Evolution and Recent History: Darwin, Evolution and His Critics-Part 7

By: Dr. John Ankerberg and Dr. John Weldon; ©2002

Many people assume that upon publication of Darwin’s The Origin of Species that its weight of argument was so convincing, belief in his theory was compelled from all quarters. Not so. In fact, most scientists initially rejected it.

How Was Darwin’s Theory of Evolution First Received?

Many people assume that upon publication of Darwin’s The Origin of Species that its weight of argument was so convincing, belief in his theory was compelled from all quarters.

Not so. In fact most scientists initially rejected it. It is true that within 20 years his theory had received general acceptance; but this was not so much due to the weight of argument as the prevailing climate of the times. For example, Cynthia Eagle Russett, a lecturer in American history at Yale University and specialist in American intellectual history, observes that Darwin’s theory was not so much a revolution as a catalyst for a much broader emerg­ing change that had been waiting in the wings:

Darwinism, superficially so sensational, actually focused the inchoate strings of an even more basic shift in thought patterns—away from supernaturalism, ultimate reality, and final causes…. But, in fact, the Origin did not so much initiate as accelerate a long-term trend that can be traced back at least as far as the Renaissance, a trend toward secularism and humanism in the broadest sense. There can be little doubt that the rough direction of this trend had been well established long before Darwin…. The fact is that the times were ripe for a reorientation of intellect, and Darwinism offered itself as symbol and mechanism of such a reorientation.^[1]

But the implications of Darwin’s theory were so vast that the Pelican Classics edition of the Origin of Species observes it “was greeted with violent and malicious criticism.”^[2]

Not only did his Origin (1859) receive constant critical review, but “The scientific world also was almost wholly against the Origin. In later years, T. H. Huxley, speaking of the year 1860, described the situation by saying, ‘The supporters of Mr. Darwin’s views were nu­merically, extremely insignificant. There is not the slightest doubt that if a general council of the church scientific had been held at that time, we should have been condemned by an overwhelming majority.’”^[3]

The reason for such criticisms is well expressed by Michael Denton, M.D., a researcher in molecular biology and author of Evolution: A Theory in Crisis:

The intuitive feeling that pure chance could never have achieved the degree of complexity and ingenuity so ubiquitous in nature has been a continuing source of skepticism ever since the publication of the Origin; and throughout the past century there has always existed a significant minority of first-rate biologists who have never been able to bring themselves to accept the validity of Darwinian claims. In fact, the number of biologists who have expressed some degree of disillusionment is practically endless.”^[4]

This was true from the start. Below we present a sampling of illustrations of the critical response. [The fact that a few of these critics may have held to various evolutionary ideas or may later have joined Darwinian ranks does not discount the validity of their criticisms. Men can accept a theory which they acknowledge is contrary to the facts and which they suspect may not be true for want of, in their minds, a better theory to replace it.]

That the acceptance of Darwinism was by no means universal can be seen from the review of Henry Fawcett (professor of political philosophy at Cambridge) writing in Macmillan’s magazine for December, 1860, Vol. 3, p. 81: “No scientific work that has been published within this century has excited so much curiosity as the treatise of Mr. Darwin. It has for a time divided the scientific world into two great contending sections. A Darwinite and an anti-Darwinite are now the badges of opposed scientific parties. Each side is ably represented.”^[5]

As remains true today, many of the severest criticisms of Darwin’s theory were from scientists. Philosophy professor David L. Hull observes that Darwin had not “anticipated the vehemence with which even the most respected scientists and philosophers in his day would denounce his efforts as not being properly ‘scientific.’” And, “With the publication of the Origin of Species, large segments of the scientific and intellectual community, turned on him.”^[6]

As Hull demonstrates, it was not only the scientists who objected, it was also the leading philosophers of the day:

The leading philosophers, contemporary with Darwin, John Herschel, William Whewell, and John Stuart Mill, were equally adamant in their conviction that the Origin of Species was just one massive conjecture. Darwin had proved nothing! From a philosophical point of view, evolutionary theory was sorely deficient. Even today, both Darwin’s original efforts and more recent formulations are repeatedly found philosophically objectionable. Evolutionary theory seems capable of offending almost everyone.^[7]

Further, the scientific reviewers were not pre-disposed against the idea: “Many of the reviewers were competent scientists honestly trying to evaluate a novel theory against the commonly accepted standards of scientific excellence, and evolutionary theory consistently came up wanting.”^[8]

Adam Sedgwick (one of the founders of the science of geology in England, a colleague of Darwin and Woodwardian professor of geology at Trinity College, Cambridge):

[In a letter to Darwin, December 1859; from Life and Letters (1877), pp. 42-45]—”Parts of it [On the Origin of Species] I admired greatly, parts I laughed at till my sides were almost sore; other parts I read with absolute sorrow, because I think them utterly false and grievously mischievous. You have…started us in machinery as wild, I think, as Bishop Wilkins’ locomotive that was to sail with us to the moon. Many of your wide conclusions are based upon assumptions which can neither be proved nor disproved….^[9]

Sedgwick summarized his view of Darwin’s thesis as follows:

From first to last it is a dish of rank materialism cleverly cooked and served up…. It is like a pyramid poised on its apex. It is a system embracing all living nature, vegetable and animal; yet contradicting—point blank—the vast treasure of facts that the Author of Nature has…revealed to our senses. And why is this done? For no other solid reason, I am sure, except to make us independent of a Creator.^[10]

Richard Owen (M.D.), Superintendent of the Natural History Department of the British Museum and the leading comparative anatomist of his time:^[11]

[From the Edinburgh Review, April 1860] “But do the facts of actual organic nature square with the Darwinian hypothesis?… Unquestionably not.”^[12] Later he refers to the “defective information which contribute, almost at each chapter” which prevent him from believing in Darwin’s hypothesis of natural selection.^[13]

William Hopkins. Hopkins was an important mathematician who took his degree from Cambridge and was influenced in his geological studies by Adam Sedgwick. His analysis is described as “a detailed criticism of evolutionary theory on the basis of the best views then current on the nature of science.”^[14]

Hopkins’ approach was to demand of Darwin’s theory “the same kind of general evi­dence that we demand before we yield our assent to more ordinary physical theories. While we admit the same principles of research, we cannot admit different principles in interpreta­tion, and yield our assent to the naturalist on evidence which we should utterly reject in the physicist…. He who appeals to Caesar must be judged by Caesar’s laws.”^[15]

Hopkins’ review (in which the above statements occur) comes from Fraser’s magazine, June and July, 1860. He further stated: “We venture to assert, without fear of contradiction, that any physical theory of inorganic matter which should rest on no better evidence than the theory we are considering, would be instantly and totally rejected by everyone qualified to form a judgment upon it.”^[16]

In commenting on Darwin’s method for overcoming his many difficulties, Hopkins replies as follows:

It is thus by a vague hypothesis, entirely unsupported by facts, that our author meets a difficulty which appears to us, as it has appeared to many others, to be of the gravest magnitude…. [Darwin’s approach is] to found a theory, not on our knowledge, but on our ignorance. Nor is this the only instance in which he seems to have adopted similar reasoning…. We confess ourselves to have been somewhat astonished at this bold manner of disposing of difficulties…. We had imagined, too, that the facts reasoned upon ought to be real, and not hypothetical…. We confess that the adoption of such conclusions, unsupported by any positive and independent evidence, merely on the demand of an unproved theory, appears to us little consistent with the sobriety and dignity of philosophical investigation.^[17]

The defect of this theory is the wont of all positive proof,…^[18]

In the statement of facts, the author is uniformly impartial. It is difficult to conceive a fairer advocate. But when, in his judicial capacity, he comes to the discussion of facts in their theoretical bearings, we recognize a wont of strict adherence to philosophical and logical modes of thought and reasoning. There is one great and plausible error of this kind which pervades nearly his whole work. He constantly speaks of his theory as explaining certain phenomena, which he represents as inexplicable on any other theory. We altogether demur to this statement.^[19]

Henry Charles Fleeming Jenkin (Professor of Engineering at Glasgow University who worked with Lord Kelvin in laying the Transatlantic Cable). Jenkin’s review, quoted from The North British Review, June 1867, in the words of Darwin “has given me much trouble.”^[20]

The chief arguments used to establish the theory rests on conjecture.^[21]

We are asked to believe all these “maybes” happening on an enormous scale, in order that we may believe the final Darwinian “maybe” as to the origin of species. The general form of his argument is as follows:—all these things may have been, therefore my theory is possible, and since my theory is a possible one, all those hypotheses which it requires are rendered probable. There is little direct evidence that any of these maybes actually have been. Many of these assumed possibilities are actually impossibilities,…^[22]

Jenkin stated of evolution that “its untruth can, as we think, be proved…”^[23] and “any one of the main pleas of our argument, if established, is fatal to Darwin’s theory.”^[24] He con­cluded, “A plausible theory should not be accepted while unproven; and if the arguments of this essay be admitted, Darwin’s theory of the origin of species is not only without sufficient support from evidence, but is proved false by a cumulative proof.”^[25]

Samuel Haughton (Physiologist and Professor of Geology at Dublin University). In the Natural History Review (1860, Vol. 7, pp. 23-32) Haughton wondered:

How does it happen that a theory of the origin of species, which rests upon the same [wholly unfounded] basis, is accepted by multitudes of naturalists, as if it were a new gospel? I believe it is because our naturalists, as a class, are untrained in the use of the logical faculties by which they may be charitably supposed to possess in common with other men. No progress in natural science is possible as long as men will take their rude guesses at truth for facts, and substitute the fancies of their imagination for the sober rules of reasoning.^[26]

(to be continued)

Notes

1. ↑ Cynthia Eagle Russett, Darwin in America: The Intellectual Response 1865-1912 (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman & Co., 1976), pp. 216-27.
2. ↑ Charles Darwin (ed. J. W. Burrow), The Origin of Species (Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1974), p. i.
3. ↑ Robert E. D. Clark, Darwin: Before and After (Chicago, IL: Moody, 1967), p. 63.
4. ↑ Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (Bethesda, MD: Adler & Adler Publishers, Inc., 1986), p. 327.
5. ↑ David L. Hull, Darwin & His Critics: The Reception of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by the Scientific Community (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), p. 277.
6. ↑ Ibid., pp. 3, 6; cf., Robert E. D. Clark, Darwin: Before and After (Chicago: Moody Press, 1967), p. 63.
7. ↑ Hull, Darwin & His Critics, p. 7.
8. ↑ Ibid., p. 14.
9. ↑ Ibid., pp. 157-58.
10. ↑ In Ibid., p. 169, citing John Stuart Mill, The Autobiography of John Stuart Mill (NY: Columbia University Press, 1924), p. 140.
11. ↑ Hull, Darwin & His Critics, p. 213.
12. ↑ Ibid., p. 193.
13. ↑ Ibid., pp. 208-09.
14. ↑ Ibid., p. 273, cf. pp. 230-231.
15. ↑ Ibid., pp. 230-31.
16. ↑ Ibid., p. 275.
17. ↑ Ibid., pp. 263-65.
18. ↑ Ibid., p. 266.
19. ↑ Ibid., p. 267.
20. ↑ See Darwin to J. D. Hooker, January 16, 1869 in More Letters, Vol. 2, p. 379 from ibid., p. 302.
21. ↑ Hull, Darwin & His Critics, p. 338.
22. ↑ Ibid., p. 338.
23. ↑ Ibid., p. 340.
24. ↑ Ibid., p. 343.
25. ↑ Ibid., p. 344.
26. ↑ Ibid., p. 227.

Read Part 8