Darwin misquoted on Wikipedia Natural Selection

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Natural_selection#Darwin.27s_hypothesis_section_fraudulent_misquotation

The "Darwin's hypothesis" section contains a fraudulent misquotation:
"I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if
useful, is preserved."
:The full quotation is:
"I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if
useful, is preserved, by the term natural selection, in order to mark
its relation to man's power of selection.
and the next paragraph
"But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer, of the Survival
of the Fittest, is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient.
We have seen that man by selection can certainly produce great
results, and can adapt organic beings to his own uses, through the
accumulation of slight but useful variations, given to him by the hand
of Nature. But Natural Selection, we shall hereafter see, is a power
incessantly ready for action, and is as immeasurably superior to man's
feeble efforts, as the works of Nature are to those of Art."

Darwin seems to imply that Natural Selection as some sort of nature
selection force is superior to mans "feeble" efforts. His intent with
the phrase [[Artificial selection]] also alludes to this. What
confuses the matter is that nobody knows what was his or Spencer's
intent with [[Survival of the Fittest]]. It could mean anything you
want it to mean. Natural selection must be discussed in terms of
[[Artificial selection]] and Survival of the Fittest since Darwin said
SoF is more "accurate" and how it relates to "feeble man" and
"nature's power of selection" as he put it in the passage dealing with
Artificial Selection. It is not clear what was Darwin's intent with
these three phrases and how they relate. He seems to be invoking
nature as some sort of conscious "selection" force, unless there are
passages that proves that it is not so.
:from http://www.gutenberg.org Darwin used artificial selection only
once in the book Origin of Species
"Slow though the process of selection may be, if feeble man can do
much by '''artificial selection''', I can see no limit to the amount
of change, to the beauty and complexity of the coadaptations between
all organic beings, one with another and with their physical
conditions of life, which may have been effected in the long course of
time through nature's power of selection, that is by the survival of
the fittest."

.

Relevant Pages

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