Darwin's Origin of Species Read online

  In 1976 a widely read text by Richard Dawkins called The Selfish Gene brought many of these issues to the fore. Dawkins explained the world of genes metaphorically, as if every living organism, every songbird or chimpanzee, was merely the gene’s way of making another gene. Behaviour patterns were little more than useful devices for ensuring the reproduction and spread of genes in a population. His lively terminology caught the imagination. Like Wilson, Dawkins has often been criticized. Whipped up by sensationalist headlines in the mass media, the public now tends to think that science proposes a gene for every human characteristic (an ‘intelligence’ gene, a ‘homosexual’ gene, an ‘adulterous’ gene) in the same way that there might be a gene for cystic fibrosis. Geneticists consequently find it hard to make clear that no single gene for anything ever exists, and that individual personalities or medical conditions rest in the interaction and expression of many genes via proteins in the cells and in relation to local environmental conditions, social structures and upbringing.

  Few of these modern debates over gorillas, selfish genes and biologically programmed behaviour patterns, however, have generated religious controversy about the accuracy of the actual knowledge being produced. Even Pope John Paul II issued a letter in 1996 to Catholics acknowledging that the result of scientific work carried out independently all over the globe ‘leads us to recognize in the theory of evolution more than a hypothesis’. The most unexpected of all recent developments, therefore, is the resurgence of creationist literature and proliferation of a whole new range of anti- Darwinian theologies in the West. Possibly it is one further expression, among many, of a cultural reaction to the relaxation of moral codes since the 1960s and 1970s. New creationists perhaps blame the rise of secular ideas for modern decadence and the loss of traditional family values. To attack evolutionary theory would therefore be to attack both a symbol and the alleged cause of the rot. Seen from outside, the tone of this movement is proscriptive and conservative. Whereas the anti-Darwinians of the nineteenth century never managed to bond in concentrated battlelines, and lost much of their effectiveness as a consequence, the fundamentalists of late twentieth-century America have acquired an impressively united voice and high public profile.

  Many of these modern movements echo themes brought out at the Scopes trial in Tennessee in 1925, where politicians and theologians attempted to drive Darwinism from public education. The legislatures of six southern states had already proposed anti-evolution laws during 1923 when two lesser bills were passed. In 1925 the Tennessee House of Representatives passed a bill making it a crime ‘to teach any theory that denies the story of the divine creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animal’. When the American Civil Liberties Union declared that it would defend any Tennessee schoolteacher willing to defy the law, John Scopes, a young science teacher from Dayton, accepted. The trial itself began as a publicity stunt, but soon gave the lawyer Clarence Darrow an opportunity to expose biblical literalism as foolish and harmful, principally through the answers he elicited from William Jennings Bryan, a champion of Christian values and leading opponent of evolution in schools. Most neutral observers declared the trial a draw. In 1960 the Scopes trial was turned into a popular film, Inherit the Wind, after which millions of Americans abandoned religious opposition to evolutionary theory.

  The rise of similar creationist ideas today can perhaps partly be explained by the securities it offers in an increasingly turbulent world, fed by frustration at the growing divide between experts and populace, and a dislike of science performed behind closed doors. Deriving mostly from the prolific writings in the 1930s of the Seventh Day Adventist science teacher George McCready Price and revived in the 1960s by Henry Morris, a Southern Baptist preacher, ‘young earth’ creationists, ‘flood geologists’ and other believers in the literal truth of the Bible assert that the earth is less than ten thousand years old and that the fossil record was laid down all at once during Noah’s flood. As Morris indicated in his Genesis Flood (1961), the Bible provides insufficient time for any kind of evolution. Morris’s views are today promoted by the Institute for Creation Research in San Diego, from whence he and his followers denounce Darwin and offer a scientific-sounding alternative called creation science, publicized widely through school textbooks, brochures and revivalist meetings, and apparently supported by scientific ‘facts’ such as the finding of pieces of the Ark. Much of the distribution of information nowadays is electronic, for creationists have capitalized on the power of the internet to press home purported flaws in Darwin’s reasoning and undermine modern Darwinism – a promotional device that reaches far more people than the academic profession’s densely worded publications. Even though religious instruction is barred from American public schools, creationists make a constitutional case for including creation science on the American school science syllabus. Darwin’s theory is only a theory, they say. Creation theory is claimed to be equally valid.

  Influenced by the ‘religious right’ of Ronald Reagan’s America, in 1981 the states of Louisiana and Arkansas passed bills to enforce ‘equal-time’ treatment in schools. Once again the American Civil Liberties Union brought an action against the Arkansas Board of Education that went all the way to the Supreme Court. Steven Jay Gould, one of the scientists called to serve as an expert witness for Darwinism in that case, felt himself almost to be appearing in a replay of the original 1925 court scenes in Dayton. His deposition makes fascinating reading. In a magazine article afterwards Gould reflected on the mismatch of definitions that occurred between judge and scientist:

  We define evolution, using Darwin’s phrase, as ‘descent with modification’ from prior living things. Our documentation of life’s evolutionary tree records one of science’s greatest triumphs, a profoundly liberating discovery on the oldest maxim that truth can make us free. We have made this discovery by recognizing what can be answered and what must be left alone. If Justice Scalia heeded our definitions and our practices, he would understand why creationism cannot qualify as science. He would also, by the way, sense the excitement of evolution and its evidence; no person of substance could be unmoved by something so interesting.1

  The court’s final decision, made in 1987, was to ban the teaching of any creation science in publicly financed schools in Arkansas on the grounds that creationism was a religious concept and not a scientific one. Daunted but not neutered, many creationists have since gone on to establish independent Christian schools and colleges where creation science can be taught.

  Today, across the United States, heated debates and lawsuits reflect rising support for the provision of alternatives to evolution in the state educational system. The Kansas Board of Education, for example, in August 1999, decided to make evolution optional in the criteria it issues for science teaching. Hence evolution is no longer covered in standardized tests for Kansas schoolchildren. Kentucky has deleted the word ‘evolution’ and substituted ‘change over time’. These shifts in public opinion deeply worry scientists. Certainly, many scientists feel that an understanding of religious traditions has a relevant place in every child’s education, not least in lessons on history and the development of diverse modern societies. Yet this is different from advocating a devotional standpoint as a real truth in science classes.

  Even though the concept of the separation of Church and State lies at the heart of the American constitution, the United States is a uniquely Protestant country where the Bible still plays a crucial role. Partisans for a new variant, called Intelligent Design, argue persuasively for presenting this as an alternative to Darwinism in school classrooms. Intelligent Design does not generally refute evolution but suggests that some biological processes are far too complex to have originated in the step-by-step manner proposed by Darwin. Recalling many of the controversies immediately following publication of the Origin of Species, the biochemist Michael J. Behe proposes in his book Darwin’s Black Box (1996) that protein reactions must have b
een designed by a superior intelligence. This is basically the old argument as put forward by William Paley or Asa Gray, brought up to date with new examples.

  The new millennium has consequently begun with Westerners as divided as ever over the implications of a natural origin of species. Despite these challenges, the modern synthesis stands firm at the heart of biological science. No biologist would dream of disregarding the evidence. As Theodore Dobzhansky said in 1973, ‘nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution’.

  History seldom tells of simple triumphant advances, but it can tell of the extraordinary impact of a single book. While many of the ideas and themes addressed by Darwin in 1859 were not new, and his writing style was mild in the extreme, the Origin of Species was clearly a major publishing event that spectacularly altered the nature of discussion on the question of origins. This interplay between one man, one book, and the diverse social, religious, intellectual and national circumstances of his audiences and the broader currents of historical change is what made Darwin’s Origin such a remarkable phenomenon in its own day and which continues to absorb and instruct modern readers. Old texts are frequently remade by new forms of attention, and it appears that Darwin’s Origin was both resilient in the survival of its main proposals and malleable in the hands of its devotees. His book can therefore be seen, not as a solitary voice deliberately defying the traditions of the Church or the moral values of society, but as one of the hubs of transformation in Western thought.

  NOTES

  Chapter 1

  1 Nora Barlow (ed.), The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–1882, with Original Omissions Restored, London, Collins, 1958, p. 57.

  2 Ibid., p. 60.

  3 Ibid., p. 59.

  4 F. H. Burkhardt and S. Smith et al. (eds.), The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, 14 vols., Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985– , vol. I, p. 129.

  5 Ibid., vol. I, p. 133.

  6 Autobiography, 1958, p. 76.

  7 Ibid., p. 78.

  8 Ibid., p. 79.

  9 Nora Barlow (ed.), ‘Darwin’s Ornithological Notes’, Bulletin of the British Museum, (Natural History) Historical series 2, pp. 201–78, p. 262.

  10 Autobiography, 1958, p. 80.

  11 Richard Darwin Keynes (ed.), Charles Darwin’s Beagle Diary, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 122.

  12 Autobiography, 1958, p. 101.

  13 Correspondence, 1985– , vol. III, p. 55.

  14 Ibid., vol. I, p. 312.

  Chapter 2

  1 Autobiography, 1958, p. 100.

  2 Paul H. Barrett et al. (eds.), Charles Darwin’s Notebooks, 1836 –1844: Geology, Transmutation of Species, Metaphysical enquiries, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987, Notebook B, pp. 63, 72.

  3 Notebooks, 1987, Notebook C, p. 196.

  4 Autobiography, 1958, p. 120.

  5 Correspondence, 1985– , vol. II, p. 123.

  6 Ibid., vol. II, p. 172.

  7 Ibid., vol. III, p. 43.

  8 Ibid., vol. III, p. 108.

  9 Autobiography, 1958, p. 120.

  10 Correspondence, 1985– , vol. VI, p. 335.

  Chapter 3

  1 Correspondence, 1985– , vol. VII, p. 118.

  2 Francis Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, 3 vols, London, 1887, vol. I, p. 155.

  3 Charles Darwin (1859), On the Origin of Species. A facsimile of the First Edition with an Introduction by Ernst Mayr, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1959, pp. 171, 188.

  4 On the Origin of Species, 1859 edn, p. 31.

  5 Correspondence, 1985– , vol. VII, p. 274.

  6 On the Origin of Species, 1859 edn, p. 75.

  7 Ibid., p. 84.

  8 Ibid., p. 112.

  9 Correspondence, 1985– , vol. VII, p. 265.

  10 Correspondence, 1985– , vol. VIII, p. 75.

  11 On the Origin of Species, 1859 edn, p. 488.

  12 On the Origin of Species, 1860 edn, p. 484.

  13 On the Origin of Species, 1859 edn, pp. 485–6.

  14 On the Origin of Species, 1859 edn, p. 490.

  15 Autobiography, 1958, p. 137.

  16 Correspondence, 1985– , vol. VI, p. 178.

  17 Correspondence, 1985– , vol. VII, pp. 324, 328.

  Chapter 4

  1 Correspondence, 1985– , vol. XI, p. 231.

  2 Correspondence, 1985– , vol. VIII, p. 405.

  3 ‘Agnosticism’, was an essay first published by Huxley in the Westminster Review in 1889. It was reprinted many times afterwards. It is most easily accessed in Huxley’s Collected Essays (1893–1894), vol. 5, p. 246.

  4 Westminster Review, 1860, vol. 17, p. 556.

  5 John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, being a Connected view of the Principles of Evidence, and the Methods of Scientific Induction, 5th edn, 2 vols., London, 1862, vol. II, p. 18.

  6 Karl Pearson, The Grammar of Science, London, 1892, p. 369.

  7 Charles Darwin (1871), The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, 2 vols., facsimile of the first edition, introduced by John Tyler Bonner and Robert M. May, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1981, vol. II, pp. 368–9.

  8 Ibid., vol. I, p. 57.

  9 Ibid., vol. I, pp. 206–7.

  Chapter 5

  1 Steven Jay Gould, Natural History, October 1987, vol. 96, pp. 14–21.

  SOURCES AND FURTHER READING

  Barlow, Nora (ed.), The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–1882, with Original Omissions restored, London, Collins, 1958

  Barrett, Paul H. et al. (eds.), Charles Darwin’s Notebooks, 1836–1844:

  Geology, Transmutation of Species, Metaphysical Enquiries,

  Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987

  Bowler, Peter J., Evolution, the History of an Idea, 3rd edn, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2003

  Brooke, John H., Science and Religion, Some Historical Perspectives, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991

  Browne, Janet, Charles Darwin, Voyaging, New York, Knopf, 1995 Browne, Janet, Charles Darwin, The Power of Place, New York, Knopf, 2002

  Browne, Janet and Neve, Michael (eds.), Charles Darwin: Voyage of

  the Beagle, London, Penguin Books, 1989

  Burkhardt, F. H. and Smith, S. et al. (eds.), The Correspondence of

  Charles Darwin, 14 vols., Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985–

  Burrow, John, Evolution and Society, A Study in Victorian Social

  Theory, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1966

  Darwin, Charles (1859), On the Origin of Species. A facsimile of the First

  Edition with an Introduction by Ernst Mayr, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1959

  Darwin, Charles (1871), The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation

  to Sex, 2 vols., facsimile of the first edition, introduced by John Tyler Bonner and Robert M. May, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1981

  Darwin, Francis (ed.), The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, 3 vols, London, John Murray, 1887

  Darwin, Francis and Seward, A. C. (eds.), More Letters of Charles

  Darwin: A Record of his Work in a Series of Hitherto Unpublished Letters, 2 vols., London, John Murray, 1903

  Dawkins, Richard, The Selfish Gene, Oxford, Oxford University

  Press, 1976

  Ellegard, Alvar, Darwin and the General Reader, the Reception of

  Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in the British Periodical Press, 1859– 1872, reprint edn, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1990

  Freeman, Richard, The Works of Charles Darwin: An Annotated

  Bibliographical Handlist, 2nd edn, Folkestone, Dawson Archon Books, 1977

  Gould, Steven J., The Mismeasure of Man, revised edn, New York, W. W. Norton, 1996

  Greene, John C., The Death of Adam: Evolution and its Impact on

  Western Thought, revised edn, Ames, Iowa State University Press, 1996

  Healey, Edna, Emma Dar
win: The Inspirational Wife of a Genius, London, Headline, 2001

  Hodge, Jonathan, and Radick, Gregory (eds.), The Cambridge

  Companion to Darwin, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003

  Hofstadter, Richard, Social Darwinism in American Thought, revised

  edn, Boston, Beacon Press, 1992

  Huxley, T. H., Collected Essays (1893–1894), 10 volumes, reprint edn, Georg Olms Verlag, Hildeheim and New York, 1970.

  Jay, Mike and Neve, Michael (eds.), 1900 : a Fin-de-Siècle Reader, London, Penguin, 1999

  Kevles, Daniel J., In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of

  Human Heredity, revised edn, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1995

  Keynes, Richard Darwin (ed.), Charles Darwin’s Beagle Diary, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988

  Kohn, David (ed.), The Darwinian Heritage, Princeton NJ, Princeton

  University Press in association with Nova Pacifica, 1985

  Larson, Edward J., Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s

  Continuing Debate over Science and Religion, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1997

  Larson, Edward J., Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific

  Theory, New York, Random House, 2004

  Mill, John Stuart, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, being

  a Connected view of the Principles of Evidence, and the Methods of Scientific Induction, 5th edn, 2 vols., London, 1862

  Pearson, Karl, The Grammar of Science, London, 1892

  Peckham, Morse, The Origin of Species: A Variorum Text,

  Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1959

  Ridley, Matt, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, London, Fourth Estate, 1999

  Ruse, Michael, The Darwinian Revolution, Science Red in Tooth and Claw, 2nd edn, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1999

  Wilson, Andrew N., God’s Funeral, London, John Murray, 1999