From Heresy to Dogma in Twenty Years or Less

"As is so often the case and as the history of science so amply testifies, the acceptance of new ideas is often dependent upon the influence of non-scientific factors of a social, psychological, and philosophical nature and the Darwinian revolution was no exception" (Michael Denton).

The late 18th and early 19th centuries in Europe had been characterized by political revolution and social upheaval. The exhausted ruling elites in the 19th century generally sought stability and order. The idea that change should occur gradually, seamlessly, in quiet order rather than catastrophically, was very attractive. Hence, the continuity and gradualism of Darwin's hypotheses found a welcome reception.

Victorians held as ideal the inevitability of progress. There was widespread optimism about the future--not dashed until World War I--and belief in the perfectibility of man. Darwinism propounded movement in a consistently upward direction.

The physical sciences had for over a hundred years thrown off any appeal to supernaturalism. Darwinism made it possible to link the biological sciences to the larger academic order, which incorporated naturalism and uniformitarianism. Darwinism also succeeded as an idea because there was no acceptable "scientific" (read: naturalistic) alternative. Ultimately, especially for men like Huxley, special creation was no longer tenable, or, more accurately, desirable.

Paradigm revolutions do not occur overnight. The facts were the same before and after the publication of Origin, but the changes in outlook fueled by the book as well as the contemporary intellectual climate gave a different perspective to things. What had once been unthinkable was now hardly given a second thought.

Darwinism's path was also smoothed by the several ways in which the credibility of orthodox Christianity had been undermined (to some) by German higher criticism of the Bible and a wave of theological liberalism. And emerging social and economic theories accommodated Darwinism easily. Marxism especially found common cause with Darwinism and materialism in general.