With the experience of the publication of the hallmark article on Humanity Learning on 12 September 2025, I have been reflecting on a similar analogy in the history of science.
These are the moments when something is seen for the first time, or a long arc of research is realised in the way designed for, and no-one outside of the research group is there to notice it.
The publication on the Twenty Elucidations on Humanity Learning, and its public presentation on 16 October 2025, is one such occasion [1]. This raises a rare and insightful meta-reflection.
Abductive Analogy
In thinking about where we have seen this moment before, I do have a favourite example – and so enjoyed looking into the history of it with 20:20 hindsight (and reflective foresight).
There are a number of accounts of the prompting of the publication of Darwin’s theory of natural selection as the mechanism for evolution, concurrently with receipt of Alfred Wallace’s paper written in Ternate in 1858. Having stood on the shores of Ternate in 1991, looking across to the neighbouring island of Tidore in the Maluku, I have had my own Wallace and Darwin moments in the field.
With the reading of these papers at the Linnean Society meeting on 1 July 1858, both nothing remarkable happened, and the academic understanding of the natural world would never again be the same.
Fifty years later, in 1908, the President of the Linnean Society (Dr. Scott) in a celebration of Darwin’s life and Wallace’s contribution commented on that first reading as being: ‘so unpretentious in its circumstances, so profound in its significance.‘ (Link). It is with the benefit of hindsight, we can reflect on our cognisance of such moments of remarkableness.
I have to confess, I have been fascinated with Darwinian theory since 2012, mostly for the reason of its example as to how abductive logics work in groundbreaking research. For my PhD dissertation this provided one example of how an authentic process of thought in open inquiry can lead to new discoveries [2].
From first notebook sketch, to mid-point memoranda, and through each edition of On the Origin of Species …’ (1859) there is a record of thought’s development – by means of a thousand small decisions.
More recently, another reason is the interest in the chronology of the reactions to Darwin’s ‘Origins‘. This provides a perfect example of how a system of conceptions reveals its composition by means of a reaction to a novel concept first encountered.
By this, we will know, what we (i.e. humanity) will do next.
Let’s look at some anecdotes from this prior moment in history – and see what this tells us, about our learning as a humanity.
#1 ~ Nothing to see here, move along
Moment #1. The Chairman of the Linnean Society, Thomas Bell, is often admonished for stating in his review of the year’s papers (including those on natural selection) that 1858 had:
“not, indeed, been marked by any of those striking discoveries which at once revolutionise, so to speak, the department of science on which they bear.”
However, the fuller story and its facts are more interesting. In Partridge’s (2022) exceptional scholarly account we learn that the way Darwin and Wallace’s discovery was presented would not lead the ordinary person to see anything startlingly remarkable.
Notwithstanding the advancing of Darwin’s work up the meeting’s agenda, and Hooker and Lyell’s introductory summary, the title of the agenda item was itself unremarkable. It read:
“Three Papers on the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection.” [Zoologist 16: pp.6293-6308] (Link)
There was nothing new in the idea of varieties of species and their perpetuation. Even the concept of ‘natural selection’ was phrased in the title (unremarkably) as a ‘natural means of selection’ (View). This phrasing may have been intentional, or merely the result of disorganisation in time and distance, however the effect was a general non-cognisance of a theory that would later cause societal up-roar. There was, literally, nothing new to see – or in the words of Samuel Haughton (9 February 1959): “If it means what it says, it is a truism; if it means anything more, it is contrary to fact.” (Link).
Question 1: What is occurring when the remarkable is not seen by the conversant present to the moment of the observation of a new emergence?
#2 ~ The attentive notice attentively
Moment #2. There is a reference to one Linnean Society member who records, after reviewing the Darwin and Wallace’s papers, the recognition of the import of the moment. In this account, zoologist Alfred Newton (who was later present at the Huxley v Wilberforce debate) is described as ‘the only person who had noticed what had happened’, and found in the Linnean publication:
‘a perfectly simple solution of all the difficulties that had been troubling me’ (p. 150). [4]
There is an argument that the Linnean Society, as primarily being interested in biology and zoology, was not the audience to appreciate the import of a theory of morphology and geology. However, if one person was conversant with the question, why not the rest of the attentive assembled?
Question 2: When we do notice a new occurrence of benefit, what happens in its re-interpretation by existing pre-conceptions – and why is there not immediately adoption of the new practice and insight?
#3 The helpfulness of hesitancy
Moment #3. The rallying of Lyell, Hooker and Huxley to aid Darwin in the shared priority of his discovery is documented in the historical record. In Wallace and Darwin’s own correspondence there is the recognition of each researcher’s respect, and respective contributions. Less easy to find is the reasons, within these profound friendships, for hesitancy in accepting fully the implications of Darwin’s extrapolations personally.
Charles Lyell, a geologist, endorsed Darwin’s reasoning in 1863, but struggled with the application of natural selection to the moral consciousness of mankind (Link). He wrote: “I have spoken out to the utmost extent of my tether, so far as my reason goes, and farther than my imagination and sentiment can follow”. (11 March 1863)
Thomas Huxley, an anatomist, accepted natural selection, but disputed with Darwin on (among other items) the change to the Linnean system of description, to be based on genealogy not the orthodoxy of classifications (Link). He wrote (1846) “As a Botanist I must be content to take species as they appear to be not as they are, [and] still less as they were or ought to be.” (link). The mutability of species and their distinction from varieties was something Darwin would work on for the remainder of his life.
Joseph Hooker, a geographical botanist, provided collegial and critical examinations to Darwin from 1845, for example, pointing out the problem of different genera of species on isolated islands (i.e. like the Galapagos and Ternate) (Link). From that engagement, he came to a deeper appreciation and he later writes: “At that very early period of my own studies I failed to grasp its full significance … I did not assimilate it at once.” [5] (Link)
While some might see the different perspectives, of different disciplines, in what were emerging sciences, in collegial conversations, as hesitancy; from a different appreciation the refinement of an idea benefits from the forces of a ideological, yet not hostile, struggle for existence.
Question 3: When the new concept and its implications are starkly apparent, why is there social or personal reservation to come out in support of the new insight?
Explaining Obliviousness
As part of The Darwin Correspondence Project, there is a copy of the original letter from W. C. Tait of Portugal, who writes to Darwin when assisting with samples for the book Insectivorous Plants. He offers this affirmation and consolation:
“It must be a great satisfaction to you to see your theory now becoming more and more generally accepted. I think that what makes people most prejudiced against it is that it must apply to man in common with other animals— Their pride and pre-conceived opinions receive a smart shock and it is not always that truth is sought for its own sake and in an unprejudiced or unbiassed manner. Max Müller seems to have given natural selection a kind of application to language, but I do not see why it should not be applied also to customs, instincts, opinions, politics, social institutions, competition in commerce and professions, and why in fact it should not be an universal law.” (Oporto, July 11th 1869)
Various people (notably Ernst Haeckel) did go on to apply the concept of ‘evolution’ to many other topics and fields, sometimes referencing Darwin, but rarely taking the time to develop a valid comparison to the mechanism of natural selection. Whether social politics, sticky memes, marketing tipping points, sexual diseases, winning mindsets in different sporting codes or fad management theories; Darwin’s work is still known mostly for what it was not about, and did not at all cover.
We may find it strange that for such a vast theory, invisible without the ability for the apprehension of geological timeframes, and which includes the observer in the observations as a naturalistic theory applying itself to all life, it is in its application opaque to the very persons to whom it applies most immediately. We have accelerated our own evolution, but in 165 years, not our understanding of our understanding of how we learn such learnings.
Prior to Darwin’s Origins, people (i.e. scientists and agriculturalists) thought they were using evolution, and the next day they realised they were the effect of evolution.
We observe evolution without appreciating that we are the product of it, not noticing that this too applies ~ to the development of our observations about it.
Reluctance, Reticence, Reservation
Which brings us to humanity learning and the appreciation, in analogy, of precisely what has been happening to thought (and moments of discovery) recently…
In apithology theory, there is a principle of how generative thought is enabled by coherences. This has its origins in Charles Sanders Peirce’s phenomenology (rather than his semiotics or pragmatism). It is foundational to the ‘humble truths’ about our perennial non-seeing as a highly conscious species (and one arguably in evolutionary transition).
The Darwin analogy reveals that the non-cognisance of a new emergence occurs when there is an absence of one (or more) of three correlates. In apithology, these are known as the Three Resistings (21 February 2022 – #843). Their common definitions are:
a) reluctance ~ unwillingness or disinclination to do something.
b) reticence ~ not revealing one’s thoughts or feelings readily.
c) reservation ~ an expression of doubt qualifying overall approval of a plan or statement.
Reluctance is the unwillingness to change a practice, notwithstanding the social approval or logical resonance. Reticence is the hesitancy in revealing one’s convictions, notwithstanding the adoption of the benefits by clear and sensible reasoning. Reservation is the intuition of unseen problems, notwithstanding our agreement to already receive the practical and social advantages. Each is a reasonable reaction (in an evolutionary sense) in hesitancy to a prompted change of proven habits.
Each has an impact on the evolution of new coherences, by the very fact of its absence.
If one of these disabling dynamics is present, the new coherence of insight offered, will languish for want of a receptive audience. This is what initially occurred for Darwin’s theoretical exposition, and what is occurring now for humanity learning.
Miss one contributing dynamic, and the new conception, is without reception.
By analogy, it has no niche in new consciousness in which to inhabit and (based on its inheritances) potentially flourish!
Humanity Cognisance (Evolving)
The appreciation of the dynamics of formation of systems of conceptions, is the specialisation of a discipline that reveals to us the cognisance of our humanity. This is the research premise in apithology that makes humanity learning viable.
Imagine one day that you are a human learning about your humanity, only to appreciate the next day that you are an expression of humanity learning about its learning.
Like Darwin, one has to take in a vast teleology without a pre-conceived narrative. Like Darwin, one has to recognise there is a mechanism that is both universal and dynamic. Like Darwin, one has to accept that what appears immutable is in fact a product of past selections. Like Darwin, one has to wonder at the vastness and be delighted at the intricacies. (Link)
By simple comparisons, we can appreciate the immensity of the cognisance that is requisite ~ in our appreciation of Humanity’s (now and future) becoming – and what lies before us in Humanity Learning.
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References:
[1] Varey, W., & Keller, M. (2025). Engendering Humanity Learning: Reciprocality and Prospectivity. Aspects of Apithology: The Journal of Apithological Practice, 10(2), 1–14.
[2] Varey, W. (2012). Abductive theory for thought-ecologies: Depicting systems of conceptions. (Doctoral dissertation). Murdoch University: Murdoch, Australia.
[3] Partridge, D. (2022). The famous Linnean Society meeting: From old errors to new insights. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. 137(3). 556-567.
[4] De Beer, G. (1963) Charles Darwin, evolution by natural selection. London: Nelson and Sons.
[5] Hooker, J. D. (1899) ‘Reminiscences of Darwin’, Nature 60(1547), 187–188 p. 187.