Selective facts
Sir: Matt Ridley’s article on Darwin’s vision (‘Natural selection explains everything’, 10 January) omits one simple but very important fact, namely that Darwin did not originate natural selection. How do we know?
Simple — both he and Alfred Russel Wallace gave the credit to Patrick Matthew and Charles Wells. Darwin even described Matthew’s version of natural selection as ‘precisely’ the same as his own, which appeared some 20 years later. These facts will doubtless be conveniently lost in this year’s Darwinfest of hype.
Dr Milton Wainwright
University of Sheffield
Sir: Matt Ridley’s remark that ‘technology also experiences progress and “arms races” through the world’ does not support his idea that the ‘internet is increasingly Darwinian’, let alone that Darwinism explains everything. Darwinism explains evolution by saying what happens to inherited characteristics. But culture, science and economics are acquired, not inherited.
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