Editor’s note: Feb. 12 is Charles Darwin’s birthday, and on that date the CVPost began a six-part series on the life of the British naturalist whose theory of evolution transformed scientific views of the natural world. The series is written by Wil Taylor, chair of the biology department at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. As a paleontologist and educator, Taylor has a lifelong passion for the study of evolution. His study has taken him, among other places, to the Galapagos Islands and Darwin’s country estate at Downe, England.
By Wil Taylor
For the CVPost
After 1842, Charles and Emma Darwin lived a private life amidst their growing family at their country home, Downe House in Kent. The period between 1842 and the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859 was filled with ups and downs, and for the Darwins it was no different. Two of their children were buried before they reached the age of 2, and their oldest and most beloved daughter, Annie, succumbed, likely to tuberculosis, in 1851. This loss may well have destroyed whatever faith Charles Darwin had left in the benevolence of a Creator.
Darwin himself still suffered from recurrent health problems after 1837. That is not to say that he wasn’t a productive scientist. He bred pigeons and plants, explained and wrote a book on the origin of tropical islands, conducted experiments on the ability of seeds to survive in seawater, all while maintaining his prodigious correspondence with experts around the world.
But what was possibly the most significant offering he would provide to the world, his proposed mechanism of species change – the “how” of evolution – was sitting in the form of a 230-page “essay” in the closet of his home. He told his wife that this manuscript alone was to be published should he die unexpectedly.
What was this radical mechanism and why did Darwin not want it published?
Back in 1838, while he was toying with the idea that species changed (what was then called “transmutationism”), he chanced to read a topical writing of the day on, of all things, political science. A man named Thomas Robert Malthus wrote a work entitled An Essay on the Principle of Population, which pointed out that human populations grow at a much faster rate than food supplies. Malthus was arguing against proposed programs of the day to provide food to the poor (saying, essentially, that they would simply produce too many more poor people).
Darwin, being a liberal of his day, rejected Malthus’ public policy argument, but recognized that this is what happens in all populations – human and non-human – throughout nature. This led him to propose that, with too many offspring in every population, what determines the makeup of the next generation is that those best suited to the local environment leave more offspring.
Furthermore, Darwin said, the survivors that have the best traits pass those traits along to their offspring, and so on. As a result, organisms get better and better suited to the local environment and even come to look as though they were “designed” to fit that environment.
For this mechanism, Darwin eventually would coin the term “natural selection.”
The “radical” aspect of this theory, and quite possibly the reason Darwin didn’t publish it for many years, is that it did not require a creator. At that time, most European people felt comfortable with the Doctrine of Special Creation, which called form the active involvement of God. And any mechanism that sought to remove that divine involvement was seen as a gateway to atheism.
Darwin feared that he would be labeled a “philosophical materialist,” thus all his research would be considered suspect and his career would be adversely affected. He had witnessed first hand at scientific meetings instances in which public presentations suggesting that a Creator was not necessary had been stricken from the meetings’ minutes so there would be no formal record of them ever having occurred.
So why did Darwin publish when he did?
On June 18, 1858, Darwin received a letter from a naturalist he knew, Alfred Russel Wallace, who at the time was working in Borneo. In his letter, Wallace briefly outlined a proposed mechanism for species change that was essentially identical to Darwin’s.
Distraught by the possibility that he might have been scooped, but mostly concerned that it would be dishonorable to claim he had thought of the idea first (even though he had), Darwin sought the advice of his scientific friends.
It was decided that a joint paper be read. So on July 1, 1858, a paper by Darwin and Wallace entitled “On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection” was read at the Linnean Society in London.
Little attention was given to the presentation. But in the ensuing 13 months, Darwin expanded his 230-page “essay” into a 470-page “abstract” of his ideas.
“On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life” – a.k.a. The Origin – first became available in booksellers on Nov. 22, 1859, but all 1,250 copies already had been claimed. The book proved popular, even among liberal clergy.
Darwin intentionally avoided mentioning humans as part of the family tree he was proposing. But others drew this line of connection, and this caused some public opposition.
The overall structure of Darwin’s argument and the extraordinarily complete collection of evidence he presented in its support were quite convincing. No one had ever assembled such evidence between the covers of a book.
Within a few short years, The Origin played the central role in convincing virtually the entire scientific community of the fact of evolution. Species were related by common ancestry. But the theory of evolution – that is the mechanism of natural selection – was not so well received. It would be several decades before that idea would win the day.
What was it about The Origin that was so convincing?
Many claim it is a wonderfully written volume. While its significance cannot be disputed, I must confess that I read most of it while immobilized on the floor with a back injury.
My general perspective at that time? I’m flat on my back, miserable; I might as well suffer through some Victorian prose.
The Origin consists of 14 chapters, most of which at times seem to consist of no more than 28 sentences; Victorian-era writers were quite fond of extremely long sentences, and their favo(u)rite punctuation mark was the semicolon.
So, dear readers, I will save you the trouble of having to go through this yourselves and describe the contents of this influential book.
Next week.
Next Week: Part V – The Origin of Species and Darwin’s later years (1859-1882)