On the Origin of Species to be expanded with his research results and published if he died prematurely. In November 1844, the anonymously published popular science book "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation", written by Scottish journalist Robert Chambers, widened public interest in the concept of transmutation of species. "Vestiges" used evidence from the fossil record and embryology to support the claim that living things had progressed from the simple to the more complex over time. But it proposed a linear progression rather than the branching common descent theory behind Darwin's work in progress, and it ignored adaptation. Darwin read it soon after publication,
Reactions to On the Origin of Species agent for the propagation of the Gospel – i.e. the devil's gospel." The position of Richard Owen was unknown: when emphasising to a Parliamentary committee the need for a new Natural History museum, he pointed out that "The whole intellectual world this year has been excited by a book on the origin of species; and what is the consequence? Visitors come to the British Museum, and they say, 'Let us see all these varieties of pigeons: where is the tumbler, where is the pouter?' and I am obliged with shame to say, I can show you none of them..." As