The first chapter of our current book, Darwinism and Its Discontents, is entitled "Charles Darwin and his Revolution" and examines the reasons behind history attributing evolution, and more specifically the mechanism of natural selection, to Darwin. Like any person, Darwin had his critics, and even has them today...posthumously. Ruse focuses on whether Darwin brought a "revolution" with his thoughts on evolution.

Ruse first asks us to consider the beliefs and philosophies of the day..."This brings us to the eighteenth century, with people seeing that organisms need final causes for their explanation, and recognizing also that final causes seem inexplicable in purely natural terms. Evolution is a naturalistic explanation. Hence, evolution seemed an unreasonable position. Why then did evolutionary ideas start to emerge? Almost paradoxically, the reason lies in the Christian religion. As people started to find Christianity less and less compelling – as philosophers showed hat it was unreasonable, as travelers brought back tales of other religions and other civilizations, as the move to an industrial world made the social force of the old beliefs less and less compelling and pertinent – they nevertheless sought alternatives in terms that Christianity had set...People were looking for a non-Christian alternative, but set in the Christian terms – history, meaning, humans. Evolution told just such a story, offering rival answers to these same questions. It tells us where organisms came from – they started as primitive blobs way back when, and then grew and developed up to the forms that we have about us now. It puts us humans up at the front of the picture, as the most important organisms, that to which all has been pointing. It gives us tasks to do, namely, to keep things going and to make sure that things do not fall back – even better, to keep things moving forward. And finally, it offers hope of a brighter tomorrow, if not for us, then for our children and our children's children."

There is SO much I have to say about all this conjecture I just quoted. It is interesting to note that I highlighted it all and then drew a big QUESTION MARK in the margin next to the quote. Then the VERY NEXT LINE SAID..."The reader today might question all of this – we ourselves will be questioning much before this book is finished. But for now, leave how you think that evolution should be interpreted, and go back nearly three hundred years to the way the first evolutionists thought of the topic."

However, how do I KNOW this is the way in which the first evolutionists thought of the topic? I suppose at this point, I must take Ruse at his word. But WHICH evolutionists is he referring to exactly? He doesn't say.

He says he wants us to ignore the words I transcribed, but I'd like to address a couple points nonetheless, since some creationists seem to have this view that today people treat evolution as a religion...

Evolution and Christianity may answer some of the SAME questions...but as to the answers themselves, I find it is a matter of judgement. Am I going to trust myths and stories from thousands of years ago, or am I going to trust inferences made by presumably, more intelligent and more advance people? People weren't necessarily looking for another RELIGION to replace the RELIGION of Christianity. They were looking for the TRUTH...whatever that truth may be.

Also, this whole evolution gives us a brighter future thing? Or evolution points to us being in the front and the most important organisms? I don't think that's true at all. I suppose people have thought that for millennia, and they still do. But I am keenly aware that species go extinct everyday, and I certainly don't dismiss us from that predicament. But I suppose 300 years ago, they would have come to a conclusion such as that...

Ruse explains that people were obsessed with progress, and anything that presented such was accepted rather easily.

"One aspect of the living world – noted, incidentally by Aristotle – is that there exist similarities, isomorphisms, between the parts of organisms of very different species. These similarities, like those existing between the bones of the forelimbs of vertebrates, today known as 'homologies,' are indeed powerful evidence of common ancestry, with one initial form having been molded to various ends. But the facts were always secondary to the ideology, that of progress."

There were people who believed in evolution before Darwin, and presented it, however, none of them had a final cause. The purpose for something...

"Cuvier's point was simply that blind law does not lead to intricate adaptations like the eye and the hand. These seem still to show purpose or intention in their design and creation, and evolution simply does not speak to this. End of argument. Or, at least, end of argument until the arrival of Charles Darwin, for it was to this very issue that he spoke."

I'm not sure if everyone here knows about the history of Charles Darwin. If not, you can find out more about him here. He originally studied medicine and hated it, then went on to study theology. But his trip on the Beagle would change all that.

"He never became an atheist, and only in the final years of his life did he become an agnostic. But during the Beagle voyage he started to move away from Christianity – a theistic religion that places heavy emphasis on God's miraculous intervention in the creation – to what is usually called 'deism,' in which God is presumed to have created the world and then left everything else to the working out of laws...A number of things shook Darwin's confidence in the stability of species, but the key insight seems to have been realizing the peculiar distributions of the reptiles and birds of the Galapagos Archipelago in the middle of the Pacific. Why should you have forms similar to but not identical to the mainland forms, and even more, why should you have different forms on islands literally within sight of each other? The crucial conceptual leap was not made until Darwin returned home to England and was convinced that the island forms are genuine species. Then, early in 1837, he decided that there is only one solution – evolution, or what he generally called 'descent with modification.'...Darwin was a graduate of the University of Cambridge and realized – in the tradition of the great Isaac Newton – that one must find a cause, preferable a force-like cause. For eighteen months he worked hard (and secretly). He was much impressed by the success of animal and plant breeders and realized that their main tool of change is selection – one picks and breeds from the desirable organisms and rejects the others. But, until the end of September 1838, Darwin could not see how to apply artificial selection to nature. Then he read a conservative political tract by the Reverend Robert Malthus, who argued that state support of the poor only exacerbates problems, for population numbers always outstrip potential food supplies. Given the inevitability of a 'struggle for existence,' Darwin moved straightaway to his mechanism of natural selection."

And that's all for tonight folks, I will post more tomorrow!

So. Darwin had his "struggle for existence." "...even more than a struggle for existence, Darwin needed a struggle for reproduction. It is no good having the physique of Tarzan if you have the sexual desires of a philosopher." Do philosophers lack sexual desire? I've never noticed. :) Perhaps he should speak for himself! "But with the struggle understood in this sort of way, given naturally occurring variation, natural selection follows at once...Those organisms that are selected are those with favorable features, and given enough time, this leads to the evolution of things like the hand and the eye. Finding a cause is important, but this is only the beginning. In the Origin, having introduced selection, and having given some brief remarks about variation and its possible causes, Darwin moved right on to apply his mechanism throughout the living world, taking in turn instinct, paleontology, biogeography, and then a mixed bag of areas including anatomy, systematics, embryology and more. Finally, after a brief reference to the applicability of his theory to our own species, Darwin was ready for his famous conclusion."The following in an excerpt from The Origin of Species. So, Darwin writes, "It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being, evolved."

So how did people view this conclusion made by Darwin? According to Ruse, "The fact of the matter is that by and large no one was that much interested in a fully developed, casual theory of evolution. Why? Primarily because (whatever had been the hope of Darwin himself) most people did not want to use evolution as (certainly not primarily as) a straight scientific theory. They were far more interested in exploiting its potential as a kind of alternative to religion - what one might even go so far as to call a secular religion."

*SIGHS* A "secular" religion, heh? I wouldn't go that far. In fact isn't the very definition of secular, nonreligious? Certainly, an ALTERNATIVE to religion. Fine. Another way to answer the BIG questions of life, fine. But it's NOT religion. It's science. Science is NOT religion. Let me say that again. Science is NOT religion. Richard Dawkins is attributed for the following..."Science is not religion and it doesn't just come down to faith. Although it has many of religion's virtues, it has none of its vices. Science is based upon verifiable evidence. Religious faith not only lacks evidence, its independence from evidence is its pride and joy, shouted from the rooftops. Why else would Christians wax critical of doubting Thomas? The other apostles are held up to us as examplars of virtue because faith was enough for them. Doubting Thomas, on the other hand, required evidence. Perhaps he should be the patron saint of scientists.

One reason I receive the comment about science being a religion is because I believe in the fact of evolution. I even believe in it with passionate conviction. To some, this may superficially look like faith. But the evidence that makes me believe in evolution is not only overwhelmingly strong; it is freely available to anyone who takes the trouble to read up on it. Anyone can study the same evidence that I have and presumably come to the same conclusion. But if you have belief that is based solely on faith, I can't examine your reasons. You can retreat behind the private wall of faith where I can't reach you."

I can agree with Ruse that people were looking for answers to the big questions of life. I can agree with Ruse that people were looking for an ALTERNATIVE to religion. But they were NOT looking for ANOTHER religion. They were looking for SOMETHING to give them the truth of reality, instead of more mythology. Darwin gave us the means to find this truth. So Ruse asks, was there a Darwinian Revolution and if there was a revolution, should it be called "Darwinian?"

"First, Charles Darwin himself. There is no doubt that he is for the historian a bit of a puzzle, and that there was about him something of the amateur...His hands-on work was pretty low-tech; his mathematical abilities were gamma minus; and his foreign language skills were about on par with English cuisine. He never worked for a living; his support came from his family's wealth; he did not himself go out and found areas of scientific research in universities, and much more. What I find more striking than his crude ways of experimentation – after all, biology back then was often pretty primitive in these respects, with little more than a scapel and a ruler – is the way in which so often, especially in the Origin, he writes for a general audience rather than just for specialists (which later he was certainly capable of doing, as several long works on barnacle classification from the early 1850s well attest). The fact is that Darwin's patrons were people like his father and uncle (and father-in-law), and he wrote with them in mind, even after they were long dead. Although Darwin desired the respect of professional scientists, he usually wrote for a larger audience."

Okay, before we move on, there are a few things I want to address. As to the validity of what a scientist has to offer someone like me...I don't really care about his foreign language skills...and almost don't care about the math. I'm not very adept in that arena myself. As to the never working for a living part, there were many "distinguished gentlemen" of the day who didn't work either. Many scientists of the time lived off of family money - using it to educate themselves and study in their various private interests. That certainly doesn't bother me about Darwin. I think Ruse is presenting the "bad" stuff that critics often present about Darwin and basically saying "Yeah, we know." But I would be saying, "Yeah, I don't care. It doesn't make a lick of difference when considering the validity of the mechanism of natural selection and the fact of evolution." As to the whole writing for a general audience thing. WTF??? Isn't Ruse himself trying to write to a general audience? I don't understand how this can be presented as a "bad" thing. I suppose it could be seen as rather "unscientific, " but I guess I belong to the age of Carl Sagan, where scientists attempt to impart knowledge upon the general population. Perhaps back then it wasn't so. Now back to Ruse...

"Having said this, however, one must add that Darwin himself was solidly in the scientific group and seen as such (through the honors, like fellowship in the Royal Society). More than anything, he saw that the big problem for evolution was that of final cause, and he realized that any adequate solution had to incorporate a cause that spoke naturalistically to final cause. Darwin saw this, and he cracked the problem – the problem of two and a half millennia. Leaving for a later the obvious questions and reservations, Darwin saw the big issue, and he answered it – not by chance, not by luck, but by hard work. And genius. Was there a revolution and was it Darwin's? Well, yes, there was a revolution. What was it? At a more limited level, it was moving to an evolutionary view of life's history from a static one – or from no history at all. One almost defines the meaning of the word 'revolution' by this. One moves from a view of life created by a good God, a short while ago, in a very limited time and through miracles, to a slow, naturalistic (lawbound) view of origins, through a mechanism that has no intention, no goal. At a more general level, there was a move from a religiously inspired view of nature to one that does not necessarily have to be like this. Tho a view that is potentially materialistic, meaningless. Again, if this is not a revolution, I don't know what is...What about the charge that we privilege Darwin unfairly, neglecting others of importance? Well, the answer of course is that we do privilege Darwin, and we do so because of what came after. Darwin, at the time did not accomplish what he set out to accomplish. He waned a professionally based area of biological science, using natural selection as its main investigative tool. What he ended up getting was a kind of religion substitute, with progress at its heart, and with little interst in mechanisms. But later, in the twentieth century, his ideas were picked up and used for what they were worth, a means to peer into nature...Hence, with all of the qualifications we can be generous. There was a revolution; it was a Darwinian revolution; and Charles Darwin earned the status he has now."

TPO wrote:

Ha, Ha...I don't have the book yet but after reading the above excerpt I was thinking the same thing.

I found my eyes rolling to the back of my head when I read It puts us humans up at the front of the picture, as the most important organisms, that to which all has been pointing.

I'm glad he was just putting things into the context of the times.

I HOPE that's all he was doing. :) I guess I might be biased because I read somewhere that he was a Christian...or perhaps I'm doing too much "reading between the lines, " but I feel like even though he is a fan of Darwinism, that he is presenting it AS a dogmatic, religious view...I'll wait to pass final judgement until after the book is finished of course...maybe it's just me.

He made mention of God in the inreoduction, and so far hasn't been direct on whether or not he's a theist...If he is, that's fine...He uses language to relate to both sides of the issue...he says things like "those of us more secular in nature" and then at another time "we believers" or something. I can't remember the exact quotes, but I wasn't sure if he was including himself in both groups, or in one group, or in neither. Its possible to be a theist of some sort AND secular I suppose.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it turns out. Perhaps we should take bets? :)

TPO wrote:

Brian wrote:
I've always cracked up when scientists or psychologists believe "writing for the general public" is a bad thing. That is what made Carl Sagan so great!!

Absolutely! As Neil deGrasse Tyson says, who do you think pays the bills? Carl’s efforts have cleared the way for Scientist like Tyson and many more to give laymen like myself the opportunity to view the world as it really is instead of how the different religions wish it to be.

I really like Neil - but I've talked to a lot of atheists who don't care for him. Perhaps because he is not as "militant" as they would like? I think we need people spreading science from various viewpoints...