Welcome to my website, containing a number of essays which take an alternative, often dissident, view of evolution theory. It was started in 2006, as hughdower.com, when it contained the first 8 essays, of which only the ones on Samuel Butler and the Aquatic Ape Theory have been significantly changed in the light of new research or evidence, and my book extract. The remaining essays were added on the years indicated below.

Four biographical essays on famous 19th century evolutionists can be accessed from all pages by clicking on their portrait images. These are the four people whose writings most influenced mine in the late 1990s.

Several other essays, including the one that got me started as an obsessive evolutionist in 1993, an allegorical Fairy Story written in 2001, two book reviews, a Lamarckian interpretation of Aquatic Ape Theory, two 2009 essays concerning Darwin’s Influences and his Guilty Secret, the transcript of a talk I gave to mark Elizabeth Gaskell’s Bicentenary in 2010, two 2016 essays concerned with speciation and epigenetics respectively, two 2019 essays concerned with Climate Change from a Carbon Atom’s perspective and Natural Selection, and a 2021 essay about Darwin’s Lies, can all be found in the Essays section. Just click on Essays to get a brief description of, and link to, each essay. Or use the links on this page.

An extract from my 1996 book, “The Alternative Life”, is featured in Publications. My second evolution book, “Lamarck’s Due, Darwin’s Luck”, started in 1997, is as yet unpublished (though many of the essays on this site are extracts from it). Additionally, there is a collection of Letters that I have submitted to newspapers and magazines over some years, and a mini autobiography.

My Personal Evolution since 2008 can also be found at the end of the essay, “Six of the Best – Of Darwin’s Lies”.

This website also contains a lot of ‘hidden’ material, which can only be accessed by following links within the pieces of writing referred to on this page.

Throughout this website I frequently refer to Darwinists and neo-Darwinists. There is a distinction which is most clearly explained in what I consider to be the most important essay, “Lamarckian Inheritance From Epigenetics”. I am told that modern evolutionary biologists do not use those terms (Darwinist or neo-Darwinist), which I regard as a good sign (since I don’t think ideas and beliefs should be identified with people), but old habits die hard. Throughout the 20th century, those terms were in use, and it is the people who most proudly (and loyally) identified with them that I most wish to convince. In particular, it is my forlorn wish that Richard Dawkins would eat humble pie and ‘see the light’ about Lamarckism.

Please feel free to contact me to discuss any of my writings and views. The easiest method is probably via Twitter (X), though I have known strangers to contact me by email. Even my home address can be fairly easily accessed via search engines.