Darwin’s Cathedral

On Charles Darwin’s passing in 1882, influential friends intervened to thwart his wish to be buried in a humble coffin in his parish. Such an interment, they felt, would deprive England of the privilege of honouring one of its great men. So it was that the professed agnostic was buried with high ceremony in Westminster Abbey. Canon Frederic Farrar’s eulogy assured his countrymen that the views of the deceased did not menace the Crown with the boisterous materialism promoted in the free thought press. Darwin’s life-long service to his parish, and his occasional acknowledgement of the Creator, proved his loyalty to Britain’s noble values.

This adroit evasion was not the beginning of the Darwin legend, but it was a landmark in his sanctification as the presiding spirit of scientific enlightenment. Signs abound that the celebration of his bicentennial will reverberate with new hymns and hosannas. Indeed, it has already begun with the opening of the lavish Darwin Exhibition at New York’s American Museum of Natural History in November last year. In June the exhibition will move successively to Boston, Chicago, and Toronto before finally opening in the London Natural History Museum in time for the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth on February 12, 2009. A quality online version of the exhibition is accessible at www.amnh.org.

The print media are also in the stream. In conjunction with the exhibition opening, leading science publisher W.W. Norton issued two beautifully produced volumes. One is by the exhibition’s curator and innovative evolution scientist, Niles Eldredge, Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life. The second is the issue of four of Darwin’s publications under a single cover. This massive tome, From So Simple a Beginning: The Four Great Books of Charles Darwin, is beautifully done with no cost spared on typography, layout, and graphics. Norton recruited the world’s most honored naturalist, Edward O. Wilson, to serve as editor and to write glosses on the “four great books of Charles Darwin”.

The hosannas of these distinguished scientists provoke awe and adulation. We learn that the Origin is the “greatest scientific book of all time” that “fully explained” the struggle for existence (Wilson). The Voyage of the Beagle “is today regarded as intellectually the most important travel book of all time” (Wilson). Darwin “demonstrated without a shadow of doubt that life evolved”; “no idea in science has shaken society so much as evolution”; “Darwin did more to secularise the Western world than any other single thinker” (Eldredge).

The sanctification continues: Darwin revolutionised the biology of his day; he fashioned a new concept of humankind; he challenged basic philosophical and religious ideas about the nature and meaning of life; so profound was his insight that his thought remains relevant to contemporary biology. These surpassing achievements brought a “revolution” equal in importance to the Copernican revolution. Smitten with reverence, my eye falls on the dust jacket to contemplate the photo of the dignified aged Darwin: yes, he looks like a prophet!

As is wont with preaching, no evidence for this litany is offered: evidence implies evaluation and critical scrutiny. But outside the cathedral, old habits disturb my rapture. What grading system ranks Origin as the greatest book in science? What titles were runners-up? What were those signal discoveries that transformed the biological sciences of his day? What was his new concept of humankind? Did it support the actively canvassed universal suffrage and gender equality? What was the secularising element of Darwin’s thought, and how did it relate to the well-established influence of irreligion, industrialisation, engineering marvels, the free press, socialism, positivism, and the notorious laissez-faire doctrine of survival of the fittest?

These questions are not asked because answering them requires returning Darwin to his context, where the Legend’s claims are readily seen to be baseless. Darwin’s secularising influence is said to stem from his rebuttal of the creationist explanation in natural history. But the refutation was largely redundant. Secularisation was deeply entrenched before his birth (his grandfather Erasmus Darwin was an energetic secularist, as were utilitarians, free thinkers, and socialists): by 1860 it had achieved a massive base, including important elements of the Anglican clergy.

As for the sciences, they had been purged of non-mechanical causality long before. Only Darwin’s fellow naturalists, many of whom were clergy, continued to invoke divine causality. The voyage of the Beagle was one among many explorations. It isn’t obviously superior to those that came before or after. The Challenger expedition of 1880, for example, was an oceanographic survey whose results were published in 50 volumes, including, incidentally, a refutation of Darwin’s theory of the origin of coral reefs.

The most grotesque distortion is the claim that Darwin’s discoveries reformed the biological sciences of his day. The reality: Darwin’s science was in the amateur mode of the naturalist, whereas the physical and biological sciences had shifted into the precision instrument mode of the modern laboratory. This difference was well established in the public mind.

Real science was the sort of thing that Lord Kelvin, the maestro of the transatlantic cable and of the physics of the steam engine, did. In the biological sciences, the hero was Louis Pasteur, the conqueror of infectious agents and epidemics. The focus of those sciences was cellular biology, microbiology, biochemistry, and neurology, using constantly innovating experimental equipment and processes. They poured forth a stream of practical and profitable innovations, the most celebrated being vaccination, which was made legally obligatory in most European countries.

Darwin the country gentleman was in complete disconnect with this world. His measuring tool was a seven-foot ruler calibrated by the village carpenter, and his microscope was an ancient Smith and Beck model of low resolution. He had no instruments for measuring speed or for reducing tissue to smallest parts. He felt no need to acquire up-to-date equipment, whose cost he reproached, despite his great wealth.

The contrast might be put this way. Darwin made no discovery of Nobel Prize caliber, whereas Louis Pasteur made two such discoveries. Or more tellingly perhaps, when Darwin’s son Francis wished to pursue advanced botanical research, he migrated to a high-tech institute in Germany. There he learned first hand that his father’s science was amateur.

The legend-credulous express dismay when challenged to produce just one instance of a Darwin discovery that was taken over by experimental biologists. “How can you doubt what everyone knows?” goes the response. Darwin, after all, proved evolution! So they say in fulsome certainty, but what are we to make of his failure to make the discovery central to his theory? I mean the science of heredity. He lavished attention on domestication, conducting many plant and animal breeding experiments, because he believed that such induced changes were evolution in miniature.

The lead chapter of the Origin argues this case. But, in a singular demonstration of the limits of even great minds, he didn’t notice that domestication evidence massively contradicted his theory. It disproved his key premise that continuous selection of a single trait would evolve a population of better adapted organisms. Domestication shows on the contrary that selection for a single trait results in changes in numerous traits - changes that are usually maladaptive.

Domestication also provided abundant documentation of events that Darwin stoutly declared cannot happen: single generation “leaps”, such as the two-headed calf and other “sports of nature”, that disprove his “gradualist” theory of organic change. The correct conception of inheritance was published in 1866 by Gregor Mendel. His carefully controlled experiments on hybrid garden peas (Pisum savtivum) enabled him to formulate the laws of segregation and independent assortment, which explain why the variations of pea traits (round and wrinkled, yellow and green) occurred in the ratios that he experimentally observed.

These trait variations are “leaps” that Darwin’s theory denies. It was the beginning of genetics and the first discovery of a quantitative biological law. Mendel believed that his discovery disproved Darwin’s theory. He was right.

Mendel’s publication enjoyed none of the braggadocio of “revolutionary” enlightenment. Indeed, it had no uptake whatever during his time. Yet eventually biologists rediscovered his work and embarked on a course leading to the discovery of chromosomes, genes, alleles, and sexual replication. It is a lesson worth repeating that Darwinians of the day recoiled in horror from these splendid discoveries. They proudly declared their “faith” in the master while hurling themselves vehemently at the new science. One, the brilliant Karl Pearson, persisted in dogged opposition to genetics until his death in 1936! So much for evidence.

The Darwin Exhibition doesn’t mention Mendel and Pasteur. Bringing them into the picture would spoil the halo over Darwin’s head and cast doubt on his singularity. Nor does it mention that the introduction of genetics, today considered the experimental core of any possible evolutionary theory, was accomplished over the bodies of true Darwinians. This silence about fundamental history of science underscores the regrettable faith-based orientation of the Darwin bicentenary, together with the implication that science is based on authority.

Creationists, alas, will probably conclude that the exhibition’s symphony to the legend confirms their conviction that to refute evolution one need but refute Darwin. This nonsense may be cast out by discarding the legend, which in any case has no business in science.

Hiram Caton is a former professor of politics and history at Griffith University in Queensland and an associate of the US National Centre for Science Education. He is working on a book titled Evolution in the Century of Progress. He can be contacted at hcaton2@bigpond.net.au.

Bringing them into the picture would spoil the halo over Darwin’s head and cast doubt on his singularity.

Someone once said it even better: "The little people first!!"

Darwinians of the day recoiled in horror from these splendid discoveries. They proudly declared their “faith” in the master while hurling themselves vehemently at the new science. One, the brilliant Karl Pearson, persisted in dogged opposition to genetics until his death in 1936! So much for evidence.

Those dogmatic Darwinists just stuck to their pet theory like glue. Nothing would make them begin to question its validity!

Of course, as this article points out, Darwin HAS been refuted. Clever guy, but he got it wrong. "Darwinism" has been replaced by the much more modern "Theory of Evolution".

Nowadays, it is the proponents of the Theory of Evolution who dogmatically stick to their pet theory like glue. Nothing will make them begin to question its validity!

My, how times have changed.

This is silliness...to say that Darwin didn't accomplish anything significant because he didn't discover Mendelian inheritance is like saying Newton didn't do much because he didn't discover quantum mechanics.

The fact is that Darwin was a prodigious observer and collector of data, he did numerous experiments, a great systematizer, and his insights provided powerful explanations as to how and why the observed natural world is as it is, and revolutionized the scientific understanding of the biological world. The basics of his theory, inheritance, with modification, and natural selection, leading to new species adapted to their environment, has been continuously confirmed since the theory was first published in 1858.

Darwin's publications are interesting and readable, Creationists who want to slime him should have the intellectual honesty to read his works, at least Origin of Species.

That's a lot of pomp and ceremony to celebrate the life of a man whose admirers, in the main, are only too pleased to assure everyone that life is undirected, random, meaningless, pointless, and that man is bereft of free will.

You might have a point sparky, if Max Planck were around in Newtons' time. Then again, if he was, the point wouldn't be in your favor.

Just like that other looney NOBEL Laureate from the same source...

"If there is evidence that HIV causes AIDS, there should be scientific documents which either singly or collectively demonstrate that fact, at least with a high probability. There is no such document."
Dr. Kary Mullis, Biochemist, 1993 Nobel Prize for Chemistry

http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/index.htm

You really need to source your scientific prejudice better Perfessor.

DK

"What grading system ranks Origin as the greatest book in science? What titles were runners-up? What were those signal discoveries that transformed the biological sciences of his day? What was his new concept of humankind?"
Well, there is Charles Murray's book on human accomplishment. He explicitly used the econometric criteria to grade the relative importance of various prominent scientists in several different fields, and came to the same conclusion: in the field of biology Charles Darwin IS the greatest.

Well, there is Charles Murray's book on human accomplishment. He explicitly used the econometric criteria to grade the relative importance of various prominent scientists in several different fields, and came to the same conclusion: in the field of biology Charles Darwin IS the greatest.<<

Why that is amazing! A theory with NO MAJOR PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS has as much economic implication as something like the discovery of DNA and the various scientific theories borne from that fruit. I believe there are ORDERS of magnitude difference in economic activity between the two. Would you invest in biotech or ... they really don't have many companies doing work on practical Darwinism do they?

DK

I am afraid you got confused by the nomenclature: econometric techniques are not economics, and do not measure [at least in Murray's case] the economic impact, although these quantitative techniques were originally developed in economics area. He statistically measured the number, frequency, prominence and length of references and quotations [in multiple "qualified sources" of more or less encyclopedic character, and not, for example, in New York Times] and then compared these to arrive at the relative rankings. In the field of Western music he used the same techniques to arrive to the relative rankings of Beethoven and Mozart (practically indistinguishable, relative ranking 100 out of 100. J. S. Bach came as a close, but distinct third) - find me the relative economic importance of these composers, if you can.

Thanks for the information. Econo metric should be about economic impact and the measurements of the phenomena. It is really a socio metric measure. Of course it does not lend much to any argument on the importance of Darwinism since controversy does not necessarily equate to importance.

DNA for example, is a paradigm change. It was a discovery that gave mechanism to Mendel's work. There is NO WAY the economic importance of Darwinism, NeoDarwinism or most of the other ToE's can be compared.

Of course Murray's work can prove that Darwin is talked about more. Maybe Mendel should get a publicist.

Besides Bach was robbed.

LOL

Thanks for the info on Murray, but I'll pass on the methodology. If the name does not describe the info, it intends to mislead. Nomenclature used to attempt to accurately describe what is being named, now it is newspeak.

Econo without economics. At least metrics is an attempt to measure.

DK

Thanks for the challenge.

Mozart 554
Beethoven 413
Bach 394

The internet movie data base, music used by each composer in listed movies.

imdb.com

Bach was still robbed.

DK

"...Murray's work can prove that Darwin is talked about more. Maybe Mendel should get a publicist. "
Murray was attempting to measure the talk by, about, and for, professionals. A publicist could get a client into the society pages of NYT, but to get somebody into, say, a musical encyclopedia would be nontrivial even for the best PR joint - and even more difficult to get a client there to figure prominently, and not as a footnote.
Murray's "qualified sources" were never intended for mass consumption, but mostly serve as solid, and stolid, reference works in specialized fields. More, Murray tried, wherever possible, to pick those "qualified sources" from different countries, and prudently cut off his analysis at 1950, so as to avoid fads and let the time sort the things out, more or less.

OK. Here are Murray's "qualified sources" for the Western music:
G.Abraham, (1979) The Concise Oxford History of Music, Oxford, Oxford University Press;
L. Alberti, (1968) Musica Nei Secoli, Milan, CEAM;
M.C. Bertrando-Patier, (1998) Histoire de la Musique, Paris, Larousse
E. Borroff, (1990) Music in Europe and the United States, New York, Ardsley house
C. Dahlhaus and M. Eggebrecht, (1978) Brockhaus Riemann Musiclexicon, 2 vols, Mainz, F.A.Brockhaus.
D.J.Grout and C.V.Palisca, (1996), A History of Western Music, New York, W.W. Norton &Co.
P. Hamburger (1966) Musikens Historie, Copenhagen, Aschehoug Dansk Forlag
and another 10 equally dry, equally scholarly and equally incomprehensible to a layman works. To score really high, one better be in all 16 sources, and prominently. As you can see, it has nothing to do with use in movies. Results of this "popularity contest":
Beethoven 100; Mozart 100; J. S. Bach 87; Wagner 80; Haydn 56, and all the rest of them, from Handel to Gluck - below 50.

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