Rheas, mockingbirds, and the “creation” of evolution

Abstract

The ideas of evolutionarychange and natural selection were two extraordinary contributions of 19th-century science toculture and society. Charles Darwin formalized the first idea from some outstanding antecedentsand entirely invented the second one, although he delayed the publication of both. Some of Darwin’s own comments gave rise to the impression that he deferred publication because he remained summarizing information and making new observations while searching for an explana-tion of evolutionary change (i.e., the causal mechanism). This story might not fit the facts, however,since Darwin appears to have conceived his theory very soon in his life, perhaps before 1840. Apparently, Darwin aspired to publish the theory only when it appeared unquestionable butwhen he wrote down his ideas in detail exposing its critical assumptions and deducing several “expected observations” he noted numerous drawbacks in both. Fearful of the reactions of theircolleagues, he delayed publishing the theory. Darwin did not postpone publication because hewas looking for the explanation of evolutionary change between 1840 and 1858; he already hadthe explanation and remained obsessively testing it. The process through which evolutionary theory was conceived highlights the key role of creativity in the development of human knowledge and, therefore, constitutes a valuable model to consider when teaching about “scientific discoveries”.