Separated at Birth: The Interlinked Origins of Darwin's Unconscious Selection Concept and the Application of Sexual Selection to Race

• Published in: Journal of the history of biology Vol. 40; no. 2; pp. 231 - 258
• Main Author: Alter, Stephen G.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer 01-06-2007; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Animal breeding; Animals; Artificial selection; Biological Evolution; Biology; Breeding; Breeding - history; Breeding of animals; Continental Population Groups; Darwin; Darwin, Charles (1809-1882); Ethnology; Evolution; History of medicine and histology; History of science and technology; History, 19th Century; Humans; Kames; Life sciences; Literature; Livestock; Mating Preference, Animal; Natural History - history; Palaeontology; evolution ; genetics; Selection, Genetic; Sexual selection; Sheep; Century 19; England; Breed; Sexual selection; race; unconscious selection; Darwin (C.); Charles Darwin; artificial selection
• ISSN: 0022-5010; 1573-0387
• DOI: 10.1007/s10739-006-9113-5

This essay traces the interlinked origins of two concepts found in Charles Darwin's writings: "unconscious selection," and sexual selection as applied to humanity's anatomical race distinctions. Unconscious selection constituted a significant elaboration of Darwin's artificial selection analogy. As originally conceived in his theoretical notebooks, that analogy had focused exclusively on what Darwin later would call "methodical selection," the calculated production of desired changes in domestic breeds. By contrast, unconscious selection produced its results unintentionally and at a much slower pace. Inspiration for this concept likely came from Darwin's early reading of works on both animal breeding and physical ethnology. Texts in these fields described the slow and unplanned divergence of anatomical types, whether animal or human, under the guidance of contrasting ideals of physical perfection. These readings, it is argued, also led Darwin to his theory of sexual selection as applied to race, a theme he discussed mainly in his book The Descent of Man (1871). There Darwin described how the racial version of sexual selection operated on the same principle as unconscious selection. He thereby effectively reunited these kindred concepts.