What was Darwin’s Origin actually called 29 Jul 201827 Feb 2019 So, I got caught parroting half-remembered factoids, to Down House no less, that the Origin dropped the “On” from the start of the title with the fourth edition. In my defence, I was making use of Darwin Online, the Cambridge University site that collates all of Darwin’s publications and a whole lot more, in their list of editions of the Origin in English. So I got called out, and rightly so. If you’re going to be a pedant, at least be an accurate one. Fortunately the Darwin Online site has images of the the title pages of the various editions, so here they are: 1859 first UK edition: Clearly has the “On”. So too do the second (1860), third (1861), fourth (1866) and fifth (1869). The sixth, however, which was the most widely distributed edition, has dropped the “On”. However, under Asa Gray’s oversight, Appleton of New York published editions as well (1860, 1871), which did not completely follow the British editions: All have the “On”. In 1899, Hurst and Co published a version, and they dropped the “On”. So technically, it should have the “On”… mea culpa. Reading Darwin, Charles Robert, and Morse Peckham. The Origin of Species: A Variorum Text. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1959. Evolution History
Epistemology Religion and truth revisited 7 Jul 2009 Chris Schoen, he of the u n d e r v e r s e, has a piece up on Coyne’s challenge to the religious as to why Scientology’s absurd etiology of Xenu and souls in volcanoes is any less stupid than the etiologies of the Catholic, Jewish and Islamic… Read More
Ecology and Biodiversity Asia’s empty forests 1 Sep 2008 The Annotated Budak has an absolutely wonderful post on megafauna, hominid impacts, biodiversity and biogeography up. Go read it immediately. Read More
History A philosophical apology from 1919 for not being pro-war 21 Jan 201221 Jan 2012 Leiter posted the PDF of this on his site. I can’t help but reproduce some of the choicer quotes: “DEAR FRIEND: Your letter gently but un-mistakably intimates that I am a slacker, a slacker in peace as well as in war; that when the World war was raging bitterly I… Read More