[Inggris]]

| other_names =

| known_for = [[Zoologi]] dan [[apoteker|ahli farmasi]]

| occupation = [[Kurator]]

'''Edward Blyth''' (23 Desember 1810 –– 27 Desember 1873) adalah seorang [[zoologi]] dan [[apoteker|ahli farmasi]] dari [[Inggris]]. Dia merupakan salah seorang pendiri zoologi di [[India]].

Blyth lahir di [[London]] tahun 1810. Pada tahun 1841 ia pergi ke [[India]] untuk menjadi seorang [[kurator]] di musium [[Asiatic Society]]. Ia bekerja memperbaharui katalog yang ada di musium, menerbitkan sebuah ''Katalog burung Asiatic Society'' pada tahun 1849.

Dia tidak bisa melakukan banyak pekerjaan lapangan, tetapi menerima dan menjelaskan spesimen burung dari [[Allan Octavian Hume|Hume]], [[Samuel Tickell|Tickell]], [[Robert Swinhoe|Swinhoe]] dan lainnya. Dia tetap sebagai kurator sampai 1862, ketika kesehatannya memburuk yang memaksa kembali ke Inggris. Ia meninggal pada tahun 1873, dan setelah ia meninggal pada tahun 1881, diterbitkan ''The natural history of the Cranes''.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924000102149#page/n71/mode/2up/ |title= The natural history of the cranes | author= Blyth, Edward |year=1881| publisher=R H Porter|authorlink=Edward Blyth}}</ref>

Blyth was the son of a [[cloth merchant|clothier]]. His father died in 1820 and his mother sent him to Dr. Fennell's school in Wimbledon. Here he took an interest in reading but was often to be found spending time in the woods nearby. Leaving school in 1825, he went to study chemistry, at the suggestion of Dr. Fennell, in London under Dr. Keating at St. Paul's churchyard. He did not find the teaching satisfactory and began to work as a pharmacist in Tooting, but quit in 1837 to try his luck as an [[author]] and [[copy editing|editor]]. He was offered the position of curator at the museum of the [[Asiatic Society of Bengal]] in 1841. He was so poor that he needed an advance of £100 ([[pounds sterling|pounds]]) to make the trip to [[Calcutta]]. In India, Blyth was poorly paid (the Asiatic Society did not expect to find a European curator for the salary that they could offer), with a salary of 300 pounds per year (which was unchanged for twenty years), and a house allowance of 4 pounds per month. He married in 1854, and tried to supplement his income by writing under a [[pseudonym]] for the ''Indian Sporting Review'' and traded live animals between India and Britain to wealthy collectors in both countries. In this venture he sought the collaboration of eminent people such as [[Charles Darwin]] and [[John Gould]], both of whom declined these offers.<ref name=brandonjones>{{cite journal|doi=10.1023/A:1004209901090|last=Brandon-Jones|first= Christine |year= 1997|title= Edward Blyth, Charles Darwin, and the animal trade in Nineteenth-Century India and Britain|journal=Journal of the History of Biology| volume=30|pages= 145–178|url=http://www.rhinoresourcecenter.com/ref_files/1245580480.pdf|issue=2}}</ref><ref name=grote>{{cite book|url=http://archive.org/stream/JournalAsiaticS442EAsia#page/ii/mode/2up |chapter=Introduction|author=Grote, A|pages=iii-xvii| title=Catalogue of mammals and birds of Burma|author=Blyth, E|year=1875|publisher=Asiatic Society of Bengal}}</ref>

He also found George Robert Gray, curator at the British Museum uncooperative in helping him with his ornithological research far away in India. He complained to the trustees of the museum but it was dismissed with several character references in favour of Gray including Charles Darwin.<ref>{{cite journal|journal=Annals of Science| author= Brandon-Jones, Christine| title=Charles Darwin and the repugnant curators| year=1996|volume=53| issue=5|pages=501–510|doi=10.1080/00033799600200351}}</ref>

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>

:"What was the work of Blyth?... Blyth attempts to show how [selection and the struggle for existence] can be used to explain, not the change of species (which he was anxious to discredit) but the stability of species in which he ardently believed."<ref>{{cite book|author=Darlington C.D. |year=1959| title=Darwin's place in history|publisher=Blackwell, Oxford| page=34}}</ref>

In this negative formulation, natural selection only preserves a constant and unchangeable type or essence of created form, by eliminating extreme variations or unfit individuals that deviate too far from this essence. The formulation goes back to the [[Ancient Greece|ancient Greek]] philosopher [[Empedocles]], and the theologian [[William Paley]] set out a variation on this argument in 1802, to refute (in later pages) a claim that there had been a wide range of initial creations, with less viable forms eliminated by nature to leave the modern range of species:<ref name=Gould>{{cite web |url=http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_selection.html |title=Natural Selection as a Creative Force |author= Gould, Stephen Jay |authorlink=Stephen Jay Gould |year= 2002 |work=The Structure of Evolutionary Theory |publisher=Harvard University Press |pages=137–141 |accessdate=2009-05-19}}</ref><ref name=toa4>{{cite web |url=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/precursors/precursnatsel.html |title=Darwin's precursors and influences: 4. Natural selection |author=John Wilkins |year=2003 |publisher=[[TalkOrigins Archive]] | accessdate=2009-05-19}}</ref>

:"The hypothesis teaches, that every possible variety of being hath, at one time or other, found its way into existence (by what cause or in what manner is not said), and that those which were badly formed, perished; but how or why those which survived should be cast, as we see that plants and animals are cast, into regular classes, the hypothesis does not explain; or rather the hypothesis is inconsistent with this phænomenon."<ref>{{cite book|author=Paley, William|year= 1802| title=Natural theology; or, Evidences of the existence and attributes of the Deity| url=http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=A142&pageseq=71 |pages= 65–66|isbn=0-576-29166-8}}</ref>

== Referensi ==

== Pranala luar ==

* [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 }}

* [http://archive.org/stream/JournalAsiaticS442EAsia#page/n7/mode/2up Catalogue of mammal and birds of Burma (1875)]