Darwin

I read large chunks of Darwin's writings and many other smaller chunks of works about Darwin, all from the Norton Darwin: Texts and Commentary. Let's try to get the useful stuff:

First, a little bio: After his voyage on the Beagle, inspired by the idea of Malthusian struggle, Darwin came up with the idea that natural selection was responsible for the origin of the species. But he feared to publish this work, and spent 20 years developing his theory until a friend of a friend, Wallace, discovered natural selection himself. Darwin feared he had been pre-empted but Lyell, the mutual friend, arranged for them to publish simultaneously and give a talk together, and Darwin's pre-eminence immediately shone through.

Effects: There were evolutionists prior to Darwin, especially Lamarck, but those theories did not hold up to scientific examination. Quite startlingly (given our own feelings on the subject) the Darwinian revolution occurred very rapidly, first because naturalists, especially younger naturalists, rapidly accepted Darwin's research. More startlingly, the Victorian populace, which was fascinated by science, also accepted Darwin's research. The society's general interest in science allowed for Darwin's rapid success.

Before Darwin, humanity could see the hand of God in both man and nature. Darwin's biggest effect was to eliminate this certainty; no longer were things they way they were because God ordained them, but rather came about through struggles to the death. This reoriented everything, and eliminated teleology (something Lamarck tried to preserve). But Darwin, despite his atheism and materialism, did not give up on meaning in the universe. Origin of Species ends: "Thus from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved" (174).

By using language such as "grandeur," "exalted," "most beautiful and most wonderful," as contrasted to "famine and death," Darwin is clearly making evolution a hopeful progress. Famine and death may be the mechanisms of evolution, but its end result thus far has been humanity, which he wishes to exalt rather than debase.

Descent of Man: I found the Descent of man to be incredibly boring, far less readable than Origin. There are a few passages I wish to note. First, as seems quite obvious, this leading evolutionist seems to offhandedly support voluntary eugenics: "Both sexes ought to refrain from marriage if they are in any makred degree inferior in body or mind; but such hopes are Utopian and will never even be partially realised unil the laws of inheritance are thoroughly known. Everyone does good service, who aids toward this end" (253). Although he acknowledges this idea as Utopian, he seems to think that it will also become commonly accepted, once a theory of genetics is advanced.

Also: "Animals endowed with the social instincts take pleasure in one another's company, warn one another of danger, defend and aid one another in many ways. These instincts do not extend to all the individuals of the species, but only to those of the same community. As they are highly beneficial to the species, they have in all probability been acquired through natural selection" (247). This strikes me as a rebuke to the naturalists; the naturalists seem to see all return to instincts as negative; whenever impulses or drives are given free range, cruelty towards man results. But as Darwin has made quite clear, or impulses are also towards love and helping one another. Naturalism has emphasized the flip side of this to a poor degree.

Spencer: According to Richard Hofstadter, writing in 1955, Spencer combined Darwin with thermodynamics - his theory was predicated not just on "survival of the fittest" but also "the persistence of force" (aka conservation of energy). This led Spencer to take solace in an equilibirum, which ultimately led to his popularity among the rich: degeneration would always follow evolution, no ultimate progress would be gained, and thus there's no reason to try to legislate change. Evolution is a zero-sum game; humanity as a whole cannot be elevated (this union of Darwin and thermodynamics seems to me to completely misunderstand Darwin). Hofstadter also notes that Spence was popular in American b/c of his doctrine of "the Unknowable" - it was impossible to know anything in the realms of religion. This meant that religion could not be proved, but also not disproved, and thus, once religion and science were separated, the free practice of religion was not in the slightest bit conflicting with evolution (391).

Dewey on Darwin: Pragmatism is essentially evolution in the realm of ideas, so it's no surprise that Dewey appreciated Darwin. As always, Dewey wants to beat down an older, Platonic notion of change: prior to Darwin, change and origin were "signs of defect and unreality" and what change that did occur within a species (eidos) was merely the movement towards the final telos of that species - a "fixed form and final cause" reached by change (483, 485). Darwin did away with this Aristotelian notion (he wasn't the first to do so, but the most successful) and thus philosophy was permanently altered - the old problems of philosophy are done away with, and new ones appear. No longer are final problems and certain answers interesting, but rather, philosophy should turn itself to the questions of change, to truths that can be shown to "be generated by concretely knowable conditions" even if we don't know there "inclusive first cause and some exclusive final goal" (488). To think otherwise is "intellectual atavism."