Posted on 06/03/2009 8:42:23 PM PDT by gobucks
Charles Darwin’s discovery of evolution is common knowledge but Darwin the person is barely known. Even on his 200th birth anniversary this year — he was born in England on Feb. 12, 1809 — much has been said about his works but little about his inner life of contrasts.
Darwin loved the natural world from childhood. He roamed the wilderness to study insects while neglecting Greek and Latin, the essential subjects. He said of his schooling, “I was considered by all my masters and by my Father as a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect.”
Sent to medical school at age 16, he quit after seeing an operation on a child. Anesthesia was not yet introduced, and frightened patients stayed awake while surgeons sawed through their legs. His father was upset with him for leaving medicine, as fathers are when their offspring disappoint them. Charles was warned that he would be a disgrace.
He then went to Cambridge University to be a minister. There he found a mentor who would change his life, the Rev. John Henslow, a botanist. He and a geology professor taught Darwin how to observe and interpret nature’s ways.
After Cambridge, while Darwin was pondering entering the ministry, Henslow recommended him as a naturalist for a British survey ship, HMS Beagle, which planned an around-the-globe voyage. Darwin’s father was opposed, calling it a waste of time, but Charles prevailed with the help of his maternal uncle.
After four years, in 1835, the Beagle landed in the Galapagos Archipelago in the Pacific. What Darwin saw there changed our concept of biology. For millions of years, the animals and birds in these isolated islands had evolved in their unique way to survive and propagate. And they had no fear of humans. How and why did these creatures become the way they did? These questions germinated the idea of evolution in Darwin’s mind.
At 29, Darwin married Emma Wedgwood, his first cousin. The marriage saved his life. Emma was 30. An educated woman, she spoke French, German and Italian. And despite their differences in belief — she was a devoted Christian while he turned agnostic — she read Darwin’s papers before they were sent out. Emma, however, is not given the recognition she deserves for supporting her husband’s works, and accepting the demands of his almost constant illness. Moreover, she bore 10 children; the last one, born when she was 48, had Down syndrome.
Darwin’s favorite child, Annie, died of tuberculosis when she was 10. His anguish expresses a father’s loss and his deep love for a child: “Her face now rises before me ... her whole form radiant with the pleasure of giving pleasure ... her dear face bright all the time, with sweetest smiles. ... We have lost the joy of the household, and the solace of our old age.” This loss, some say, turned him into an agnostic.
Darwin’s radical idea — evolution of species over millions of years — starkly contradicted the doctrine on creation. Fearing the church’s hostile reactions, he waited about 20 years before publishing his seminal book, “The Origin of Species,” in 1859. The book transformed science and human thought forever.
Though zealots impede teaching evolution in school, some churches now believe that evolution is compatible with faith. Zealotry diminishes both religion and science.
Why is Darwin universally remembered while other original minds have remained obscure? It’s not just because of his big idea on evolution and change. After all, the idea was not his alone. Another naturalist, Alfred Wallace, came to the same conclusion as that of Darwin. Even philosopher Heraclitus said 2,500 years ago, “There is nothing permanent except change.”
What has kept Darwin alive is the power of his observations and his writings. He has integrated diverse fields of knowledge — including geology, zoology, botany, marine biology, horticulture, animal husbandry and history — to make compelling points for evolution.
We are part of nature, not above it. The poetic conclusion of “The Origin of Species” pictures our kinship to nature: “Contemplate a tangled 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 ... reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other ... have all been produced by laws acting around us.”
Thank you for sharing your insights, dearest sister in Christ!
That's a certainty. From the article quoted in post one, "... the idea was not his alone. Another naturalist, Alfred Wallace, came to the same conclusion as that of Darwin."
In fact, for someone of supposed zealousness to either gain immortal fame or overturn creationist teachings, Darwin took a very large chance in waiting about twenty years to publish his theory.
This tells me at least, that simple fame or infamy were not his goal. He knew that he was on the right track scientifically, and he wanted to further human knowledge and understanding.
Yes. My name is Legion. (Luke 8:30)
Whatta surprise.
p.s.: Sorry, but I misspelled Polus’ name. He is noteworthy for having perfected the fine art of the sneer....
dissapointed placemarker
I know. Polis is the Greek name for "the crowd" or "the people".
That's why I said, I am Legion.
Sorry about that. How's tomorrow shaping up?
Clever boy!
I have moments.
"Polis" is the name for the Greek city-state, not just simply "the crowd" or "the people." For the word "polis" implies the notion of order. Crowds and people (especially in the mass) do not.
Even better. You can't fight City Hall, you know.
I have never studied much about Darwin, so I didn’t know about Wallace. Thanks for the heads-up.
"The great event of his professional life was the five-year voyage on the Beagle ...We may not have the opportunity that Darwin did to go on an eye-opening sea voyage to exotic locales, but we have access to things he did not.
On his trip he looked at nature and read about rocks -- he read the first volume of Charles Lyell's revolutionary book Principles of Geology, which explained that the Earth is much more ancient than anyone had imagined and made Darwin think in terms of deep time as he looked at local formations. This double vision, short biological generations set against deep geological aeons, was crucial to everything he would do afterward, and the fun of the Beagle voyage is that the juxtaposition was immediate, right there for the seeing, not bookish and learned."
We can easily travel through mountain ranges, where engineers have cut through solid rock to ease our passage on modern Interstates, and we can see the thick volumes of pages patiently transcribed by an ever-patient Watcher. Pages brimming with information about ancient seas and mighty rivers, solid rock twisted like kneaded bread dough by titanic forces, and in the most delicate pale filigree, turgid and cryptic marginal notes about the passing of obscure plants and animals no human eye has ever seen.
That vision can be ours, as well. The magnificent vista of deep time, and endless almost-repetitions, in a slow-moving flip-book that tells an exciting, magical story.
betty boop: Whatta surprise.
Darwin's critique of his own work suggested that a Creator might occasionally be expected to co-create organisms with mutual dependencies; a flowers-and-bees and chicken-or-egg conundrum in one pretty package.
My point is not speculative or inappropriately applied. I simply observe that Darwin's argument was not a scientific argument, but an argument based on natural theology that relies entirely on particular unstated presuppositions and notions regarding the nature of a Creator. Darwin's notions about what a Creator might be expected to do are not scientific; they are metaphysical speculations about the nature of reality, and as such are immune to empirical testing.
He admitted that finding such a situation would indicate that his concept was faulty in that regard. However, no such situation has been observed. Perhaps you can enlighten us with your observation that "one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species" which would, by Darwin's own admission, show his theory to be incorrect. [emphasis mine]
"Good" is not a scientific, empirically derived concept. It entails philosophical assumptions about the nature of reality. Because certain features of the natural world did not comport with Darwin's view of what an all-powerful, all-benevolent Creator would or should do, he concluded that the Creator is not involved in this world in the slightest. So he reasoned that because one species has not been observed "to have been formed for the exclusive good of another species" therefore they are the result of a process that is unguided and without purpose or design.
While this type of argument has and continues to have great emotional appeal to certain people, Darwin and Darwinist theodicy does not constitute scientific argument.
Cordially,
Fine. If you think that Darwin's own arguments against his theory are inadequately scientific, then don't accept them as evidence of its weakness.
"So he reasoned that because one species has not been observed "to have been formed for the exclusive good of another species" therefore they are the result of a process that is unguided and without purpose or design."
This thinking is not intended to indicate either the presence or absence of a creator. It only shows that if creation is occurring at the same time for a variety of species, then a natural expectation would be that the puzzle pieces should fit together.
Darwin preferred to envision the adaptations of species as an opportunistic one, where species avail themselves of feeding and breeding occasions based on the variety of climate and other life forms. These opportunities rewarded the observant or lucky ones, and acted to discourage the success of more hapless creatures.
This is a process of "designed change" akin to the search patterns of ants. The ants have no way to know whether their search will be rewarded in any particular direction, so they search randomly. It is only when the ants find a food source that they are rewarded, and the colony goes on to future greatness.
With such driving mechanisms, succeeding generations become better adapted to a particular ecological niche. Frustratingly, I'm sure, these ecological niches, like good jobs, don't last forever. Then the species is thrown back on searching for the next best way to continue and survive.
Survival, in nature's training school, is not a walk in the park. It's a jungle out there!
snip: In careful accommodation to the spirit of this analysis, one could disassemble a candle molecule by molecule, and the wick thread by thread, reassembling the candle in a new place with every component in its proper place. One would be hard pressed to be able to distinguish any difference from one to the other.
Spirited: The very notion that fallible man could unmake a candle and wick and then remake both to their former state is nothing short of magic-thinking. By far the easiest part of this fantasy resides in the unmaking of the wick. Yet even here, the act of untwisting and separating the threads would result in irreparable damage to them. In short, the threads having been permanently altered by the act of unmaking, will never return to their former state.
And yet, that's actually the easy part. Just how would one go about disassembling a flame?
As physical objects go, candles are relatively low-tech. One wonders what level of technology Mr. Mikulecky is envisioning in his comparisons of complex systems versus machines. My point about the candle is that complexity is in the eye of the beholder.
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