Darwin at Two Hundred

With the gut-wrenching Israeli invasion of Gaza and all the speculation about the Obama administration and its strategies, I grew somewhat weary and sought distraction through simple pleasures. I quite understandably turned to thoughts of food, not so much of its consumption, rather its preparation; for it is in creation that I find lasting satisfactions. Further distractions from the current political situation were forthcoming through the bicentennial birthday of Charles Henry Darwin and recalling the affects of a college course on evolution, one devoted not surprisingly to Darwin, his life and his works.


Certainly a giant in science, among Galileo Galilei(1564-1642), and Albert Einstein(1879-1955), Charles Darwin(1809-1882), alone, for this writer, humanized science with his modesty and sensitivities. His steadfast resolve and humble persona transcend the sterility of ideological and methodological strictures. He was both a scientist and a humanist. This was made poignantly manifest with how he dealt with the matter of organized religion.

In Darwin's time, the struggle for dominance between the Christian realm and the scientific establishment had been in progress for three centuries. Galileo's predicament is well documented. Darwin's natural selection hypothesis would deal a mortal blow to Christian orthodoxy. Yet, today, with his theory as established fact, especially after the 1953 discovery of the DNA double helix molecule, the carrier of genetic information, ecclesiastic challenge continues today with "intelligent design".

Ironically, the debate between the Christian church and science had presence between Charles Darwin and his maternal first cousin, Emma Wedgewood, a devout Christian. She feared, and it was expressed before her marriage vows, their differences over the origin of species would most likely separate them in the hereafter. Darwin's protracted research and its delayed publication were due to his concerns for Emma's religious beliefs, but also to the storm of reaction that would surely arise from organized religion.


The two career choices of his father's preference for Charles were medicine and failing that the clergy. After attempting both his innate inclinations came to fulfillment. The upper echelons ancestry of Charles Darwin was extraordinary: grandson of both Erasmus Darwin on his father's side and Josiah Wedgwood on his mother's side. His father, Robert Darwin, was a wealthy society physician and financier--a "freethinker" of his era. Charles' status as a gentleman and holding a divinity degree from Christ's College Cambridge provided him easy passage on the HMS Beagle, although he had to pay his way. He came with impressive recommendations, even as a novice naturalist. He was taken aboard by Capt. Robert Fitzroy more as a suitable companion for a navigator in a rather lonely position on very long voyage.


Capt. Fitzroy, a Tory and an aristocrat, was the fourth grandson of Charles II. Both Fitzroy and Darwin helped make each other famous! For once, the idle rich accomplished something of note. As I recall from my college studies, an established naturalist was considered for the HMS Beagle voyage, but failed to meet Fitzroy's measure, to put it politely. Young Darwin, a Whig, was quite a sociable chap. However, on one occasion, and an important one for Darwin's continued presence aboard the HMS Beagle, their political differences were at issue.

Darwin's powers of observation were self-evident, but helped along by Cambridge University botany professor(and mentor to Charles)John Stevens Henslow(1796-1861). Darwin also studied geology under Adam Sedgwick. What the young Darwin lacked in experience and expertise, he possessed as potential. He had an inborn ability to synthesize the myriad elements of which he observed into a simple hypothesis that changed forever the understanding of species evolution.

The conventional wisdom prior to Darwin was that evolution protected and maintained a standard or mainstream species. He turned that notion upside down by showing that evolution actually changed a species for the good of that species through the mechanism of natural selection.

Meandering somewhat, I have long puzzled over the seemingly opportune or epithanic Borneo fever that led Alfred Russel Wallace(1823-1913)to a revelation of natural selection. He knew Darwin and, I assume, about the direction of his research. Certainly, various notions about evolution were kicking around at the time and for a long time previously. One was Palley's Natural Theology or Divine Creation in nature that happened to satisfy the needs of religious-minded naturalists. Sooner or later someone would "independently" stumble on natural selection--while in a drunken state, while suffering through a tropical fever or other pressing discomfort. But, whom am I to presume?

Nevertheless, it was Wallace's 1858 letter to Darwin describing his revelation that pushed Darwin to publish in 1859, a very readable abstract of his research and findings. For twenty years he had been compiling a magnum opus to prove his case--that when published would not have found a ready readership; in fact, the work would have probably sat in the publisher's warehouse gathering dust.


Another curiosity is Gregor Mendel's research on inherited characteristics conducted between 1856 and 1863, published in 1865, but which received little notice. It could have served Darwin as a missing link, had he only known. One could say that Darwinian theory was made whole by modern genetics


Thomas Robert Malthus(1766-1834)through his Essay on the Principle of Population(1798), had a considerable effect, as Darwin notes in his autobiography(1876). I find it amusing that from the rather flawed notions in that essay, Darwin was able to fashion the basis for a universal truism. As questionable as his principle might be, I hear today a Malthusian whisper in the current natural resource wars and those surely forthcoming as consequences of oil depletion.

As the phenomenon of plate tectonics unfolded during the 1960s, I naturally thought how such revelations would have affected Charles Lyell, Charles Darwin and other theorists of their era? Darwin read Lyell's Principles of Geology--his doctrine of Uniformitarianism, that the present is the key to the past. How would have Darwin better understood Chilean earthquakes and even the mighty Andes, if he had known about plate tectonics, in particular, subduction of an oceanic plate?

Capt. Fitzroy set sail from Galapagos Islands to Tahiti, bypassing the Hawaiian Islands by no insignificant distance. What would a visit there have meant to Darwin's speculations ? I think of both biological species and geological phenomenon. With the Galapagos findings fresh in mind, Hawaii would have made matters immediately apparent.

In this vein, Alfred Wegener(1880-1930)and his "Continental Drift" offerings would have been appreciated by Lyell and Darwin. Of course, continents do not drift; but crustal plates do. Wegener was close to describing an obvious visual reality; however, he did not recognize the mechanism. Sadly, Wegener froze to death on Greenland, a lonely and much maligned theorist.

To expand review, Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln share the same birthday(their only noteworthy similarity perhaps). Darwin, the gentleman, put forth a monumentally positive notion that shed light on the natural order and human presence within it. Lincoln, the mythical frontiersman, brought the shadow of suffering and disorder upon the United States through bellicose action. The South's succession should have been allowed to run its obviously ill-fated course. It was the Civil War that permanently divided the country and put the US on a military Juggernaut track.

In the US, from my casual observations, it seems that Darwin has received as much attention as Lincoln on the occasion of their birthdays; but, I do not follow mainstream media. Democracy Now and the British Broadcasting Corporation(BBC)are my usual sources of news. The BBC speaks of numerous events in England eulogizing Darwin in what appears to be a festive observance. A one-pound Sterling Bicentennial Darwin coin has been minted! I would be surprised if, in England, Lincoln's name came up at all? I can't say I've heard it much at all here in the US.

Social Darwinism has always been a confusing topic for many casual observers of evolutionary politics. It is a dogma born of a particular class and its disposition toward people who do not share a narrow parameter. The most persistent counterattack against Darwin in this context was initiated by Herbert Spencer(1820-1903), his "Survival of the fittest" slogan(1864), what later became the battle cry of the reactionary right. Interestingly, the Social Darwinists took a fancy to Malthus--his notion of the starvation of the weakest as populations outgrew food supply and that charity could exacerbate social problems. What underpins Social Darwinism is a profound disdain for science and fact. It is used to rationalize or justify cut-throat economics and the accumulation(hoarding?)of capital. In the current economic debacle, the opposition to entitlements and welfare state policies will be made through the Social Darwinist's mind-set.

Lastly, the centennial of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People(NAACP)is officially February 12 of this year. Although the formation of the NAACP was scheduled for Lincoln's birth centennial, it actually took place three months later. The intent of connecting a particular date with all its symbolism to NAACP beginnings is what really matters. This history note is added to bring certain things full-circle.