Douglas Dewar
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Douglas Dewar (28 May 1875 – 13 January 1957) was a
barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...
, British civil servant in India, and
ornithologist Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...
who wrote several books about Indian birds. He wrote widely in newspapers such as ''The Madras Mail'', ''Pioneer'', ''Times of India'' and periodicals such as the ''
Civil and Military Gazette ''The Civil and Military Gazette'' was a daily English-language newspaper founded in 1872 in British India. It was published from Lahore, Simla and Karachi, some times simultaneously, until its closure in 1963.London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
where his father Dr Dewar practised at Sloane Street and Hampton Wick. He studied
natural science Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...
at Jesus College,
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
, before joining the
Indian civil service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 300 million ...
in 1898. Dewar married Edith, daughter of Alfred Rawles on 7 March 1902 at Bombay. He was posted Accountant General in Punjab from 1921 to 1924. Dewar however wrote most on ornithology and wrote numerous books on the birds of India. He particularly favoured the study of birds in life in the field wrote in his ''Birds of the Plains'': :"The ornithological world is peopled by two classes of human beings. There are those who study nature inside the museum with the microscope and scalpel and there are those who live to observe birds In the open and study their habits." He accused museum ornithologists of needlessly multiplying species, altering names, and paying too much attention to local variations. In his early education, he had been taught the ideas of evolution and was half-hearted in his acceptance of the principles. Although his early works on ornithology seemed to accept ideas of adaptation and selection, he later became a
creationist Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' says that creationism is 'th ...
and published a number of books and debates attacking evolution, and was the founding secretary-treasurer in the
Evolution Protest Movement The Creation Science Movement (CSM, founded in 1932 as the Evolution Protest Movement) is a British Creationist organisation which lays claim to the title "the oldest creationist movement in the world". It was a member of the Evangelical Alliance u ...
in 1932 along with
Bernard Acworth Captain Bernard Acworth DSO (3 February 1885 – 16 February 1963) was an English submariner, writer, evangelical Christian and creationist. Biography Acworth was trained at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, becoming a submariner during th ...
and Lewis Merson Davies, jointly known as the Acworth Circle. He leaned towards the idea of
old earth creationism Old Earth creationism (OEC) is an umbrella of theological views encompassing certain varieties of creationism which may or can include day-age creationism, gap creationism, progressive creationism, and sometimes theistic evolutionism. Broadly sp ...
but questioned
radiometric dating Radiometric dating, radioactive dating or radioisotope dating is a technique which is used to date materials such as rocks or carbon, in which trace radioactive impurities were selectively incorporated when they were formed. The method compares t ...
. His book, ''The Transformist Illusion'' published posthumously in 1957 attempted to show the failure of evolution using examples such as the infinitesimal probability of proteins arising out of random mixing, the fossil record, bird anatomy, blood group incompatibilities, and queried evolutionary claims in embryology and vestigial organs. Reviewers pointed out the problems in his objections. The Dewars had three sons who died before them. The youngest, Douglas died in 1939 and was buried at Frimley. The second John, died in 1940 and their eldest son Kenyon died in 1942. Only their daughter, Millicent, who married Walter Waldron lived beyond them.


Writings

Dewar wrote several books mainly on the birds of India, numerous articles in newspapers and other periodicals and later in life wrote critiques on the theory of evolution. * (1903)
Animals of no importance
' * (1906)
Bombay ducks; an account of some of the every-day birds and beasts found in a naturalist's Eldorado.
' * (1908)
Birds of the plains.
' * (1909)
The making of species
'. London, New York, J. Lane Company. (with
Frank Finn Frank Finn FZS, MBOU (1868 – 1 October 1932) was an English ornithologist. Finn was born in Maidstone and educated at Maidstone Grammar School and Brasenose College, Oxford. He went on a collecting expedition to East Africa in 1892, a ...
* (1910)
Indian birds; being a key to the common birds of the plains of India
' * (1911)
Notes on the English pre-mutiny records in the United Provinces
' * (1912)
Jungle Folk. Indian natural history sketches.
' John Lane, London. * (1913)
Glimpses of Indian birds.
' * (1915)
Birds of the Indian hills
'. * (1916)
A bird calendar for northern India.
' * (1920) In the days of the Company. Calcutta : Thacker, Spink & Co. * (1920?
A handbook to the English pre-Mutiny records in the Government Record Rooms of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh.
* (1922)
Bygone days in India
' * (1923)
Himalayan and Kashmiri birds, being a key to the birds commonly seen in summer in the Himalayas & Kashmir
' * (1923) The Common Birds of India
Volume 1

2
Thacker, Spink & Co., Calcutta. * (1923) Birds at the Nest. London: John Lane. * (1929
Birds of an Indian Village
Oxford University Press. * (1931
Difficulties of the Evolution Theory
London : E. Arnold & co. * (1936) ''Man: a special creation.'' London: Thynne. * (1938) ''More Difficulties of the Evolution Theory.'' London: Thynne. * (1944)
Obsessions Of Biologists
'. Evolution Protest Movement. * (1947
''Is evolution proved? A debate between Douglas Dewar and H.S. Shelton.''
With an introd. by the editor, Arnold Lunn. London: Hollis and Carter with H.S. Shelton and
Arnold Lunn Sir Arnold Henry Moore Lunn (18 April 1888 – 2 June 1974) was a skier, mountaineer and writer. He was knighted for "services to British Skiing and Anglo-Swiss relations" in 1952. His father was a lay Methodist minister, but Lunn was an agn ...
* (1949) ''Is evolution a myth? : a debate between Douglas Dewar, L. Merson Davies and
J.B.S. Haldane John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (; 5 November 18921 December 1964), nicknamed "Jack" or "JBS", was a British-Indian scientist who worked in physiology, genetics, evolutionary biology, and mathematics. With innovative use of statistics in biolog ...
,'' London: C.A. Watts/Paternoster Press. * (1957) ''The Transformist Illusion.'' Murfreesboro, Tennessee: Dehoff Publications


References


External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dewar, Douglas 1875 births 1957 deaths British creationists British ornithologists Indian ornithologists