Download 6-15 CRW edit, JS intro, chp 1 and 2 copy

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BEYOND GOD AND DARWIN
INTRODUCTION
Evolution has become a matter of bio-politics: one side demanding that
Creationism or intelligent design be taught in science classrooms, the other, that secular
education and the freedom of science be protected. Which side are you on? Darwin’s or
the Creationist’s? Unhesitant replies are also unaware; the question seems to conceal,
and reinforce two false views in regard to evolution.
The first is evolution versus theism. The claim that life forms on earth are
designed by or manipulated by a supernatural force is certainly ipso facto outside the
axioms of natural science. This does not mean, though, that to recognize evolution is
necessary to preclude a god or gods. Some evolutionists are atheists, some agnostics, and
some deists. Charles Darwin was agnostic; Theodosius Dobzhansky, sometimes referred
to as the “Darwin of the 20th century”, was a deist. He did not believe in a personal God
or in life-after-death; but that there is meaning in the universe, and that humankind would
evolve into a higher state. The great majority of biologists (94%) in National Academy
of Science in the U.S.A. disbelieve in God; that number is about 9% in the American
non-scientific population.i Such beliefs are exactly XXXX that; they are metascientific,
and need not interfere with the progress of scientific reason. They do so only when
religion masquerades as science and science as religion.
IN SCIENCE The question “Do you believe in evolution”? has no more meaning
in science than the question “Do you believe in quantum mechanics?” Battles of beliefs
play out in the theatre of evolutionary ideology; tests of scientific strength based on
observation and experimentation are the stuff of evolutionary biology. The scientific
question becomes one not of belief IN but understanding of -evolution.
Jan , a good quote from the Theor. Phys Lee Smolin could be added here. Maybe
not this early
A second error hidden in the Darwinism versus Creationists dichotomy has
profound ramifications for the science of evolutionary biology. It portends pertains to
the all too often conflation of evolution itself with Darwinism. Evolution is [A FACT]an
indisputable [FACT. ITS MOST COMMON NAME IS “DESCENT WITH
MODIFICATION, A PROCESS WELL KNOW INTUITIVELY TO BREEDERS FOR
CENTURIES, TO 18TH CENTURY “PHILOSOPHS” SUCH AS DARWIN’S
GRANDFATHER AND A process verified by the fossil record and NOW molecular
biological research. Darwinism refers to a particular theory OF EVOLUTION embodying
a series of tenets in regard to the evolutionary processes, WHICH DARWIN REFERRED
TO INCORRECTLY AS HIS “MECHANISM” OF EVOLUTION. The fusion of
Darwin with evolution (AND ALL THE METAPHYSICAL CLAP TRAP YOU CAN
THINK OF – JUST KIDDING) is rampant within and without science.
Consider the iconography of the man. In terms of cult following, only Albert
Einstein compares. So identified is he DARWIN with evolution that he is often
considered to be its “discoverer”. Some famed SEVERAL FAMOUS biologists have
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boldly BRASHLY asserted that Darwin is simply the most important person who has
ever lived.
[CAN YOU GUESS?].Understood to be “Darwinian”, evolutionary theory is FAR too
often portrayed as finalized, true now and forever.BEDROCK UNDERSTANDING That
was the main message of the year celebrating the 150th anniversary of the publication of
The Origin of Species: how so prescient was Darwin: there is scarcely a true concept
today that he did not consider. DOESN’T SOMEHOW BEAR HIS IMPRIMATUR.
And all that biology’s “public” needs to do is to think rationally. [DON’T
UNDERSTAND THIS SENTENCE.] In the popular debates, in that cultural conflict,
much pivots on the authority of science: why doesn't the public believe in us? Within that
context there is no real leverage to pry evolution from Darwinism. [GOOD!] In effect,
the Evolution versus Creation debate reinforces the identification of the former as
Darwinian as attention is diverted from the great advances made within evolutionary
science. [THEY HAVE BEEN THERE FROM THE BEGINNING, WHEN HUXLEY
FAMOUSLY DEBATED THE PRELATE BISHOP WILBERFORCE]
Still, there is a considerable body of scientific data that contradicts the central
principles of the “Darwinian” theory to which evolution’s “public” has become
accustomed. To incorporate it fully into evolutionary biology is indeed to go beyond
Darwinism. Transcending Darwinism scientifically though is of no solace to the
creationist. Neither that data nor the interpretations of that data by evolutionists who do
not consider themselves “Darwinians” [CAREFUL HERE JAN] involve anything
supernatural. Organisms evolve in geological time and context, just as they do in the
theory that Darwin and his followers espoused. The biblical six days of creation are still
replaced by a universe of at least 15 billion years, an Earth of 4.5 billion years, and at
least 3.5 billion years of evolving life forms. Human-like forms, hominids emerged 2.3
million years ago; modern humans some 200,000 years ago. This is not a question of
belief. It is a matter of understanding the hard fossil evidence, and molecular evidence
based on similarities and differences in DNA. Over the course of billions of years, the
earth, and the universe has astoundingly become aware of itself.
HERE FOR TODAY 6/14
In transcending Darwinism, we need to first consider the tenets of modern
Darwinian theory. Accordingly, new characteristics that arise by random genetic
mutations and by the recombination of parental genes provide the fuel for evolution. If
characteristics are favorable to an individual’s survival and reproduction they will be
“selected” naturally, in “the struggle for existence”: the “survival of the fittest”. This
view of life has a number of corollaries: i) evolution is gradual; natural selection acts on
minute imperceptible differences; [i.e., ] evolution does not take leaps; ii) the hereditary
differences between individuals of a species are the sole fuel for evolutionary change; iii)
the course of evolution can be fully represented by an ever-branching tree from a
common ancestral organism; iv) organisms can be classified evolutionarily in a branching
hierarchy of group within group based on characteristics inherited from a common
parent; v) characteristics acquired in the course of an individual’s life are not passed on to
successive generations, and vi) hereditary changes do not arise as adapted responses to an
individual’s surroundings;
Though it has almost gone unnoticed, all these tenets have been challenged over
the past few decades. It has become clear that i) much of evolutionary change is not
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gradual; it rather occurs in leaps; ii) differences between individuals of a species are not
the sole source of evolutionary change; genes and of interchanged genes and gene
clusters among the most diverse organisms on earth <-; DON’T UNDERSTAND iii) the
venerable concept of a “tree of life” must be dramatically modified- with a new vision of
a web;[NOT SO; TREES AND WEB ARE REPRESENTATIONAL DEVICES; AND
IT’S YOUR CHOICE AS TO WHAT YOU WANT TO USE; SO NOT TREAT THEM
AS THOUGHT THEY ARE SOMETHING REAL/NATURAT v) characteristics
acquired in an individual’s life may [UNDER CERTAIIN CIRCUMSTANCES]be
passed on to successive generations, and vi) hereditary differences may arise as direct
adaptations to an individual’s environment. This transformation in our understanding of
evolutionary processes has occurred not simply through the use of new technology to
reinvestigate old questions. It results from [BEING ABLE TODAY TO ENTERTAIN]
deep evolutionary questions once considered to be far outside the sphere of empirical
science.
Darwin’s question -“the origin of species” -said nothing of the origins of life, the
genetic code, the evolution of cells, or of the origin of kingdoms and the great domains of
life. It did not and could not address 85 percent of evolutionary time on earth, the first 3.5
billion years, when life on earth was strictly microbial. Life on Earth remains
predominantly microbial. The greatest biomass, greatest genetic and biochemical
diversity on earth was off limits to [WAS BEYOND THE KEN OF evolutionary scienceuntil relatively recently.
Evolutionary innovation in the bacterial world does not occur primarily by
“Darwinian” means. Genetic exchange is not limited to individuals within the boundary
of species. Genes and gene clusters are CAN BE trafficked across the vast taxonomic
spectrum. As a result, much of bacterial evolution resembles a world wide web. JAN,
PLEASE TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR METAPHORS HERE; THIS ONE HAS TO
CHANGE. IT FEELS LIKE YOU ARE MIXING REPRESENTATION WITH
REALITY. [HERE’S AN IMAGE FOR YOU TO THINK BY; PICTURE A CHERRY
TREE THAT IS INFECTED WITH TENT CATERPILLARS. IN THE CROTCHES
OF THE TREE ARE YOUR WEBS; THE TREE IS NOT OBLITERATED BY THEM]
Bacteria evolve by leaps and bounds through the inheritance of acquired genes. Infectious
viruses, that often serve as the vectors of such genetic traffic, not only transfer genes
from one organism to another, they may also harbor the greatest genetic diversity on
earth, and serve as reservoirs for the creation of new genes
The cells that make up our bodies have also not arisen gradually in the typical
Darwinian manner of gene mutation and natural selection. They arose by several
symbiotic mergers. Mitochondria, the energy-generating organelles of our cells, were
once free living bacteria, and so too the chloroplast of plant cells. The host cell that
acquired those ancient symbionts also emerged from at least one other symbiosis. Our
cells, THEN, are unions of at least three different kinds of organisms! And that is only
the tip of the iceberg. Once generally dismissed as a minor curiosity, symbiosis is
reconsidered today to be a major source of evolutionary innovation. Consider too, that a
great percentage of our own DNA is of viral origin. All “individuals” are comprised of
multiple organisms living together in symbiosis. We are all symbiotic complexes.
Horizontal transfers of genes and genomes are not the only hereditary phenomena
that transcend Darwinism. There are non-DNA-based hereditary processes that have also
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long been marginalized in the teaching of biology. Some are “epigenetic” based on selfperpetuating regulation of gene expression, others on the inheritance of cell structure.
They are also considered to be “Lamarckian”. We also need to consider how much of
evolution that is “neutral”-that is, not the result of adaptations, not a product of natural
selection. And even after all known processes are considered, some evolutionists still ask
if there is an overriding process towards ever-increasing complexity –one that is a
property of nature itself. Evolution is bigger than life.
But if there is so much of evolutionary theory today that is decisively not
Darwinian, we must ask again why evolution is continually portrayed as Darwinian. No
question but that the battle with creationism, and its twin intelligent design is influential.
Consider the risk in leveraging Darwinian theory away from evolution in cultural-wars
where proper scientific dissent may be appropriated and distorted to debunk the whole of
evolutionary biology. <= SHARPEN UP; MORE PUNCHY
The situation today is reminiscent of the Cold War in Biology in the 1950s with
Stalinism in the Soviet Union and McCarthyism in the United States. All genetic research
in regard to genes on chromosomes was outlawed in the Soviet Union because gene
theory was considered to be incompatible with Soviet ideology. Led by the claims of
Trofim Lysenko and his followers, and backed by Stalin, geneticists were imprisoned;
genetics books destroyed and Soviet agriculture was to be rebuilt upon new dialectical
principles. Geneticists in the West did have experimental evidence of heredity in addition
to genes on chromosomes. And much like so many creationists today, Lysenkoists
latched onto that evidence to dismiss the whole of genetics. And just like Darwinians
today, Mendelian geneticists in the West dismissed or downplayed the evidence for other
forms of heredity.
When evolutionary ideology overrides, science suffers.
Then there is the inherent conservatism of the scientific establishment in
recognizing theory change when it has occurred. Most biologists are as unaware of the
challenges to Darwinian theory as is biology’s “public”. Much is said in the heat of
public debate. “Evolution is central to biology” it is cried- mistaking is for ought.
“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” it is said. But much of
the research and teaching in biology departments is far removed from biology’s
foundations in evolution. Today’s biology greatly reflects the interests of the medical
industrial complex. Though the teaching of evolution has not been central in medical
education, change is in the air therein as well.ii
Experimental evidence for various non-Darwinian mechanisms of evolution, and
even other mechanism of heredity that are not directly associated with DNA, have been
reported for decades, but these phenomena are rarely included in science textbooks, and
when they are mentioned, they are treated as curiosities –“exceptions” to the Darwinian
system. “If it is new it isn’t true” is the silent mantra of the gatekeepers of classical
Darwinian theory. To understand that viewpoint, and to counter it will be part of this
book’s aim. To transcend Darwinism scientifically we need first to briefly unearth its
roots, metaphors and philosophical principles.
JAN, YOU ACCORD DARWIN SO MUCH MORE SUBSTANCE THAN THE
BASTARD DESERVES AAAARG. DARWIN’S THEORY IS A BUNCH OF WORD
SALAD. DARWIN SPENT HIS LIFE TRYING TO MAKE PEOPLE THINK THAT
THE PHENOMENON “DESCENT WITH MODIFICATION” (NAME FOR AN OLD
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OBSERVATION) WAS HIS THEORY OF DESCENT WITH MODIFICATION
THROUGH VARIATION AND NATURAL SELECTION. HOW VERY, VERY
DISHONEST OF THE MOFU.
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Chapter 1
MIND THE MYTHS
One can hardly blame readers for not knowing that there were so many who
considered evolutionary theory before Charles Darwin. [THEY’VE BEEN
“CAREFULLY TAUGHT”– FROM THE FIRST PAGE OF THE FIRST PRINTING OF
THE FIRST EDITION OF “THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES”. Among the most prominent in
that list would certainly be his DARWIN’S OWN grandfather Erasmus Darwin, but none
more important than Jean-Baptist Lamarck who published his theories 50 years earlier.
IN FACT 2009 WAS NOT ONLY THE BICENTENIAL OF CHARES DARWIN’S
BIRTH, BUT AS WELL THE BICENTENNIAL OF THE PUBLICATION OF
LAMARCK’S GREAT WORK “PHILOSOPHIE ZOOLOGIQUE”. In science textbook
fictions, Lamarck is the literary foil against which Darwin is made to shine. Lamarck has
been distorted and so too Darwin.
There are two standard myths.
I.
It is said that Lamarck, unlike Darwin based his theory of evolution on the
erroneous idea of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. It was an ancient
idea held by Aristotle, and was part of folk wisdom. Accordingly,
characteristics that you acquire during your life time may be passed on to the
next generation. This means that individuals could respond directly to their
environment in an adaptive way and the resulting changes would be passed on
to successive generations. Plants could become resistant to drought, say, and
it would become hereditary. The use and disuse of parts would also be
hereditary: the Giraffe would acquire its long neck by continually stretching to
reach for higher leaves to eat. Today it is generally accepted that neither of
these concepts of hereditary adaptation are correct. Lamarck, it is said, was
dead wrong and Darwin was right on the mark. HOWEVER NEITHER
LAMARCK NOR DARWIN WORKED IN DAYS WHERE A DECENT
CONCEPT OF HEREDITY; SO IT’S BETTER TO WRITE THEM OFF ON
THIS COUNT RATHER THAN TO SAY ONE WAS RIGHT AND OTHER
WRONG.
II.
“Lamarckian” modes of evolution are typically compared to the Darwinian
evolutionary two-step process of “natural selection “ based on chance and necessity.
Lamarck had assumed that the heritable adaptive variations were directed by use and
disuse, and by the environment. But Darwin looked to artificial selection by breeders of
domesticated plants and animals for a model. Breeders were able to select those varieties
of particular interest to them. They did not act directly to produce the variability itself,
but heritable modifications appeared occasionally; they appeared “randomly,” and were
selected purposefully. Extending the model to nature, HE argued that some of the
hereditary variations that appeared randomly in nature would be useful in the struggle for
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existence and therefore would be selected naturally, and some would not. In this way the
frequency of specific variations within populations would change over time, populations
would evolve. This is indeed how population geneticists today see evolution. In tracing
their views to Darwin, they make a fundamental error and distort history because they fail
to mention that Darwin himself also believed in the inheritance of acquired
characteristics. THEY SHOULD HAVE TRACED THEM TO FRANCIS GALTON
Darwin considered favorably the possibility of environmentally directed adaptive
hereditary changes in the Origin of 1859. And later, he came to consider that it might
play an even more important role in evolution than the two-step process of natural
selection. In a letter to his friend Joseph Hooker in 1862 Darwin explained his thoughts
on the matter. “I hardly know why I am a little sorry, but my present work is leading me
to believe rather more in the direct action of physical conditions. I presume I regret it,
because it lessens the glory of Natural Selection, and is so confoundedly doubtful. “iii
A few years later, Darwin proposed a mechanism for how characters acquired
during an individual’s lifetime might be passed on to successive generations. He
proposed that hereditary characteristics would be carried by self-reproducing particles; he
called them “gemmules”.iv They would circulate through the body and carry new
properties in the production of sperm and egg cells. AS FAR AS I KNOW THIS IS THE
ONLY TESTA BLE HYPOTHESIS DARWIN EVER HAD – AND GALTON
EFFECTIVELY DISPROVED IT; AND DARWIN REFUSED TO ACCEPT THE
DISPROOF. [“well I didn’t say they circulated through the blood stream. Na-na-Na-na!]
It is said that that the concept of the inheritance of acquired characteristics was
fatally wounded when it became clear that egg cells and sperm cells arise from special
cells that are generated early in the embryonic development of animals. Biologists
distinguish between “germ cells” by which the hereditary material is transmitted to
successive generations and “somatic cells” or body cells, which did not contribute to that
inheritance. In animals, germ cells which give rise to egg and sperm appear early in the
developing embryo, but not so in plants where egg and pollen are made after the plant
matures. Microbes, such as amoeba and bacteria, have no specialized sex cells; there is
no distinction between sex cells and body cells. Even so, the distinction between sex cells
and somatic cells unto itself said nothing about whether hereditary substance could
migrate from body cells to germ cells in any organisms.
Textbooks typically (and erroneously) assert that the idea of the inheritance of
acquired characteristics was refuted experimentally when in the late 19th century the
German biologist August Weismann cut off the tails of hundreds of mice over many
generations, and mice were not born with shorter tails. But that kind of mutilation did not
remotely resemble the kind of environmentally-induced adaptive change Lamarck and
Darwin were thinking of. It was also not all THAT certain whether characteristics could
be transmitted like an infection from somatic cells to germ cells in animals. It was NOT
IMPOSSIBLE possible that adaptive characteristics acquired by an individual in its
lifetime could be transmitted to subsequent generations.
II The second, equally important myth about Lamarck is this: the inheritance of acquired
characteristics was only one part of his theory, and indeed it played only a relatively
minor role in it. To understand the whole we need to understand the way in which he
approached the problem of evolution.
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Lamarck was concerned with understanding what we call today “the tree of life”that is, how in the course of geological time organisms such as worms and protozoa gave
rise to more complex ones such as lizards, AND monkeys and US. Certainly there were
plenty of detours from this evolutionary course from simple to the most complex. For
Lamarck, the branchings off, of say lizards to birds, were the result of organism’s
adaptations to their immediate environment. But the main course, the main trunk of the
tree that led from simple to complex did not arise in that way in his view. He
distinguished between two kinds of characteristics: adaptive features, due to the
environmental conditions of life, by which one could distinguish species and genera from
one another; and fundamental organizational features, what he called “the essential
system of organs”, through which one could distinguished the great taxonomic classes of
life, a worm, a insect, a mammal, a plant. The trivial characteristics would result in
branchings, and
the tendency of ever-increasing complexity could be seen only in the fundamental
organization of an organism. JAN, WHERE IS LAMARCKS INSISTENCE ON THE
EVOLUTIONARY GRADIENT FROM SIMPLE UP THROUGH INCREASINGLY
COMPLEX FORMS? THAT IS RIGHT ON TODAY, DARWIN TOOK AN
EQUIVOCATING STANCE ON THIS AS ON ALL OTHER THINGS.`
Lamarck was clear about this. The diverse environmental conditions in which any
specific animal or plants lived had “no relation to the increasing complexity of
organization.” They produced “anomalies or deviations in the external shape and
characters which” he said, “could not have been brought about solely by the growing
complexity of organisation.”52 The cause of the general tendency toward increased
complexity he attributed to what he called “the force of life.” Lamarck did not know
what it was, but it certainly did not mean a supernatural force.
For Lamarck, evolution occurred in accordance with “the sublime author”. But
that Creator did not interfere with the ongoing processes on earth. “Life and organisation
are products of nature” he said, “and at the same time results of the powers conferred
upon nature by the Supreme Author of all things and of the laws by which she herself is
constituted: this can no longer be called into question. Life and organization are thus
purely natural phenomena.”55
Fifty years AFTER THAT, Darwin argued similarly that classification of
organisms into groups, species, genera, classes, families, and orders should reflect the
course of evolution. As it was for Lamarck, so for Darwin—“descent with modification”
JAN “DESCENT… IS THE NAME OF THE PHENOMENON NOT THE
EXPLANATION THEREOF could explain the affinities that naturalists had observed.
The similarities between species would reveal their common descent, whereas differences
would reveal species’ modifications. “From the first dawn of life,” he said, “all organic
beings are found to resemble each other in descending degrees, so that they can be
classified in groups under groups. This classification is evidently not arbitrary like the
grouping of the stars in constellations.” v Classifying animals and grouping them into
a hierarchical arrangement -of species within genera, genera with families, families
within orders, and so on - reflected an evolutionary process of “descent with
modification”:
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… the characters which naturalists consider as showing true affinity between two
or more species, are those which have been inherited from a common parent, and,
in so far, all true classification is genealogical; that community of descent is the
hidden bond which naturalists have been unconsciously seeking, and not some
unknown plan of creation, or the enunciation of general propositions, and the
mere putting together and separating objects more or less alike.vi
For Darwin the tree of life was a simile for relatedness.
The affinities of all of the beings of the same class have sometimes been
represented by a great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth. The green
and budding twigs may represent existing species; and those produced during
former years may represent the long succession of extinct species. . . . The limbs,
divided into great branches, and these into lesser and lesser branches, were
themselves once, when the tree was young, budding twigs, and this connection of
the former and present buds by ramifying branches may well represent the
classification of all extinct and living species in groups subordinate to groups.10
Darwin was certainly not the first to see the relations among species in terms of a tree,
but he was perhaps the first to give an ecological account of why it was such. The
branching order of diversity arose from specialization a kind of ecological “division of
labor.”vii Any locality could support more life if it is occupied by diverse organisms
partitioning the resources than if it is occupied by similar organisms requiring the same
resources. Divergence is advantageous because organisms avoid competition that way.
Ever-increasing specialization of niche within larger niche would create the hierarchical
order of taxa within taxa.viii In the course of evolutionary time, a small number of similar
organisms would therefore produce a large number of descendants which diverged from
the original type. “This grand fact of the grouping of all organic beings,” Darwin wrote,
“seems to me utterly inexplicable on the theory of creation.ix
The “grouping of all organic beings” and showing affinities between species
through characteristics “inherited from a common parent” was certainly not a “grand
fact” of empirical science. In order to establish lines of descent and order nature
according to descent, it one had to distinguish “adaptive or analogous” characteristics
from “homologous characters.” The similar characteristics of a whale and a fish are of no
importance for such a classification; they are analogous but have no meaning in regard to
common descent. A wing of an insect and a bird also do not have common ancestry, but
the hand of a man and fin of porpoise are homologous and therefore of taxonomic
significance.
Without genealogies, Darwin could not distinguish between homology and
analogy and rigorously test the reality of the tree of life. As he wrote to Thomas Huxley
in 1857:
But as we have no written pedigrees, you will, perhaps, say this will not
help much; but I think it ultimately will, for it will clear away an immense
amount of rubbish about the value of characters & will make the
difference between analogy & homology, clear. The time will come I
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believe, though I shall not live to see it, when we shall have very fairly
true genealogical trees of each great kingdom of nature.x
In the Origin, two years later, he articulated the principles for such great
genealogical trees. Like Lamarck, Darwin argued that genealogical trees of great size and
scope required comparisons of “essential characters,” those highly preserved ancient
features far removed from the everyday life of the animal or plant.
It might have been thought (and was in ancient times thought) that those parts of
the structure which determined the habits of life, and general place of each being
in the economy of nature, would be of high importance in classification. Nothing
can be more false. . . . It may even be given as a general rule that the less any part
of the organisation is concerned with special habits, the more important it
becomes for classification.xi
The most valuable characters were those that had become ever-integrated within the
organism as evolution proceeded. “Embryological characters,” he said “are the most
valuable of all.”xii
Evolution was progressive for Darwin, as it was for Lamarck, but he effectively
denied that there was a separate mechanism to account for the progressive evolution of
complexity, and like many others to the present day he misconstrued Lamarck’s views of
its cause as being due to “the willing of animals.” Still the conclusions of both
evolutionists were similar: “Heaven forfend me from Lamarck nonsense of a ‘tendency to
progression,’” Darwin wrote to Joseph Hooker in 1844, “‘adaptations from the slow
willing of animals’ &c, but the conclusions I am led to are not widely different from
his—though the means of change are wholly so PERIOD HERE I think I have found out
(here’s presumption!) the simple way by which species become exquisitely adapted to
various ends.”17
There is one more important difference in the way Darwin approached the
problem of evolution in the Origin. Darwin’s question focused on the origin of species,
arguing as he did against the concept of species as immutable and distinct creations
designed by God. Whereas creationists saw species as fixed types with permanent places
in the economy of nature, Darwin argued that species were not fixed types, but that, in
effect, species were populations which held a great deal of variation within them. In the
struggle for existence, favourable variations, those that allowed organisms a better chance
of surviving and leaving offspring, would be selected naturally.
Darwin’s book was much less concerned with the general process of evolution, of
the universal tree of life.<= DON’T UNDERSTAND SENTENCE In fact, he suggested
that human origins and human history and psychology were more important in the future
of evolutionary biology After writing briefly about a hypothetical progenitor of all life, he
commented "In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches.
Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each
mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and
his history."xiii
This view set the tone and agenda for much of evolutionary theory, and together
with natural selection, the struggle for existence, and the origin of species represents
evolution’s public face.
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Chapter two
NATURAL SELECTION
Evolutionists of the nineteenth century treated organic evolution and human social
relations as one subject, just as science and religion had been for natural theology. The
use of natural law as the basis for a given view of society became commonplace in social,
political and economic theory of the nineteenth century.xiv But, for most biologists of the
nineteenth century, evolution did imply progress in nature and society, and for most, this
meant that “the struggle for existence,” understood as conflict and competition, should be
encouraged. NEEDS TO BE CLARIFIED
But there was considerable circularity to the argument. For Darwinian theory
itself was steeped in conceptions adopted from the social sphere. In fact, some scholars
have asserted that Darwin’s theory of natural selection was merely an application of
laissez-faire economic theory to biology.”xv Some of the most widely discussed evidence
this comes directly from Darwin’s own notes. Eight months after returning from the
Beagle voyage, in the Spring of 1837, Darwin abandoned his belief in the fixity of
species. But it took some time before he developed the concept of natural selection. He
understood that breeders could select for desired traits and transform their stocks, but at
first he failed to see how selection might operate in nature. Scholars agree that September
1838 was decisive. It was then that the twenty-nine year-old naturalist read Essay on the
Principle of Population written by Thomas Malthus. Realizing that more individuals
would always be produced than could possibly survive, Darwin found what he saw as the
conditions for natural selection: an incessant struggle for existence.
Malthus’s book addressed two issues. In the first place, it confronted the
optimistic ideals of the Enlightenment and the Utopian views of such writers as the
mathematician and philosopher Jean Marie Condorcet who saw in the French Revolution
great hope for a progressive reconstruction of society, and William Godwin one of the
founders of philosophical anarchism. Both writers contemplated indefinite progress in the
perfectibility of humanity toward the complete absence of struggle among men, no
illness, no sexual urge, no cares. But Malthus objected that it would never be possible to
realize such ideals. The problem was that these utopians took no account of an<= FIX
fundamental and unescapable imbalance between nature’s supply of food and the human
need for food and sex. Malthus postulated that populations, if left unchecked, would
increase geometrically (exponentially) (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64) while the means of existence,
food supply could only increase at most arithmetically (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). Therefore, he
reasoned, humankind must always be subject to famine, poverty, disease and war.
Malthus's Essay was also aimed against a proposed restructuring OF the Poor
Laws in England.xvi Since the seventeenth century every parish was required to provide
relief of the poor in terms of doles, family allowances, and “aid-in wages.” The money
was to be spent for training children whose parents could not provide for them, for
providing work for the able-bodied unemployed, and for assisting those who could not
work owing to sickness, old age, or other infirmity. Prime Minister William Pitt had put
forward a controversial bill for extending poor relief to larger families.
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But as Malthus saw it, such state charity would be a disaster: it would only
encourage the poor and needy to breed more, and create more poor. Such views earned
him the hatred of all social reformers. In 1834, the year of Malthus’ death, “The New
Poor Law” was introduced in which the Victorian workhouse was instituted. Conditions
in the workhouses were deliberately made harsh to dissuade people from coming into
them, and once in them men and women were segregated in order to discourage the
production of children.
The influence of Malthus on Darwin is a pivotal issue in the historiography of
Darwinism.xvii Malthus’s book impressed upon him the intensity of “the struggle for
existence” between individuals.xviii As Darwin recalled in his autobiography, the key
insight came to him in a flash:
In October 1838, [actually September 28] that is, 15 months after I had
begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement "Malthus
on Population" and being well-prepared to appreciate the struggle for
existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of
habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these
circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved and
unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result would be the formation of a
new species. Here then, I had at last got a theory by which to work.xix
In The Origin, Darwin wrote that the struggle for existence “ is the doctrine of
Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole of the animal and vegetable kingdoms;
for in this case there can be no artificial increase of food, and no prudential restraint from
marriage. Although some species may be now increasing, more or less rapidly, in
numbers, all cannot do so, for the world would not hold them.”xx Competition was both
inevitable and desirable. It led to suffering, death, and extinction because there were
always too many mouths for the world to feed. But this suffering, would ultimately
produce better organisms, and lead to evolutionary progress. Darwin concluded in the
Origin: “Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object
which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals,
directly follows.”xxi
Darwinian theory did not just adopt the intensity of the struggle for existence
from the social world, he adopted another concept from socio-economic theory: the
concept of division of labor, which he used in his theory of divergence. Adam Smith
coined the expression, “the division of labor” when developing his Laissez-faire
economic theory in his celebrated book The Wealth of Nations (1776). He used the
expression to refer to the separation of work into a number of tasks, each performed by a
separate person or group of persons. Essentially, it was an argument against mercantilism
with its assumption that the wealth of nations is derived from government regulated
exports, gold and silver, and colonial expansion. For Smith the wealth of nations was
produced by labor within the nations of the Industrial Revolution with such improved
technologies for producing goods as the cotton gin and later the steam engine.
Government intervention in trade and industry was harmful to economic progress. What
was needed was unbridled competition among businesses, the desire for profits and
14
individual freedom to make decisions. Acting to pursue one’s own economic interest
would naturally be in the collective good of the community.
Darwin used the concept of division of labor in his theory for the origin of species
through “divergence.” Organisms would diverge and specialize over evolutionary time
because they would avoid competition and elimination in the struggle for existence if
they separate into specialized niches in the economy of nature. New varieties, “incipient
species” would occur through selection for such specialization. Over evolutionary time,
this “ecological division of labour” would generate a branching genealogy comprising all
taxa from species to phylum. xxiiThus where Smith had used it to account for the
differences in society, Darwin used it to explain the branching order of the tree of life,
reflecting ever-increasing specialization of niche within niche; taxonomically leading to
groups within groups and the order of the tree of life itself. 11
There is great historical irony then, when writers in the 19th and 20th centuries
spoke of a “social Darwinism” - when “the struggle for existence” was used as a
“Natural Law” to justify, racism, colonialism and war. The circularity in reasoning when
concepts borrowed from the social sciences are then used as a naturalistic prescription for
best way to construct society is hidden when the roots of Darwinian concepts are
excluded from science books. There were certainly evolutionists in the nineteenth century
who cautioned against over-emphasizing Malthusian population pressure, and conflict
and competition, as motors of “progressive” evolutionary change. Many of them pointed
to cooperation within and between species (see chapter xxx).
Personifying nature
There was still another conceptual issue in the way in which Darwin explained the
process of evolution. It concerned the way in which he personified nature in his use of the
expression “Natural selection.” We would do well to note that Darwin was not the first to
use the expression “natural selection” despite what is commonly stated in science books.
For that we have to turn to a Scottish land owner and fruit farmer, Patrick Matthews. In
1831 he published a book, On Naval Timber and Arboriculture which focused on how
best to grow trees for the construction of the Royal Navy’s warships. In so writing he,
emphasized the long-term deleterious effect that culling only the trees of highest timber
quality from forests would have on the timber industry. In the appendix of the book, he
elaborated on how the removal of trees of poor timber quality from the breeding stock—
could improve timber quality, and even create new varieties. He extrapolated from this to
what naturalists several decades later including Darwin himself would recognized as a
description of natural selection. In 1860, upon reading a review of Darwin’s Origin and
the theory of natural selection in the Gardener’s Chronicle, Matthews wrote to the
magazine quoting extracts such as the following from his own book 29 years earlier:
15
There is a law universal in nature, tending to render every reproductive being the
best possible suited to its condition that its kind, or organized matter, is
susceptible of, which appears intended to model the physical and mental or
instinctive powers to their highest perfection and to continue them so. This law
sustains the lion in his strength, the hare in her swiftness, and the fox in his wiles.
As nature, in all her modifications of life, has a power of increase far beyond what
is needed to supply the place of what falls by Time's decay, those individuals who
possess not the requisite strength, swiftness, hardihood, or cunning, fall
prematurely without reproducing—either a prey to their natural devourers, or
sinking under disease, generally induced by want of nourishment, their place
being occupied by the more perfect of their own kind, who are pressing on the
means of subsistence . . .
There is more beauty and unity of design in this continual balancing of life
to circumstance, and greater conformity to those dispositions of nature which are
manifest to us, than in total destruction and new creation . . . [The] progeny of the
same parents, under great differences of circumstance, might, in several
generations, even become distinct species, incapable of co-reproduction.
Darwin subsequently wrote to his famed geologist friend Charles Lyell
about Mathew’s letter.
Now for a curious thing about my Book, & then I have done. In last
Saturday Gardeners’ Chronicle, a Mr Patrick Matthews publishe????s long extract
from his work on “Naval Timber & Arboriculture” published in 1831, in which he
briefly but completely anticipates the theory of Nat. Selection. I have ordered the
Book, as some few passages are rather obscure but it, is certainly, I think, a
complete but not developed anticipation! Erasmus always said that surely this
would be shown to be the case someday. Anyhow one may be excused in not
having discovered the fact in a work on “Naval Timber”.[6]
We would do well to remember that Darwin latched onto the concept of natural
selection after reading Malthus in 1938, but he did not publish on evolution or on natural
selection for two decades - when he received a letter from Alfred Russell Wallace in the
Malay archipelago together with a manuscript containing an outline of a theory of natural
selection virtually identical to his own.
The issue of priority notwithstanding, there was a serious problem with the use of
the metaphor of “natural selection.” Wallace became disenchanted with the term, as he
wrote to Darwin in July 2, 1866. Too many naturalists misunderstood: they suggested
that Darwin was blind in not recognizing that natural selection requires an intelligent
chooser just as in breeders’ selection. Wallace wrote frankly to Darwin on July 2, 1866
suggesting this misunderstanding took root in the manner in which Darwin personified
nature:
16
Now I think this arises almost entirely from your choice of the term ``Nat.
Selection'' & so constantly comparing it in its effects, to Man's selection, and also to
your so frequently personifying Nature as ``selecting'' as ``preferring'' as ``seeking
only the good of the species'' &c. &c. To the few, this is as clear as daylight, &
beautifully suggestive, but to many it is evidently a stumbling block. I wish
therefore to suggest to you the possibility of entirely avoiding this source of
misconception in your great work, (if not now too late) & also in any future editions
of the ``Origin'', and I think it may be done without difficulty & very effectually by
adopting Spencer's term (which he generally uses in preference to Nat. Selection)
viz. ``Survival of the fittest.''
This term is the plain expression of the facts,—Nat. selection is a metaphorical
expression of it—and to a certain degree indirect & incorrect, since, even
personifying Nature, she does not so much select special variations, as exterminate
the most unfavourable ones.
Combined with the enormous multiplying powers of all organisms, & the
``struggle for existence'' leading to the constant destruction of by far the largest
proportion,—facts which no one of your opponents, as far as I am aware, has
denied or misunderstood,—``the survival of the fittest'' rather than of those who
were less fit, could not possibly be denied or misunderstood. Neither would it be
possible to say, that to ensure the ``survival of the fittest'' any intelligent chooser
was necessary,—whereas when you say natural selection acts so as to choose those
that are fittest it is misunderstood & apparently always will be. Referring to your
book I find such expressions as ``Man selects only for his own good; Nature only
for that of the being which she tends''. This it seems will always be misunderstood;
but if you had said ``Man selects only for his own good; Nature, by the inevitable
``survival of the fittest'', only for that of the being she tends'',—it would have been
less liable to be so.xxiii
Scientific expression of the evolutionary process should be non-anthromorphic. Darwin
anthromorphized it. In the 5th edition of the Origin, published in 1866 Darwin changed
the title of his chapter four “Natural Selection” to the “survival of the fittest”, Herbert
Spencer’s expression. He commented, "I have called this principle, by which each slight
variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection, in order to mark its
relation to man's power of selection. But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert
Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally
convenient."xxiv Natural selection, unto itself says very little about the evolutionary
process; it refers to differential reproduction as a result of heritable traits. But the
evolutionary process is still sometimes anthromophized and indeed mystified when
evolutionists today still speak of the keen eye of natural selection.
i
Edward Larson and Larry Witham, “Leading Scientists still reject God,”
Nature 394 (1998): 313.
17
Randolph Nesse et al., “Making Evolutionary Biology a Basic Science for
Medicine,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 107 (2010): 18001807.
iii
Charles Darwin to Joseph Hooker November 24, 1862 More Letters by Charles
ii
Darwin 2006, p. 162
Charles Darwin, The Variations of Plants and Animals under Domestication.
iv
London: John Murray, 1868.
v
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, Facsimile edition of 1859
(Cambridge Harvard University Press, 1969) 411.
vi
Ibid, 420.
vii
On the relations between the concept of division of labor in the social
sciences and biology, see Camille Limoges, "Milne-Edwards, Darwin, Durkheim and
Division of Labor: A Case Study in Reciprocal Conceptual Exchanges Between the
Social and Natural Sciences," in I.B. Cohen ed., The Relations Between the Natural
Sciences and the Social Sciences (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 317343. Camille Limoges and Claude Ménard, "Organization and Division of Labor:
Biological Metaphors at Work in Alfred Marshall's Principles of Economics," in Philip
Mirovski ed., Natural Images in Economics (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press), 336-359.
viii
See David Kohn, “Darwin’s Principle of Divergence as Internal Dialogue,” in Kohn
ed., The Darwinian Heritage, 245-263.
ix
. Darwin, the Origin, 471.
x
Charles Darwin to Thomas Henry Huxley September 26, 1857 “The Darwin
Correspondence” online Database.
xi
Darwin, the Origin, 414.
18
xii
Ibid., 479.
xiii
Ibid., p. 488.
.There is a great body of literature on “Social Darwinism.” See for example, John
xiv
Greene, "Biology and Social Theory in the Nineteenth Century," in Marshall Clagett ed.,
Critical Problems in the History of Science (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1962), 416-446. Richard Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American Thought, Rev. ed.,
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1955). Greta Jones, Social Darwinism in English Thought
(London: Harvester, 1980). Robert Young, Darwin's Metaphor. Nature's Place in
Victorian Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). Idem., "Darwinism Is
Social" in David Kohn, ed., The Darwinian Heritage (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1985),609-38. For a critique of Young's approach see, Ingemar Bohlin, " Robert
M. Young and Darwin Historiography," Social Studies of Science 21 (1991): 597-648.
Jim Moore, "Socializing Darwinism: Historiography and the Fortunes of a Phrase," in
Les Levidow ed., Science as Politics (London: Free Association Books, 1986), 38-75.
.Robert Young, Darwin’s Metaphor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 3
xv
See also R.C. Lewontin, “The Concept of Evolution,” in D.L. Sills ed., International
Encyclopedia of Social Science vol 5 (New York: Macmillan, Fress Press, 1968), 200210. Idem.,The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change (New York: Columbia University
Press), 1974.
19
xvi
.His attack on the poor laws and criticism of public charity became more prominent in
the more widely read second edition of his Essay.
xvii
.Much of the interest in the issue of the Malthusian thought on Darwin was stimulated
by Robert Young’s article, “ Malthus and the Evolutionists: The Common Context of
Biological and Social Theory,” Past and Present 43 (1969):114. Reprinted in Robert
Young, Darwin’s Metaphor: Nature’s Place in Victorian Culture (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1985). See also, Idem., “The Historiographic and
Ideological Contexts of the Nineteenth Century Debate on Man’s Place in Nature,” in his
Darwin’s Metaphor, 164-247. Idem., “Darwinism Is Social,” In David Kohn, ed., The
Darwinian Heritage (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 609-38.
xviii
. See Camille Limoges, La Sélection Naturelle (Paris: Presse Univérsitaire de France,
1970). Sandra Herbert, “Darwin, Malthus, and Selection,” Journal of the History of
Biology 4 (1971): 209-217. David Kohn, “Theories to Work By: Rejected Theories,
Reproduction, and Darwin’s Path to Natural Selection,” Studies in History of Biology 4
(1980):67-170. M. J. S. Hodge and David Kohn, “The Immediate Origins of Natural
Selection,” in Kohn ed., The Darwinian Heritage, 185-206. M. J. S. Hodge, “The
Development of Darwin’s General Biological Theorizing,” in D.S. Bendall ed., Evolution
from Molecules to Men (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 43-62. Ernst
Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984).
20
xix
.F. Darwin, ed., The Autobiography of Charles Darwin and Selected Letters (New
York: Dover Publications, 1958), 42-43.
xx
.Darwin, The Origin, 63-64.
xxi
. Darwin, The Origin, 490.
xxii
.David Kohn, “Darwin’s Principle of Divergence as Internal Dialogue,” in David
Kohn ed., The Darwinian Heritage. Princeton: Princeton University Press, (1985), 245263, 245.
A.R. Wallace to Charles Darwin, July 2, 1866, Darwin correspondence
project letter 5140.
xxiii
Charles Darwin On the Origin of Species 5th edition London: John Murray
1869 p. 72
xxiv