[Ads-l] Antedating of "Natural Selection"

[Shapiro, Fred]

I am not sure to what extent the OED will cite modern manuscripts, but the term "natural selection" (OED 1857) can be antedated from an 1842 Cambridge University Darwin manuscript that has been digitized.  The term appears as a heading in Darwin's so-called "Pencil Sketch" that is reliably dated 1842:



http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-DAR-00006/41



Fred Shapiro

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