Jim Dempster's Correspondence: The Wavertree Letters [Letter 9]

Wavertree 17.5.98

 Dear Ian,

…

 I wonder if you read the Oldie? Enclosed is Smullen’s article. I hear he contacted you. No offer of an apology is forthcoming and The Oldie pretend they don’t know who he is. …

Only one biologist has taken any interest in my book. A palaeontologist at Bristol University has bought my book and seeks my help with his work on James Hutton! He was a sort of Renaissance man – interested in many subjects – breeding, geology, moral philosophy, chemistry and latent heat (from Black) which started him on vulvanism. He built a house overlooking Salisbury Crags and the view stimulated his interest in geology and now he is recognised as the founder of Geology. John Hunter was the same – anatomist, geologist, surgeon, fossil collector and essays on natural history. There is a bit of all this in my book.

Then Charles Lyell came along with his Uniformitarianism which Hutton and Hunter had recognised so many years before. Penguin has recently reprinted the first edition of Lyell’s Principles with a foreword by Jim Secord of Cambridge (an American who has been here since 1980) which is quite dishonest. The first edition in anti-Lamarck but the 12th edition is pro-Lamarck!

 Hope you are all well

Best wishes,

Jim

Notes and Comments by Mike Sutton 

This looks like someone called Smullen wrote something published in the "oldie" that upset Jim Dempster.

 Here Dempster reveals also that he thinks there is some kind of coordinated deliberate dishonesty afoot to conceal Lyell's move towards Lamarckinsm.