Department of Philosophy and History of Science, University of Athens, University Campus 157 71, Athens, Greece.
Hist Philos Life Sci. 2011;33(1):51-70.
In 1846, burdened by insecurity and self-doubt, and having been convinced that he needed to study some group of organisms closely, Darwin embarked on an eight-year odyssey in the protean and perplexing world of barnacles. At the time, he was searching for evidence in support of his theory of evolution by natural selection. In the course of his long study of barnacles, however, he was not just validating his preexisting theoretical system, but was also modifying his views on such fundamental aspects as the universality of individual variation, which is the focus of this paper. According to this notion, the members of any population of living things are expected to exhibit sufficient differences from one another for natural selection to operate. By emphasizing the theoretical value of the barnacle project, my analysis contributes to the historiographic tradition which highlights the significance of the period between the first comprehensive formulation of the theory of evolution by natural selection in 1844 and its urgent publication in the late 1850s. In the course of these years, Darwin's theory was not just accumulating empirical laurels, but was also expected to adapt to a changing conceptual landscape.
1846 年，达尔文深感不安和自我怀疑，他坚信自己需要仔细研究某一类生物，于是开始了为期八年的探索之旅，进入了藤壶这个变幻莫测、令人困惑的世界。当时，他正在寻找支持自然选择进化理论的证据。然而，在对藤壶进行长期研究的过程中，他不仅验证了自己原有的理论体系，还改变了他对个体变异普遍性等基本观点的看法，这正是本文的重点。根据这一概念，任何生物种群的成员之间都应该存在足够的差异，以便自然选择发挥作用。通过强调藤壶项目的理论价值，我的分析有助于突出 1844 年首次全面阐述自然选择进化理论到 19 世纪 50 年代末紧急出版这一时期重要性的史学传统。在这些年里，达尔文的理论不仅在积累经验上取得了成功，还需要适应不断变化的概念环境。
