Happy Birthday to the Origin of the Species

One hundred and fifty years ago this week, Charles Darwin's magnum opus was published in England. It was certainly one of the most important works of science ever written. If one listed the competition, it would include the seminal works by Copernicus, Newton, and of course the papers of the young Einstein. All of those concerned physics. Perhaps Watson and Crick's work on DNA would compare.

But judged by its impact not only on science but on world culture as well, The Origin of the Species is second to none. Darwin did not think up the idea of evolution. That idea was familiar enough by his time. Darwin addressed two closely related and fundamental questions about living organisms: why is there such an astounding diversity among the many species, and how did the various organisms come to be so admirably adapted to their environments? What he did in his book was to make "one long argument," and a compelling one, about the mechanism underlying both the diversity and the design of living things.

The mechanism that shapes and maintains the forms of the various species is natural selection. If an organism inherits a physical structure and a range of behaviors that promote successful reproduction (what we call inclusive fitness), then the factors of inheritance responsible for those traits (what we call genes) will be well represented in future generations. If the organism's traits inhibit successful reproduction, then to that degree its genes will be less well represented. That's the whole idea.

It is an astoundingly powerful idea. The environments within which the various organisms do their business are very diverse and frequently change. The factors of inheritance also change, due to random mutations. As the many organisms fill the various environmental niches, the organisms diverge from one another in form and segregate themselves into distinct species. Thus Darwin's idea explains the diversity of life. As minute variations in traits, the shape of a wing or the size of a brain, prove better or worse in terms of inclusive fitness, so the organisms come to be meticulously designed for their various environments. Thus the Darwinian idea explains adaptation.

It is both the curse of Darwinism and a source of its enormous strength that it came along just as Western intellectual culture was slipping out of the grip of Biblical religion. Whatever you think about modern secular culture, Darwinism was not responsible for it. It was well advanced by the time his book was published. But secularists would increasingly seize on Darwinism as an argument against natural theology (the attempt to prove the existence of God by reference to natural and logical facts). Accordingly, those of traditional faith came to see Darwin as an enemy.

Darwinism remains controversial to this day because so many people of faith see it as inconsistent with the idea of Divine creation. This is a great mistake. In understanding the mechanisms of evolution Darwinism is no more inconsistent with Genesis than the sciences of astronomy or chemistry. Yet only Darwinism is seen as a problem.

Darwinism has become controversial recently on a very different issue. Many modern social scientists, especially on the political left, are deeply committed to the idea that all human behavior is determined by learning and so is "socially constructed." Modern Darwinian biology is showing that many human behaviors are deeply influenced by inherited factors, shaped by natural selection.

Here, Darwinism reinforces the conservative side of the argument. Conservatives, both religious and secular, see human beings as dangerous by nature. Darwinism tends to confirm this. I have written as much in the book I recently edited: Darwinian Conservatism: A Disputed Question.

Anyone who writes a book probably would like to think that a century later everyone will still be talking about it. By that standard, The Origin of the Species was a spectacular success. Happy Birthday to the Origin.

Comments

[Steve Hickey]

Ken - Perhaps you'll agree it's too bad the picture isn't more clear so everyone could see the racism in the full title which includes-- "the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life."

Darwin led to eugenics which fed Hitler and Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood. Tens if not hundreds of millions never had a birthday because of Darwin.

I was unaware of your book on this topic and I'll order a copy.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

[KB]

Steve: Your argument, as the lawyers say, proves too much. If "Darwin led to eugenics" then so much more did the theory of genetics. Hitler had no idea what Darwin was about, but he had a strong if simple-minded and largely false notion of genetics. Does that mean that millions "never had a birthday" because of Gregor Mendel? Likewise the practice of artificial selection as in the breeding of pigeons was what tipped Darwin off to the power of selection in nature. Does that mean that "millions never had a birthday" because of the ancient practice of animal husbandry?

Any theory can be abused. But the great mass murders of the 20th century were based not on Darwin but on the idea that human will or human science can transform human beings without any regard to natural limitations. No one who accepts Darwin's account of the origin of the species can believe that.

As to your first point, Darwin was not without his flaws. They were largely the flaws of his age. But he was also a vociferous opponent of slavery. Maybe you or I would have been better persons in his place. Maybe not. But his theory, properly understood, lends no support to racist programs.

[denature]

There is no racism in the title. On the Origin of Species does not discuss human evolution. It is 1800's science lingo. It's used in the same way we use ecotypes or varieties to describe plants, or strains to describe bacteria (actually the term races is also still used in describing bacteria). The favored races in the book are things like finch populations in different environments on the Galapagos Islands. And one finch population is not described as being innately superior to another.

The theory of evolution describes an aspect of nature. Eugenics is not a natural process. A better analogy would be to artificial selection (plant and animal breeding) rather than natural selection, which is what Darwin described. Artificial selection was a concept in play thousands of years prior to Darwin. Genocides existed prior to Darwin. Many religious groups were involved in the eugenics movement.

Central to evolutionary theory is that diversity is good. Lack of diversity puts a population at more risk when changes in the environment occur. Much like our current practice of planting large tracts of land with identical varieties of ag plants places the industry at risk from a single well adapted pathogen.

Blaming Darwin for Hitler is an indication of a lack of intellectual rigor. And Hitler was a self-professed creationist.

[denature]

A quibble on the original post. Scientists who study evolution don't typically use the term Darwinism. The theory has moved beyond Darwin (note lack of phrases Einsteinism, Pasteurism, Crickism). Darwinian is sometimes utilized as a quick shorthand to mean Natural Selection in order to differentiate it from other mechanisms that contribute to evolution.

Those that do frequently use the term Darwinism are: 1) people who want to get creationism in public schools, presumably because they want a central figure to demonize and 2) social scientists, typically in relation to Social Darwinism, which is perhaps the context you meant.

I would agree that many human behaviors have a genetic component, and this is certainly amenable to study. Although there are interesting ideas out there, I would caution that applying evolutionary theory to behavior is more difficult than more amenable traits. Evolutionary psychology lacks the tools, has been known to make claims that are untestable, and is not as mature as traditional biological evolutionary studies. The genetics of behavior is complex and behavior leaves behind no fossils.

[KB]

Denature: Thanks so much for your thoughtful and informative comments. I completely agree with your first post. It says much that I should have said in response to Mr. Hickey, to whom I am also grateful.

As for your second comment, I am a social scientist and as you guess I use "Darwinism" in the sense common to my tribe. You are right to point out the problem. Contemporary Darwinism means the great synthesis of Darwinian theory and population genetics, not Darwin's theory alone. But 'Darwinism' is still useful as a term in popular discussion.

I think you are too hard on Evolutionary Psychology. It is no more speculative than most of evolutionary biology. When it comes to projecting the history of any species backward across evolutionary time, very little is testable. And I emphatically disagree with your statement that "The genetics of behavior is complex and behavior leaves behind no fossils." Living creatures contain any number of "fossils" in their structure and behavior. The construction of a human arm, comparable with a bat's wing, is one such fossil. Our appalling taste for fatty foods is another. The fact that human males are more violent and aggressive than human females in every observable human culture is yet another.

I agree that evolutionary psychology and my own field, biopolitics, are "not as mature as traditional biological evolutionary studies." But nothing is mature until it matures. Thanks again for the comments.

[denature]

Not to belabor this, since it seems to be one of the few issues that we are in more agreement than disagreement, and certainly some ev psych studies are better than others, but:

If you examine evolution of a marine mammal such as a whale, for evolution to be true as we understand it, their ancestors must have transitioned from land to sea. And they have been in the environment of the sea for considerable time. In the fossil record, one can find transitional forms indicating movement from legs to flippers and movement of nostrils back to a blowhole. With bones, vestigial structures can be found that no longer serve their previous function. Comparing leg bones to flippers, the homologous structures can be found matching land vertebrates, which have been repurposed for life at sea. Embryology, cladistics, and genetics provide confirming evidence.

If we look at behaviors such as violence or promiscuity we can make observations in humans, chimps, and bonobos. But our ability to conduct experimental research on humans (and even primates) is limited. We may eventually be able describe the genetics that underlie these behaviors. But there will likely be many genes involved. And for most behaviors, it is doubtful that the contribution of genes will be 100% responsible for the trait. This is problematic. More troublesome is how we determine the likely behavioral patterns in any common ancestors. It's difficult to determine how violent or promiscuous a species represented by a fossil was. This makes determining how behaviors have changed and any selective pressures involved difficult.

There's also a question of whether selection pressures for violence or adultery have been constant through time (like the aquatic environment of whale ancestors), as well as other changes in environments and societies. Even modern hunter-gatherer societies are a diverse lot.

Certainly, there is evolutionary history behind human behavior, but I've seen some overreaching in the field of ev psych. Particularly when the field has been used to confirm modern stereotypes, or has insisted that every behavior is based on selection rather than, for example, being an emergent property. Perhaps these are growing pains and we will see more valuable contributions in the future.

[KB]

Denature: yes there has been some "overreaching" in Evolutionary Psychology, but the same is true, despite the advantage of fossil evidence, in evolution. How many fictitious dinosaurs, cobbled out of misidentified fossils, have roamed the halls of museums? More that a few, I gather. Likewise the selection vs. emergence argument began not with behavioral evolution but precisely with the evolution of physical forms as read from the fossil record.

Ev. Psych. has an impressive and growing body of scholarship. It is politically controversial not only because it offends Biblical piety, but because it offends political correctness. Contrary to what you say, no Evolutionary Psychologist would claim that every human behavior is a result of adaptation. A glance at either of the two Ev. Psych. handbooks show that the discipline is getting pretty good at sorting out the influence of natural selection from other influences. By contrast, a lot of modern social scientists, especially on the left, reject any biological explanations for human behavior. All social facts are supposed to explained solely by reference to other social facts. That is a much graver error, in my view.