Indeed. You’ll note that I did not quote Galileo’s 1623 article declaring that comets were a sublunary (within the sphere of the Moon’s orbit around the Earth) phenomenon, for example.
Still, I would be willing to wager that if you had modern biologists compare, say, Darwin’s writings from the voyage of the Beagle to his death even to those of contemporaries such as Alfred Russell Wallace—an independent inventor of the theory of natural selection—he would fare extremely well.
I think he was actually less biased. I was actually just reading John McPhee’s Looking For a Ship, and McPhee quotes Darwin discussing the geology of the Valparaíso region, and notes that Darwin divines the processes that created the formations of that terrain essentially correctly … before plate tectonics was even a theory with a name in the scientific literature. It is of course impossible to separate out to what extent his results are improved by his hesitance in publishing data without overwhelming evidence, but I would guess that his rationality was significantly above par for his era.
Theres a sampling issue there, no-one talks about all the things Darwin thought of that were wrong.
Indeed. You’ll note that I did not quote Galileo’s 1623 article declaring that comets were a sublunary (within the sphere of the Moon’s orbit around the Earth) phenomenon, for example.
Still, I would be willing to wager that if you had modern biologists compare, say, Darwin’s writings from the voyage of the Beagle to his death even to those of contemporaries such as Alfred Russell Wallace—an independent inventor of the theory of natural selection—he would fare extremely well.
Do you attribute that to his greater experience and access to data, or some innately better understanding of biology?
I think he was actually less biased. I was actually just reading John McPhee’s Looking For a Ship, and McPhee quotes Darwin discussing the geology of the Valparaíso region, and notes that Darwin divines the processes that created the formations of that terrain essentially correctly … before plate tectonics was even a theory with a name in the scientific literature. It is of course impossible to separate out to what extent his results are improved by his hesitance in publishing data without overwhelming evidence, but I would guess that his rationality was significantly above par for his era.