As I noted, he was heavily influenced by Lyell, and as far as I know, he didn’t spend time gathering geological evidence.
My core thesis is that observational data plus existing interventional data from other domains is sufficient to generate pioneering scientific work, and Darwin demonstrates that. He had solidified the theory by 1838, and that did not require him to gather anything himself. All the pieces were lying around extant. Someone needed to map them, and he did that. But no one needed to perform any additional observations or experiments. You may argue he personally needed to do so in order for the theory to gel in his brain, but the fact stands that it was not strictly necessary for anyone to make new observations or carry out new experiments to make those mappings and synthesize the theory. That was not a dependency in the same way a completely untested hypothesis requires fresh evidence.
But to play the devil’s advocate, you’re looking at natural selection with a massive amount of hindsight. Perhaps the best fit to humanity’s pre-Darwin data (which might have been more limited than you think) isn’t natural selection. There are many ways to fit a curve [1], and sometimes the best (or equally good) fit for limited data is the wrong one.
While you may be right that Darwin could have come up with natural selection without collecting data, you would have a much stronger argument if you chose someone who actually did it that way. Again I think Einstein and Newton (at least regarding gravity) are better examples.
I thought of Einstein, but that’s a case of coming up with thought experiments, not mapping from existing observational or experimental data from another field (unless I’m not understanding Einstein’s methodology).
Thanks for reading and responding.
As I noted, he was heavily influenced by Lyell, and as far as I know, he didn’t spend time gathering geological evidence.
My core thesis is that observational data plus existing interventional data from other domains is sufficient to generate pioneering scientific work, and Darwin demonstrates that. He had solidified the theory by 1838, and that did not require him to gather anything himself. All the pieces were lying around extant. Someone needed to map them, and he did that. But no one needed to perform any additional observations or experiments. You may argue he personally needed to do so in order for the theory to gel in his brain, but the fact stands that it was not strictly necessary for anyone to make new observations or carry out new experiments to make those mappings and synthesize the theory. That was not a dependency in the same way a completely untested hypothesis requires fresh evidence.
But to play the devil’s advocate, you’re looking at natural selection with a massive amount of hindsight. Perhaps the best fit to humanity’s pre-Darwin data (which might have been more limited than you think) isn’t natural selection. There are many ways to fit a curve [1], and sometimes the best (or equally good) fit for limited data is the wrong one.
While you may be right that Darwin could have come up with natural selection without collecting data, you would have a much stronger argument if you chose someone who actually did it that way. Again I think Einstein and Newton (at least regarding gravity) are better examples.
1: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wgzd7y6icyMmNvFKi/why-aren-t-there-more-alphafolds
PS
He actually started out with a big (or even primary?) focus on studying and collecting geological data.
Yeah, he was literally a geologist. Retract that.
I thought of Einstein, but that’s a case of coming up with thought experiments, not mapping from existing observational or experimental data from another field (unless I’m not understanding Einstein’s methodology).