The Darwin "they" don't want you to know about - hype or fact? In early 2008 I wrote an introduction to this site that went something like this: "Not long ago a producer of TV science programmes, on a nationwide network, approached me with a view to using the information on this site as part of the the basis for a TV documentary. I warned the producer that such a documentary would never be accepted in Britain or America, but the producer went ahead anyway. He approached various companies both in the UK and the USA, and got pretty much the same response every time. NOT "the information isn't accurate," but the utterly incomprehensible, "no one is interested in the origin of the The Origin of Species." "Of course it might be that every TV company approached had simply forgotten that the 150th anniversary of the publication of the book in question is less than a year away. Or it could be that the media, and those who influence the media in this respect, were not about to "rock the boat". So I would ask you to consider one single fact - in only 10 months time we will be marking the 150th anniversary. Judge for yourself as we move towards 2009 - are the media really NOT interested in this anniversary - or are they winding themselves up to sell us the "orthodox" version of Darwin's work? "If the media ignores the anniversary then I am mistaken. If they go ahead and once again trot out the 'orthodox' pro-Darwin story, with no mention of any alternative viewpoint, then I invite you to draw your own conclusions." August, 2010: That upcoming anniversary is now a part of history. And what we got, in the UK, at least, was nothing but pure, pro-Darwinist propaganda. In fact the BBC actually put out a series called Darwin's Garden, part of the publicity for which read: "And at the heart of the series is the remarkable story of Darwin’s life in England, told through his imaginative experiments". What the BBC publicity predictably left out was this important qualifier - "Several of those experiments were directly based, without any public acknowledgement, on material in articles by naturalist Edward Blyth". This website puts information like that back into the story. And comes up with a rather different picture of what Darwin did in his efforts to gain a reputation as a "scientist". So here, indeed, is the evidence "they" didn't want you to have. It is up to you to form your own opinion regarding 'the truth about Charles Darwin'. |
And on the other hand:
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery ... The first few pages on this site went were posted in the late 1990s, based on research I had done in the 1980s. Further information has been added to the site since then, but it was essentially completed during the first half of the 2000s. The item, entitled Was Blyth the true scientist and Darwin merely a plagiarist and charlatan? is on the Uncommon Descent site, which carries the tagline "Serving the Intelligent Design Community". But it seems that the ethics of this outfit leave something to be desired. The whole case of Darwin’s plagiarism was laid out rather tediously in Charles Darwin — The Truth? Interestingly the essay mentions Brian Goodwin and our very own John Davison here. I cannot imagine why someone posting to what appears to be a Christian-oriented site would think it appropriate to include a remark of this kind, especially when this site seems to have been the primary resource for his own offering. Nor is it clear why the site moderator would leave the remark unedited. But they did, so there you go. My own view is that Charles Darwin - The Truth? is about more than just Blyth's contribution to Darwin's ideas, and is extensively referenced. Equally importantly - see the disclaimer below - this site does not attempt to prove a point. It presents the evidence that persuaded me to adopt a certain belief, and hopefully enough to allow visitors to feel they are able to draw their own, well-informed, conclusions. I've never had any dealings with IDers up until now - as far as I know - and if this is a fair example of their integrity, I think it's very unlikely that I ever will. |
