# Why is Darwin's work not even referenced in this 1896 "Science" Magazine article on evolution? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 1, 2017, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-darwins-work-not-even-referenced-in-this-1896-science-magazine-article-on-evolution/776015 "2017-01-01T01:17:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-darwins-work-not-even-referenced-in-this-1896-science-magazine-article-on-evolution/776015/1 "2017-01-01T01:17:17Z")
[Re this 1896 article](https://www.jstor.org/stable/1624534?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents) in “Science” magazine by Henry Osborn “Ontogenic and Phylogenic Variation " Darwin’s work " On the Origin of Species” published in 1859 is not even mentioned or referenced. Why? Even if he did not agree with Darwin you’d think he would at least reference his ideas to argue against. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-darwins-work-not-even-referenced-in-this-1896-science-magazine-article-on-evolution/776015/2 "2017-01-01T02:17:44Z")
Curious as to how you came to read this … but that asked - That article was written in 1896. Darwin had died in 1882. In 1896 it was Alfred Russel Wallace who was the active face and voice of that collaborative effort of Wallace and Darwin, that Wallace himself had popularized as “Darwinism.” Indeed the article is explicitly arguing (dismissively) against “the hypothesis of evolution purely by the selection of fortuitous variations” claiming that Wallace was virtually the only hold out against “definite or determinate variation” i.e. movement of evolution towards some predestined goal over generations, aka as orthogenesis. In that article Osborn was assuming the reader was aware of the natural selection theory that he was arguing against and that Wallace represented, as he presented some … ideas … for evolution by way of varying ontogeny. [Henry Osborn](http://www.strangescience.net/osborn.htm) was a promotor of eugenics for racist goals. He had lots of support. To no small degree Osborn’s views of evolution were more popular at that time. The resurgence of the ideas that Wallace and Darwin formulated, and that Wallace continued to argue for after Darwin’s death, occurred in the '30s and '40s and it was from then on that Darwin became _the_ name and face of the concept with Wallace being oft-forgotten. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-darwins-work-not-even-referenced-in-this-1896-science-magazine-article-on-evolution/776015/3 "2017-01-01T03:09:30Z")
Thank you for context. > [@DSeid](#): > > Curious as to how you came to read this … but that asked - This dope article re "What is the largest piece of forged metal in the world? Largest single manufactured piece ever? " [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19881377&postcount=17](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19881377&postcount=17) ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-darwins-work-not-even-referenced-in-this-1896-science-magazine-article-on-evolution/776015/4 "2017-01-01T03:58:30Z")
There were a lot of hacks publishing pseudo-scientific writings in those days, with virtually no peer review or critical editing. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-darwins-work-not-even-referenced-in-this-1896-science-magazine-article-on-evolution/776015/5 "2017-01-01T05:28:34Z")
> [@astro](#): > > [Re this 1896 article](https://www.jstor.org/stable/1624534?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents) in “Science” magazine by Henry Osborn “Ontogenic and Phylogenic Variation " Darwin’s work " On the Origin of Species” published in 1859 is not even mentioned or referenced. Why? > > Even if he did not agree with Darwin you’d think he would at least reference his ideas to argue against. Most likely because the article was about ontogeny & phylogeny, and there was little, if any, mention of ontogeny in _Origin_ . So why should it be cited? ---
**Author:** ![JacobSwan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@JacobSwan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JacobSwan)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-darwins-work-not-even-referenced-in-this-1896-science-magazine-article-on-evolution/776015/6 "2017-01-01T10:37:23Z")
> [@Darwins\_Finch](#): > > Most likely because the article was about ontogeny & phylogeny, and there was little, if any, mention of ontogeny in _Origin_ . So why should it be cited? Excellent username/post combo! I remember when I was at uni, one of our lecturers had just appeared in some list of the most cited papers. He explained that it was not really a great honour as the really good papers rarely get cited at all. He said that the relativity papers by Einstein barely get cited directly, as anyone reading about relativity should be familiar with them. They’re literally taken ‘as read’. Could this be the same? ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-darwins-work-not-even-referenced-in-this-1896-science-magazine-article-on-evolution/776015/7 "2017-01-01T14:28:22Z")
Although Darwin had popularized the basic concept of evolution few scientists at the time considered his explanation of how it worked to be adequate. It wasn’t until the advent of 20th century developments in the field of genetics that Darwinism was wholeheartedly accepted. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_eclipse\_of\_Darwinism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_eclipse_of_Darwinism): > [@](#): > > Evolution was widely accepted in scientific circles within a few years after the publication of On the Origin of Species, but acceptance of natural selection as its driving mechanism was much less.[7] By the end of the 19th century criticism of natural selection had reached the point that in 1903 the German botanist, Eberhardt Dennart, wrote that “We are now standing at the death bed of Darwinism”, and in 1907 the Stanford University entomologist Vernon Lyman Kellogg who supported natural selection had to admit “… the fair truth is that the Darwinian selection theory, considered with regard to its claimed capacity to be an independently sufficient mechanical explanation of descent, stands today seriously discredited in the biological world.” ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-darwins-work-not-even-referenced-in-this-1896-science-magazine-article-on-evolution/776015/8 "2017-01-01T16:05:38Z")
> [@JacobSwan](#): > > Excellent username/post combo! Finch, Swan, what’s the difference? ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2017, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-darwins-work-not-even-referenced-in-this-1896-science-magazine-article-on-evolution/776015/9 "2017-01-02T00:11:30Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > There were a lot of hacks publishing pseudo-scientific writings in those days, with virtually no peer review or critical editing. Considering that Henry Osborn was a Professor of Zoology at Columbia, senior paleontologist of the US Geological Survey, President of the American Museum of Natural History and President of the New York Zoological Society, I doubt he qualified as a ‘hack.’ ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2017, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-darwins-work-not-even-referenced-in-this-1896-science-magazine-article-on-evolution/776015/10 "2017-01-02T00:46:34Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Finch, Swan, what’s the difference? To big a difference to be caused by microevolution: where is the missing link? 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2017, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-darwins-work-not-even-referenced-in-this-1896-science-magazine-article-on-evolution/776015/11 "2017-01-03T15:11:34Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > Although Darwin had popularized the basic concept of evolution few scientists at the time considered his explanation of how it worked to be adequate. It wasn’t until the advent of 20th century developments in the field of genetics that Darwinism was wholeheartedly accepted. > > [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_eclipse\_of\_Darwinism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_eclipse_of_Darwinism): Well, 20th century redevelopments, since Mendel had already figured it out but nobody noticed.