ABSTRACT
Watson was one the first scientists to develop and carry out an original research program to obtain data showing that evolution is occurring, though it was an implicit rather than a published program. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck certainly collected evidence for their discussions, and Lyell collected evidence in order to discredit Lamarck’s ideas. However, it seems doubtful that their efforts could be called developing and carrying out a research program in the same sense that Watson did. For the most part, these scientists were compiling and organizing existing information in order to build their arguments. Watson undertook original research to document evolution. This was also true of zoologist Etienne Geoffroy SaintHilaire by the 1810s, but his research program might also have been implicit, like Watson’s, until much later.1
