Myth 10 - That Darwin Delayed the Publication of His Theory for Twenty Years, Being Afraid of the Reactions It Would Cause

Summary

For decades it was widely believed that Darwin avoided publishing his theory of evolution for many years. Many explanations were proposed to identify Darwin’s reasons or motives for doing so. This chapter demonstrates that Darwin’s delay is a recent historiographical theme for which there is no clear evidence, and indeed is overwhelmingly contradicted by the historical evidence. It is also shown that Darwin’s belief in evolution was not a secret before publication. Instead of a man afraid of his secret theory being revealed to his prejudiced contemporaries, it is demonstrated that Darwin was understandably very busy and began his species book when he had completed work in hand, just as he had intended all along.