Posted on 01/22/2006 4:28:17 AM PST by PatrickHenry
Among the many traits that made Charles Darwin one of the greatest minds in science was his pertinacious personality. Facing a daunting problem in natural history, Darwin would obstinately chip away at it until its secrets relented. His apt description for this disposition came from an 1867 Anthony Trollope novel in which one of the characters opined: "There ain't nowt a man can't bear if he'll only be dogged.... It's dogged as does it." Darwin's son Francis recalled his father's temperament: "Doggedness expresses his frame of mind almost better than perseverance. Perseverance seems hardly to express his almost fierce desire to force the truth to reveal itself."
Historian of science Frank J. Sulloway of the University of California, Berkeley, has highlighted Darwin's dogged genius in his own tenacious efforts to force the truth of how Darwin actually pieced together the theory of evolution. The iconic myth is that Darwin became an evolutionist in the Galápagos when he discovered natural selection operating on finch beaks and tortoise carapaces, each species uniquely adapted by food type or island ecology. The notion is ubiquitous, appearing in everything from biology textbooks to travel brochures, the latter inveigling potential travelers to visit the mecca of evolutionary theory and walk in the tracks of St. Darwin the Divine.
In June 2004 Sulloway and I did just that, spending a month retracing some of Darwin's fabled footsteps. Sulloway is one sagacious scientist, but I had no idea he was such an intrepid field explorer until we hit the lava on San Cristóbal to reconstruct the famous naturalist's explorations there. Doggedness is the watchword here: with a sweltering equatorial sun and almost no freshwater, it is not long before 70-pound water-loaded packs begin to buckle knees and strain backs. Add hours of daily bushwhacking through dry, dense, scratchy vegetation, and the romance of fieldwork quickly fades.
Yet the harder it got, the more resolute Sulloway became. He actually seemed to enjoy the misery, and this gave me a glimpse into Darwin's single-mindedness. At the end of one particularly grueling climb through a moonscapelike area Darwin called the "craterized district" of San Cristóbal, we collapsed in utter exhaustion, muscles quivering, and sweat pouring off our hands and faces. Darwin described a similar excursion as "a long walk."
Death permeates these islands. Animal carcasses are scattered hither and yon. The vegetation is coarse and scrappy. Dried and shriveled cacti trunks dot a bleak lava landscape so broken with razor-sharp edges that moving across it is glacially slow. Many people have died, from stranded sailors of centuries past to wanderlust-struck tourists of recent years. Within days I had a deep sense of isolation and of life's fragility. Without the protective blanket of civilization, none of us is far from death. With precious little water and even less edible foliage, organisms eke out a precarious living, their adaptations to this harsh environment selected for over millions of years. These critters are hanging on by the skin of their adaptive radiations. A lifelong observer of, and participant in, the creation-evolution controversy, I was struck by how clear the solution is in these islands: creation by intelligent design is absurd. Why, then, did Darwin depart the Galápagos a creationist?
The Darwin Galápagos legend is emblematic of a broader myth that science proceeds by select "eureka!" discoveries followed by sudden revolutionary revelations, whereupon old theories fall before new facts. Not quite. Paradigms power perceptions. Sulloway discovered that nine months after departing the Galápagos, Darwin made this entry in his ornithological catalogue about his mockingbird collection: "When I see these Islands in sight of each other, & possessed of but a scanty stock of animals, tenanted by these birds, but slightly differing in structure & filling the same place in Nature, I must suspect they are only varieties." That is, similar varieties of fixed kinds, rather than the myth that he already knew that evolution was responsible for the creation of separate species. Darwin was still a creationist! This quotation explains why Darwin did not even bother to record the island locations of the few finches he collected (and in some cases mislabeled) and why, as Sulloway has pointed out, these now famous "Darwin finches" were never specifically mentioned in On the Origin of Species.
Darwin similarly botched his tortoise observations. Later, he recalled a conversation he had had while in the islands with the vice governor Nicholas O. Lawson, who explained that for the tortoises Lawson "could with certainty tell from which island any one was brought. I did not for some time pay sufficient attention to this statement, and I had already partially mingled together the collections from two of the islands." Worse, as Sulloway recounts humorously, Darwin and his mates ate the remaining tortoises on the voyage home. As Darwin later confessed: "I never dreamed that islands, about fifty or sixty miles apart, and most of them in sight of each other, formed of precisely the same rocks, placed under a quite similar climate, rising to a nearly equal height, would have been differently tenanted."
Through careful analysis of Darwin's notes and journals, Sulloway dates Darwin's acceptance of the fact of evolution to the second week of March 1837, after a meeting Darwin had with the eminent English ornithologist John Gould, who had been studying his Galápagos bird specimens. With access to museum ornithological collections from areas of South America that Darwin had not visited, Gould corrected a number of taxonomic errors Darwin had made (such as labeling two finch species a "Wren" and an "Icterus") and pointed out to him that although the land birds in the Galápagos were endemic to the islands, they were notably South American in character.
Darwin left the meeting with Gould, Sulloway concludes, convinced "beyond a doubt that transmutation must be responsible for the presence of similar but distinct species on the different islands of the Galápagos group. The supposedly immutable 'species barrier' had finally been broken, at least in Darwin's own mind." That July, Darwin opened his first notebook on Transmutation of Species, in which he noted: "Had been greatly struck from about Month of previous March on character of S. American fossils -- and species on Galapagos Archipelago. These facts origin (especially latter) of all my views." By 1845 Darwin was confident enough in his data to theorize on the deeper implications of the Galápagos: "The archipelago is a little world within itself, or rather a satellite attached to America, whence it has derived a few stray colonists, and has received the general character of its indigenous productions.… Hence both in space and time, we seem to be brought somewhat near to that great fact--that mystery of mysteries--the first appearance of new beings on this earth."
For a century and a half, Darwin's theory has steadfastly explained more disparate facts of nature than any other in the history of biology; the process itself is equally dogged, as Darwin explained: "It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers." Doggedly so.
>It was phrased poorly.
No. It wasn't just phrased poorly. The sentence was not a complete thought. It was neither an interrogative sentence, in which an answer to it is expected, nor a declarative one, in which some feedback is expected.
I will find the links and if found will post them here. But I doubt that even when presented with the truth you'll accept it. I think your mind is made up that Darwin did not recant, and mine is made up (based on historical facts) that he did, in fact, recant his evolution theory.
Neither of us was present at his death bed when he denied evolution and thought of it as simply speculation. So, we'll have to go by what witnesses say happened. If there as been no revision, evidence will prove that Darwin recanted his pet theory.
I think those links will suffice if they're extensive enough. What do you think?
If not, we'll see what more evidence we can find to confirm or deny the recanting.
Good night for now.
So do you believe in evolution or not? It's hard to tell from your post.
LOL. You know it's really bad karma to be the grammar/spelling/thread cop.
Especially when you throw claims out there that have been refuted with actual documentation, but refuse to provide your own.
Please forgive the extraneous use of the word "that" after the second comma in that which you quoted back to me.
So where, specifically, does your information come from?
I too want to know.
TheBrotherhood's claims have been thoroughly debunked, even by creationist sources. And yet he still claims that they are true.
What evidence do you possess, TheBrotherhood, that proves true an assertion even other creationists admit is a lie?
According to historical records Lady Hope was the only person to whom he recanted his theory of evolution.
"Which makes her claims all the more dubious when put against the testimony of his family and friends who said it never happened."
Family and friends were not present, from what I read.
"Family and friends were not present, from what I read."
You read wrong. Please provide your sources. Why would this woman be present at his death, but not his family? Why would anybody take the word of this woman over his own children? Darwin's wife (she was devout), who never left their estate without Darwin, was at his bedside when he died, as were his children. She would have LOVED for Darwin to have turned to Christianity on his deathbed, and would not have hesitated to say so. She never mentioned it at all.
There is no mention of ANY hesitation in his beliefs in any of his letters, private writings, and so on. The burden of proof is on YOU to provide ANYTHING tangible. So far you have done nothing of the sort.
Lady Hope lied, and most creationist organizations warn people not to use this story anymore.
Here's a source you should consider:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v18/i1/darwin_recant.asp
"Family and friends were not present at the time Darwin recanted, from what I read."
I thought that was understood. I mean, if family and friends were not privy to this disavowal, it's because they must have not have been present at the time. I think it makes sense, doncha agree?
Regarding the recant, however, this pro evolution author whitewashes the true facts and states that "He [Darwin] merely is said to have expressed concern over the fate of his youthful speculations and to have spoken in favour of a few people's attending a religious meeting."
I cannot believe you are trying to spread this on another thread...did you actually read or comprehend any sites that were provided to you for further study on the matter of Darwins recant...
A brief recap...Lady Hope, a well known evangelist of the time, claimed that she visited Darwin, on his deathbed, and at that time he recanted...Darwins daughter was there, and she states, categorically, that no Lady Hope ever visited Darwin in his deathbed....Darwins daughter doubted whether Lady Hope had ever been to their house...
But a 20yr biographer of Darwin states, that its possible Lady Hope did visit Darwin, but that would have been 6 months earlier, and at a time when Darwins daughter was not there...however, Darwins wife was there....and at this time, Darwin was NOT on his deathbed, as is claimed by Lady Hope...he was up and about....also Lady Hope makes a distinct claim that there were about 30 people gather INSIDE of the summer house on Darwins property...the fact is, the summer house is so small, its a physical impossibility that all 30 people were in the summer house, unless, of course, they were laying on top of one another...
And Darwins wife, worried all her life, about how her husbands theories and ideas were perceived by the Church and by other Christian folk...it would have been to her great advantage to go along with Lady Hopes story...yet she did not...
Lady Hope herself, was a well known evangelist, and also know to be a spinner of yarns...she was encouraged to spin this tale of her ability to get Darwin to recant...why?...one can only guess...perhaps for another notch in her 'conversion belt...perhaps to add more drama to her tent services, by declaring how she, Lady Hope, got the biggest non-believer to 'believe'...what better way to fill the money coffers...
Whatever one believes of the theory of evolution, one should at least be open to the truth of what Darwin did or did not say as he lay dying...one thing is known for sure..Lady Hope was not with Charles Darwin when he died...
You know, there was a creationist on one of these threads, a while back, who absolutely insisted, and insisted that Darwin recanted...when I tried to ascertain where this info had come from and what were the facts they were using, this person just got angry, said, "Well, someone told me that, long ago"....this person refused to research the matter, what little matter she did read, she failed to comprehend, and then she just got angry, and said, "No matter what the research shows, I am just going to believe what I was told, by someone(she never would tell us who), long ago, and you can wait till you are blue in the face, I will never disbelieve that Darwin recanted"...(or words to that effect)...such hiding of ones head in the sand, never leads to learning the facts...
I sure hope you do more research, which incidentally does come not only from sites which support evolution, but also Christian sites, who wish to disassociate themselves, from those who continue to insist that Darwin recanted, because even these Christian sites, realize that the overwhelming evidence is that Darwin never recanted...
You are leaving out the part where EVEN LADY HOPE never said he recanted. You are ignoring the fact that I sent you to a leading CREATIONIST website. Their conclusion? It never happened. Now please, provide your sources for where he recanted. So far you haven't provided ANYTHING but hot air.
He isn't interested in the facts. I sent him to Answersingenesis, not known to be partial to Darwin, who say the story is bogus. Still he persists. Some people would rather believe a comforting lie than accept the painful truth.
I just went throught this with him on another thread...I cannot believe that people want to believe a lie...but if they want to, so be it...many people chose to go through life, never wishing to find out the truths of many matters...not a way I should wish to live, but hey, its America, believe as you wish...my objection, is when that same person spreads this lie, knowing its a lie, which is just a horrible thing to do...all we can do, is when we see someone spread this lie, is provide the facts, dispel the lie, and let the truth stand...
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