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| Program > Diverse Allegiances and Worldviews in Victorian Evolutionism |
| Programme > Allégances diverses et visions du monde dans l'évolutionnisme victorien |
| Donald
R. Forsdyke (Queen's
University) Darwin's Research Associate, George John Romanes |
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Darwin was well aware that there were major inconsistencies in his 1859 theory of the origin of species by natural selection and he spent the rest of his life attempting to resolve them. For eight years prior to his death in 1882 it is likely that, apart from his immediate family, he spent more time discussing these inconsistencies with his young Canadian research associate, George John Romanes, than anyone else. In 1886 Romanes presented a theory of the origin of species by “physiological selection” to the Linnean Society. He claimed to have resolved the inconsistencies, but invoked abstract elements (e.g. “a peculiarity of the reproductive system”), which were incomprehensible to his Victorian contemporaries. He was strongly attacked by the elder statesmen of science - Wallace and Huxley - and died of a brain tumour at age 46 in 1894. Results of recent research on various genome projects have led to a new reinterpretation of Darwin’s theory that has much in common with that of Romanes (see The Origin of Species, Revisited. A Victorian who Anticipated Modern Developments in Darwin’s Theory. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001). Department
of Biochemistry
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