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.

The Early Response to "On the Origin of Species"

The book sold well. It was immediately evident that Darwin's ideas contradicted orthodox Christian teaching on creation. Opposition therefore came from most clerics (although a minority not only had no problem with Darwinism but actually championed it), but the hypotheses advanced in the book also met with criticism from many scientists as well. Prominent naturalists and biological scientists such as Louis Agassiz and Rudolf Virchow disdained Darwin's ideas.

But Darwinism found a true friend in Thomas Henry Huxley, who is perhaps only second to Darwin himself as the most remarkable figure in the story of Darwinism in later 19th-century Britain. Huxley was an autodidact--having essentially no formal education, through reading he became one of the most learned men in the country. He had particular expertise in invertebrate physiology. He was one of a select few who knew of Darwin's work prior to the publication of Origin. Although not entirely convinced of its scientific merits, for he was not sure natural selection had the power required of it under the theory, he was perhaps the theory's foremost public proponent. Early in the 1860s he formed an association with seven other intellectuals, chiefly scientists, called the "X Club." Originally it was more of a social club but because of the members' mutual interests it became a speakers' and writers' bureau for the popularization of topics in science, particularly Darwinism. He formally styled himself an agnostic--in fact, he is credited with coming up with the concept, as opposed to atheism--but there is no secret that one of his prime motives for championing Darwinism was the perceived damage it did to the authority of the church and the Bible.

Natural Selection Expanded Upon

Natural selection is, to borrow an analogy, the hinge upon which modern biology turns. Put succinctly, natural selection is the process whereby actions by environmental factors to "favor" some organismal variations and "discourage" others results in the production of variation in living things and hence the rise of species by the accumulation of favorable muations over time. All of this occurs "without direction or purpose," for there is--in the view of the materialistic naturalist--no personality planning or guiding natural selection. There is no end in view. All takes place through the vehicle of randomly-occurring mutations.

The question is not whether natural selection occurs, for it really does, and it has an effect in maintaining the genetic fitness of a given population. Species avoid genetic deterioration due to natural attrition among the genetically unfit. But Darwinists claim further that natural selection has a powerful building effect that can account for all the diversity and complexity observed across the full extent of living organisms on Earth.

Notice the key role played by "time." Time is what Charles Lyell's geology theories gave to Darwin.

Now, Darwin could point to no examples of natural selection in action because none had been observed at that time. However, he drew an analogy with the practice of artificial selection engaged in by animal breeders. While this certainly illustrates the concept of variation and diversity produced over time, the analogy is misleading because breeders employ intelligence and specialized knowledge to produce and protect their charges from natural dangers, while for Darwin the key idea was that purposeless and unintelligent natural processes can substitute for intelligent design. Furthermore, highly bred individuals removed from protection will, through reproduction, revert to the wild type. Natural selection is actually a conservative force that prevents the appearance of extremes of variability. Even the breeding of domestic animals has produced no new species in the formal sense of that word; there is often a semantic failure to distinguish between strains or breeds and species. But even if a rigorous breeding process could succeed in producing a distinct new species, this is far from a demonstration that bacteria could eventuate in a fruit fly.

In fact, natural selection is a tautology. The theory predicts that the fittest organisms will produce the most offspring, yet the biological definition of "fitness" is the ability to produce more offspring. Just about any characteristic can be advantageous or disadvantageous depending upon the environmental circumstances. So natural selection becomes an all-purpose "explanation" that can account for anything and therefore explains nothing. It is non-falsifiable.

But perhaps the greatest utility to which natural selection has been put is that,as conceived by Darwin, it posits a materialistic explanation for organic variation and complexity. It excludes the unacceptable (to some) alternative of supernatural involvement. In short, as we will see when we take up the subject of the receipt of Darwin's ideas, natural selection made it possible to be "an intellectually fulfilled atheist." Or so thought Thomas Huxley.

Charles Darwin, the Voyage of HMS Beagle, and the Development of Darwinism

In his youth, Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was an indifferent student but something of an amateur naturalist, botanist, and geologist. There is a (possibly apocryphal) story that he was once out looking to add to his insect collection and found first one beetle and then another that he had to have. With both fists occupied, he then spotted yet a third desirable specimen. He attempted to solve the dilemma by popping one beetle into his mouth, freeing up a hand to grab the third. But this beetle expressed its dislike for its new environment by emitting an obnoxious fluid, causing Darwin to cough and gag so violently that he lost all three beetles.

Although originally slated for the Anglican Church, he early realized that this was not a suitable career for him. Instead, he signed on to the crew of HMS Beagle as an unpaid naturalist for a circumnavigation of the globe that would take five years. As the ship made its way around the southern tip of South America, Darwin traveled extensively through the continent's interior, examining the fossil beds and collecting biological specimens. He was impressed by the constantly changing varieties of life he saw, but his experiences in the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador were even more impressive. He encountered his famous finches there. He recognized the differences between organisms seen on the islands (which were of recent volcanic origin) and the mainland, and the differences in organisms between the islands themselves.

Upon his return to the United Kingdom, Darwin encountered the writings of Thomas Malthus, the famous "prophet of doom" who believed that the human population was expanding too rapidly and that humans would shortly exhaust available food and living space. Darwin applied his ideas to the ways in which populations of organisms are kept in check. But he was in no immediate rush to publish. He deliberated for many years on his observations and theories. Finally he was spurred into action when he learned that Alfred Russell Wallace was about to publish almost identical ideas independently conceived. And so in 1859 his magnum opus appeared--On the Origin of Species. Darwin's major ideas were not based on experimentation but on observation linked to a conceptual framework or paradigm; technically this makes his "theory" a hypothesis.

Darwin's great ideas can be succinctly summarized as:

1. Species are not immutable. This contradicts the idea prevalent at the time Origin was published that species are fixed (immutable.)

2. "Descent with modification" can account for life's diversity, all living things having descended from a very small number of common ancestors.

3. Natural selection, vulgarly expressed as "the survival of the fittest." There is much more to this idea, as we will discover shortly.

Biology before Darwin

Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher and systematizer, was the first naturalist. He perceived a hierarchy of all living things, with man at the top. His ideas dominated medieval European thinking in the natural sciences for centuries. Married to Aristotle’s concept of hierarchy was the Christian doctrine of special creation. Naturalists believed that all the kinds/species of living things originally came into existence in their present form as a direct consequence of the creative activity of God. Accordingly, there are no necessary relationships of any species to any others historically, meaning no common ancestors.

Following the Renaisssance and Reformation, natural science in the West began to come into its own. While biology was a relatively late entry in this revolution, there were several 18th-century investigators who did important work:
1. Carolus Linnaeus (dates uncertain), a Swedish taxonomist, who remains hugely influential down to this day for his categorization of living organisms. He maintained belief in special creation.
2. Leclerc de Buffon (1701-1788) was an advocate for change over time, in this case by degeneration (loss of properties). In this he adopted a Platonic view of biology (fall from original ideals).
3. Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), Charles’ grandfather. He posited historical connections between species and the role of competition in the development of species. He thought that the environment may induce changes in animals and that these changes might possibly be propagated through generations (inheritance of traits).
4. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) was the first systematizer of evolution. In 1801 he proposed the descent of species, including man. He saw life as progressing in increasing complexity. He proposed the inheritance of acquired characteristics (for which his ideas were ridiculed) and a universal creative principle or “force” that moved everything in the direction of greater complexity.

But biology did not develop in a vacuum. Geological theory exerted an enormous influence on the thinking of biologists.
1. James Hutton (1726-1797) originated the concept of uniformitarianism in opposition to catastrophism (change through sudden violent upheaval). According to Hutton, changes in the Earth took place slowly and gradually via the same processes that can be observed today--erosion, sedimentary deposition, etc. The idea relies upon a very old Earth. Change is the normal state of affairs rather than a static system interrupted periodically by sudden change.
2. William Smith (1769-1839) was an English surveyor who studied geological strata and correlated them to the fossil record.
3. Charles Lyell (1797-1875) was a geologist and author of Principles of Geology, a two-volume work that Charles Darwin had with him on the Beagle. Lyell supported uniformitarianism and an old Earth.

Life on Planet Earth

As a mental exercise, try to characterize the phenomenon of life as it exists on this planet. Some applicable ideas: Diversity, variation, change, complexity, interrelationships, vigor. How can one account for all of this? Where did it come from? Where might it be going?

Not surprisingly, there have been many who have attempted to answer these questions. But before we consider the history of such ideas, a few definitions will be useful.

A species is a group of organisms that actually or potentially interbreed and are reproductively isolated from all other such groups.

Evolution (that highly-charged word) refers to change over time, with the presumption of "progress" or increase in complexity and diversity and the acquisition of distinguishing characteristics. I find that "progress" is quite often in the eye of the beholder, subject to the observer's own worldview. Similarly in contemporary Western culture "progess" is frequently a codeword for "that which I prefer to see happen," or quite simply "the good."

The theory of evolution--whatever that means--has been described by one science educator as "the greatest unifying theory of biology" that allows us to understand differences and similarities between organisms, that explains the appearance of purpose (no teleology here, please--we're Scientists), and that emphasizes the dynamic relationship between structure and function. That the theory bears such a weight on its shoulders goes a long way to explaining why it is so vigorously defended by its adherents and why alternative explanations for origins are often dismissed, derided, or fought with passion.

New Year, New Start, New Topic: Darwinism

The ensuing series of blog posts I have adapted from a class I taught in the first part of 2008. It was a kind of sequel or continuation of a class on the broad subject of creation and evolution that had spent practically all of its time concentrating on matters of cosmology and geology; when it came to the biological aspects of the subject, the original discussion leader believed himself inadequately prepared to discuss those matters and so I assumed the mantle. What you will read here over the next weeks (possibly months) are distillations of class discussions largely taken from my teaching notes.

By way of introduction, consider the current cultural controversy over the issue of origins as encapsulated by our car decorations. Most of my readers will know about those silver appliques often found on the rear of motor vehicles in this country that look like minimalist drawings of a fish. Sometimes within the "body" of this fish representation are the letters "JESUS" or the Greek "IXΘYS," an acrostic of ancient origin taken from the first letters of the phrase in Greek that means "Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior." The acrostic in Greek spells the word for "fish." So it was the practice of early Greek-speaking Christians to employ the symbol of a fish as a succinct confession of faith. Contemporary American Christians seem to have picked up the practice again.

What is somewhat ironically amusing is that persons who prefer the modern "scientific" explanation for the origin of life on this planet have, in some instances, taken up the gauntlet and affixed to the rears of their vehicles a similar minimalist fish-like device, only this one has a pair of stick-figure legs and feet under the body and often the letters "DARWIN" within the body of the fish. This is undoubtedly supposed to be humorously challenging, maybe even a bit pugnacious and aggressive, toward the benighted souls who still believe in things like God and creation. But it has always struck me as archly funny that in order to assert the supposed superiority of their theory of origins they co-opted a religious symbol that makes no sense when taken out of its Christian context. Even more ironic is that this act underscores the essentially religious nature of the controversy, although the typical philosophical materialist would likely angrily deny this. It will be a major purpose of this blog series to flesh out the truth of that last sentence.