Darwinism

Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce. Also called Darwinian theory, it originally included the broad concepts of transmutation of species or of evolution which gained general scientific acceptance after Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, including concepts which predated Darwin's theories. English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the term Darwinism in April 1860.[1]

This article is about concepts called Darwinism. For biological evolution in general, see evolution. For modern evolutionary theories, see Modern synthesis. For Wallace's defence of the theory of natural selection, see Darwinism (book).
See also: Social Darwinism

Charles Darwin in 1868

Terminological confusion

Darwinism subsequently referred to the specific concepts of natural selection, the Weismann barrier, or the central dogma of molecular biology.[2] Though the term usually refers strictly to biological evolution, creationists have appropriated it to refer to the origin of life.[3] It is therefore considered the belief and acceptance of Darwin's and of his predecessors' work, in place of other concepts, including divine design and extraterrestrial origins.[4][5]

English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the term Darwinism in April 1860.[1] It was used to describe evolutionary concepts in general, including earlier concepts published by English philosopher Herbert Spencer. Many of the proponents of Darwinism at that time, including Huxley, had reservations about the significance of natural selection, and Darwin himself gave credence to what was later called Lamarckism. The strict neo-Darwinism of German evolutionary biologist August Weismann gained few supporters in the late 19th century. During the approximate period of the 1880s to about 1920, sometimes called "the eclipse of Darwinism", scientists proposed various alternative evolutionary mechanisms which eventually proved untenable. The development of the modern synthesis in the early 20th century, incorporating natural selection with population genetics and Mendelian genetics, revived Darwinism in an updated form.[6]

While the term Darwinism has remained in use amongst the public when referring to modern evolutionary theory, it has increasingly been argued by science writers such as Olivia Judson and Eugenie Scott that it is an inappropriate term for modern evolutionary theory.[7][8] For example, Darwin was unfamiliar with the work of the Moravian scientist and Augustinian friar Gregor Mendel,[9] and as a result had only a vague and inaccurate understanding of heredity. He naturally had no inkling of later theoretical developments and, like Mendel himself, knew nothing of genetic drift, for example.[10][11]

In the United States, creationists often use the term "Darwinism" as a pejorative term in reference to beliefs such as scientific materialism, but in the United Kingdom the term has no negative connotations, being freely used as a shorthand for the body of theory dealing with evolution, and in particular, with evolution by natural selection.[7]

Huxley and Kropotkin
As evolution became widely accepted in the 1870s, caricatures of Charles Darwin with the body of an ape or monkey symbolised evolution.[12]

While the term Darwinism had been used previously to refer to the work of Erasmus Darwin in the late 18th century, the term as understood today was introduced when Charles Darwin's 1859 book On the Origin of Species was reviewed by Thomas Henry Huxley in the April 1860 issue of the Westminster Review.[13] Having hailed the book as "a veritable Whitworth gun in the armoury of liberalism" promoting scientific naturalism over theology, and praising the usefulness of Darwin's ideas while expressing professional reservations about Darwin's gradualism and doubting if it could be proved that natural selection could form new species,[14] Huxley compared Darwin's achievement to that of Nicolaus Copernicus in explaining planetary motion:

What if the orbit of Darwinism should be a little too circular? What if species should offer residual phenomena, here and there, not explicable by natural selection? Twenty years hence naturalists may be in a position to say whether this is, or is not, the case; but in either event they will owe the author of "The Origin of Species" an immense debt of gratitude.... And viewed as a whole, we do not believe that, since the publication of Von Baer's "Researches on Development," thirty years ago, any work has appeared calculated to exert so large an influence, not only on the future of Biology, but in extending the domination of Science over regions of thought into which she has, as yet, hardly penetrated.[1]

These are the basic tenets of evolution by natural selection as defined by Darwin:

  1. More individuals are produced each generation than can survive.
  2. Phenotypic variation exists among individuals and the variation is heritable.
  3. Those individuals with heritable traits better suited to the environment will survive.
  4. When reproductive isolation occurs new species will form.

Another important evolutionary theorist of the same period was the Russian geographer and prominent anarchist Peter Kropotkin who, in his book Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902), advocated a conception of Darwinism counter to that of Huxley. His conception was centred around what he saw as the widespread use of co-operation as a survival mechanism in human societies and animals. He used biological and sociological arguments in an attempt to show that the main factor in facilitating evolution is cooperation between individuals in free-associated societies and groups. This was in order to counteract the conception of fierce competition as the core of evolution, which provided a rationalization for the dominant political, economic and social theories of the time; and the prevalent interpretations of Darwinism, such as those by Huxley, who is targeted as an opponent by Kropotkin. Kropotkin's conception of Darwinism could be summed up by the following quote:

In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of species live in societies, and that they find in association the best arms for the struggle for life: understood, of course, in its wide Darwinian sense—not as a struggle for the sheer means of existence, but as a struggle against all natural conditions unfavourable to the species. The animal species, in which individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits, and the practice of mutual aid has attained the greatest development, are invariably the most numerous, the most prosperous, and the most open to further progress. The mutual protection which is obtained in this case, the possibility of attaining old age and of accumulating experience, the higher intellectual development, and the further growth of sociable habits, secure the maintenance of the species, its extension, and its further progressive evolution. The unsociable species, on the contrary, are doomed to decay.[15]

— Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902), Conclusion

Other 19th-century usage

"Darwinism" soon came to stand for an entire range of evolutionary (and often revolutionary) philosophies about both biology and society. One of the more prominent approaches, summed in the 1864 phrase "survival of the fittest" by Herbert Spencer, later became emblematic of Darwinism even though Spencer's own understanding of evolution (as expressed in 1857) was more similar to that of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck than to that of Darwin, and predated the publication of Darwin's theory in 1859. What is now called "Social Darwinism" was, in its day, synonymous with "Darwinism"—the application of Darwinian principles of "struggle" to society, usually in support of anti-philanthropic political agenda. Another interpretation, one notably favoured by Darwin's half-cousin Francis Galton, was that "Darwinism" implied that because natural selection was apparently no longer working on "civilized" people, it was possible for "inferior" strains of people (who would normally be filtered out of the gene pool) to overwhelm the "superior" strains, and voluntary corrective measures would be desirable—the foundation of eugenics.

In Darwin's day there was no rigid definition of the term "Darwinism", and it was used by opponents and proponents of Darwin's biological theory alike to mean whatever they wanted it to in a larger context. The ideas had international influence, and Ernst Haeckel developed what was known as Darwinismus in Germany, although, like Spencer's "evolution", Haeckel's "Darwinism" had only a rough resemblance to the theory of Charles Darwin, and was not centered on natural selection.[16] In 1886, Alfred Russel Wallace went on a lecture tour across the United States, starting in New York and going via Boston, Washington, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska to California, lecturing on what he called "Darwinism" without any problems.[17]

In his book Darwinism (1889), Wallace had used the term pure-Darwinism which proposed a "greater efficacy" for natural selection.[18][19] George Romanes dubbed this view as "Wallaceism", noting that in contrast to Darwin, this position was advocating a "pure theory of natural selection to the exclusion of any supplementary theory."[20][21] Taking influence from Darwin, Romanes was a proponent of both natural selection and the inheritance of acquired characteristics. The latter was denied by Wallace who was a strict selectionist.[22] Romanes' definition of Darwinism conformed directly with Darwin's views and was contrasted with Wallace's definition of the term.[23]

Millennial usage

The term Darwinism is often used in the United States by promoters of creationism, notably by leading members of the intelligent design movement, as an epithet to attack evolution as though it were an ideology (an "ism") of philosophical naturalism, or atheism.[24] For example, in 1993, UC Berkeley law professor and author Phillip E. Johnson made this accusation of atheism with reference to Charles Hodge's 1874 book What Is Darwinism?.[25] However, unlike Johnson, Hodge confined the term to exclude those like American botanist Asa Gray who combined Christian faith with support for Darwin's natural selection theory, before answering the question posed in the book's title by concluding: "It is Atheism."[26][27] Darwinism is an attempt to explain "design without a designer", according to evolutionary biologist Francisco J. Ayala.[28]

Creationists use pejoratively the term Darwinism to imply that the theory has been held as true only by Darwin and a core group of his followers, whom they cast as dogmatic and inflexible in their belief.[29] In the 2008 documentary film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, which promotes intelligent design (ID), American writer and actor Ben Stein refers to scientists as Darwinists. Reviewing the film for Scientific American, John Rennie says "The term is a curious throwback, because in modern biology almost no one relies solely on Darwin's original ideas... Yet the choice of terminology isn't random: Ben Stein wants you to stop thinking of evolution as an actual science supported by verifiable facts and logical arguments and to start thinking of it as a dogmatic, atheistic ideology akin to Marxism." [30]

However, Darwinism is also used neutrally within the scientific community to distinguish the modern evolutionary synthesis, which is sometimes called "neo-Darwinism", from those first proposed by Darwin. Darwinism also is used neutrally by historians to differentiate his theory from other evolutionary theories current around the same period. For example, Darwinism may refer to Darwin's proposed mechanism of natural selection, in comparison to more recent mechanisms such as genetic drift and gene flow. It may also refer specifically to the role of Charles Darwin as opposed to others in the history of evolutionary thought—particularly contrasting Darwin's results with those of earlier theories such as Lamarckism or later ones such as the modern evolutionary synthesis.

In political discussions in the United States, the term is mostly used by its enemies.[31] "It's a rhetorical device to make evolution seem like a kind of faith, like 'Maoism,'" says Harvard University biologist E. O. Wilson. He adds, "Scientists don't call it 'Darwinism'."[32]

In the United Kingdom the term often retains its positive sense as a reference to natural selection, and for example British atheist Richard Dawkins wrote in his collection of essays A Devil's Chaplain, published in 2003, that as a scientist he is a Darwinist.[33]

In his 1995 book Darwinian Fairytales, Australian philosopher David Stove[34] used the term "Darwinism" in a different sense than the above examples. Describing himself as non-religious and as accepting the concept of natural selection as a well-established fact, Stove nonetheless attacked what he described as flawed concepts proposed by some "Ultra-Darwinists." Stove alleged that by using weak or false ad hoc reasoning, these Ultra-Darwinists used evolutionary concepts to offer explanations that were not valid: for example, Stove suggested that the sociobiological explanation of altruism as an evolutionary feature was presented in such a way that the argument was effectively immune to any criticism. English philosopher Simon Blackburn wrote a rejoinder to Stove,[35] though a subsequent essay by Stove's protegé James Franklin[36] suggested that Blackburn's response actually "confirms Stove's central thesis that Darwinism can 'explain' anything."

Esoteric usage

In evolutionary aesthetics theory, there is evidence that perceptions of beauty are determined by natural selection and therefore Darwinian; that things, aspects of people and landscapes considered beautiful are typically found in situations likely to give enhanced survival of the perceiving human's genes.[37][38]

Difficulties of the theory

Darwin confesses that "a crowd of difficulties" will have occurred to his reader by this point and that some are "so serious that to this day I can hardly reflect on them without being in some degree staggered".[39]

Long before the reader has arrived at this part of my work, a crowd of difficulties will have occurred to him. Some of them are so serious that to this day I can hardly reflect on them without being in some degree staggered; but, to the best of my judgment, the number are only apparent, and those that are real are greater not, I think, fatal to the theory.

These difficulties and objections may be classed under the following heads:—First, why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion, instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?

Secondly, is it possible that an animal having, for instance, the structure and habits of a bat, could have been formed by the modification of some other animal with widely-different habits and structure? Can we believe that natural selection could produce, on the one hand, an organ of trifling importance, such as the tail of a giraffe, which serves as a fly-flapper, and, on the other hand, an organ so wonderful as the eye?

Thirdly, can instincts be acquired and modified through natural selection? What shall we say to the instinct which leads the bee to make cells, and which has practically anticipated the discoveries of profound mathematicians? [40]

gollark: I mean, maybe it could interact with some sensitive components, but I doubt it.
gollark: ... probably not?
gollark: You could *get* good at rock climbing, if you did lots of rock climbing. Or non-rock climbing.]
gollark: Like I said, the transistor and diode cults are allied now.
gollark: Except the Cult of Transistor. Though we're considering allying with the diode people.

See also

 Evolutionary biology portal

Notes
  1. Huxley, T.H. (April 1860). "ART. VIII.—Darwin on the Origin of Species". Westminster Review (Book review). London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy. 17: 541–570. Retrieved 19 June 2008. What if the orbit of Darwinism should be a little too circular?
  2. Wilkins, John (21 December 1998). "So You Want to be an Anti-Darwinian: Varieties of Opposition to Darwinism". TalkOrigins Archive. Houston, TX: The TalkOrigins Foundation, Inc. Retrieved 19 June 2008.
  3. Bleckmann, Charles A. (1 February 2006). "Evolution and Creationism in Science: 1880–2000". BioScience. 56 (2): 151–158. doi:10.1641/0006-3568(2006)056[0151:EACIS]2.0.CO;2. ISSN 0006-3568.
  4. "…on what evolution explains". Expelled Exposed. Oakland, CA: National Center for Science Education. Archived from the original on 25 October 2015. Retrieved 15 November 2015.
  5. Le Fèvre, Olivier; Marinoni, Christian (6 December 2006). "Do Galaxies Follow Darwinian Evolution?" (Press release). Marseille, France: European Southern Observatory. eso0645. Retrieved 15 November 2015.
  6. Bowler 2003, pp. 179, 222–225, 338–339, 347
  7. Scott, Eugenie C.; Branch, Glenn (16 January 2009). "Don't Call it 'Darwinism'". Evolution: Education and Outreach. New York: Springer Science+Business Media. 2 (1): 90–94. doi:10.1007/s12052-008-0111-2. ISSN 1936-6426.
  8. Judson, Olivia (15 July 2008). "Let's Get Rid of Darwinism". The New York Times. New York: The New York Times Company. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 16 November 2015.
  9. Sclater, Andrew (June 2006). "The extent of Charles Darwin's knowledge of Mendel". Journal of Biosciences. Bangalore, India: Indian Academy of Sciences / Springer India. 31 (2): 191–193. doi:10.1007/BF02703910. ISSN 0250-5991. PMID 16809850.
  10. Moran, Laurence (22 January 1993). "Random Genetic Drift". TalkOrigins Archive. Houston, TX: The TalkOrigins Foundation, Inc. Retrieved 27 June 2008.
  11. Hanes, Joel. "What is Darwinism?". TalkOrigins Archive. Houston, TX: The TalkOrigins Foundation, Inc. Retrieved 19 June 2008.
  12. Browne 2002, pp. 376–379
  13. Blinderman, Charles; Joyce, David. "Darwin's Bulldog". The Huxley File. Worcester, MA: Clark University. Retrieved 29 June 2008.
  14. Browne 2002, pp. 105–106
  15. Kropotkin 1902, p. 293
  16. Schmitt S. (2009). Haeckel: A German Darwinian? Comptes Rendus Biologies: 332: 110-118.
  17. Tippett, Krista (host); Moore, James (5 February 2009). "Evolution and Wonder: Understanding Charles Darwin". Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett (Transcript). NPR. Retrieved 16 November 2015.
  18. Wallace, Alfred Russel. (1889). Darwinism: An Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection, with Some of Its Applications. Macmillan and Company.
  19. Heilbron, John L. (2003). The Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science. OUP USA. p. 203. ISBN 978-0195112290
  20. Romanes, John George. (1906). "Darwin and After Darwin: An Exposition of the Darwinian Theory and a Discussion of Post-Darwinian Questions". Volume 2: Heredity and Utility. The Open Court Publishing Company. p. 12
  21. Costa, James T. (2014). Wallace, Darwin, and the Origin of Species. Harvard University Press. p. 274. ISBN 978-0674729698
  22. Bolles, R. C; Beecher, M. D. (1987). Evolution and Learning. Psychology Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-0898595420
  23. Elsdon-Baker, F. (2008). Spirited dispute: the secret split between Wallace and Romanes. Endeavour 32(2): 75-78
  24. Scott 2007, "Creation Science Lite: 'Intelligent Design' as the New Anti-Evolutionism," p. 72
  25. Johnson, Phillip E. (31 August 1996). "What is Darwinism?". Access Research Network. Colorado Springs, CO. Retrieved 4 January 2007. "This paper was originally delivered as a lecture at a symposium at Hillsdale College, in November 1992. Papers from the Symposium were published in the collection Man and Creation: Perspectives on Science and Theology (Bauman ed. 1993), by Hillsdale College Press, Hillsdale MI 49242."
  26. Ropp, Matthew. "Charles Hodge and His Objection to Darwinism: The Exclusion of Intelligent Design". theRopps.com. Chesterbrook, PA. Retrieved 4 January 2007. Paper for CH506: American Church History, Dr. Nathan Feldmeth, Winter Quarter 1997, "written while a student in the School of World Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California."
  27. Hodge 1874
  28. Gelernter, David (1 May 2019). "Giving Up Darwin". The Claremont Review of Books.
  29. Sullivan, Morris (Spring 2005). "From the Beagle to the School Board: God Goes Back to School". Impact Press. Orlando, FL: Loudmouth Productions (56). Retrieved 18 September 2008.
  30. Rennie, John (9 April 2008). "Ben Stein's Expelled: No Integrity Displayed". Scientific American. Stuttgart: Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. ISSN 0036-8733. Retrieved 16 November 2015.
  31. "Constitutional Rights Foundation". www.crf-usa.org. Retrieved 25 May 2020.
  32. Adler, Jerry (28 November 2005). "Charles Darwin: Evolution of a Scientist". Newsweek. 146 (22). New York: Newsweek LLC. pp. 50–58. ISSN 0028-9604. Retrieved 16 November 2015.
  33. Sheahen, Laura. "Religion: For Dummies". Beliefnet. Norfolk, VA: BN Media, LLC. Retrieved 16 November 2015.
  34. Stove 1995
  35. Blackburn, Simon (October 1996). "I Rather Think I Am a Darwinian". Philosophy. Cambridge. 71 (278): 605–616. doi:10.1017/s0031819100053523. ISSN 0031-8191. JSTOR 3751128.
  36. Franklin, James (January 1997). "Stove's Anti-Darwinism" (PDF). Philosophy. Cambridge. 72 (279): 133–136. doi:10.1017/s0031819100056692. ISSN 0031-8191. JSTOR 3751309.
  37. The Oxford Handbook for Aesthetics
  38. "A Darwinian theory of beauty". ted.com. Archived from the original on February 11, 2014. Retrieved May 1, 2018.
  39. Staff, Guardian (9 February 2008). "On the Origin of Species: Chapter VI, Difficulties on theory". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  40. Darwin, Charles (1876). "Difficulties of the theory". The Origin of Species: By Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Retrieved 15 August 2020.

References

Further reading

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