A couple of weeks ago,
I fished reading Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.
I'm taking an interesting class right now, JHE353: The History of
Evolution. In contrast to all of my other classes, this class is not
considered a science course, though it undoubtedly deals with
scientific theories. By the same token, it deals with very many
unscientific theories as well. The course examines popular notions
about evolution from ancient times up until the 1950s. The evaluation
is divided between two tests and a 2000-word essay, as well as
nominal participation marks for showing up to the tutorials.
Having long wanted to
read
On the Origin of Species
in its entirety, I took the essay portion of the course as an
opportunity to read the fantastic and controversial work. It led to
an essay that has brought me a much deeper understanding of Darwin,
and of both the brilliance and erroneousness of different aspects of
his theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. Reading his book and writing my
essay also allowed me to finally finish
an artwork I had left on the back burner for too long of a time.
Without
any further ado, I present to you my essay. Please ignore the hyperlinked endnotes.
---------------------------------------
Ionatan Waisgluss
November 30, 2011
JHE353
False accusations:
Reactions to Darwin’s On
the Origin of Species
Throughout
the history of evolutionary thought, man’s perceived relationship
with nature has undergone significant changes, each geared towards
the mentality of its respective era. Intuitively, these relationships
can be split into those which are descriptive and those which are
prescriptive. The distinction is based on whether they employ the
naturalistic fallacy, viz whether they make the assumption that
nature provides a model for human affairs. Prescriptive relationships
with nature can be found all throughout history, but experience an
especially strong resurgence after the publication of Charles
Darwin’s The Origin of Species and towards the turn of the
20th century. Around this time, eugenic references to the
natural ways, laws, or order can be found in countless publications
of popular culture, such as magazines, letters, or pamphlets. Without
a doubt, the age after Darwin’s publication represents a turning
point in man’s relationship with nature. There is ample
documentation of Victorian and post-Victorian reactions to Darwin’s
work, particularly in the form of sensationalist caricatures. A
concerningly large number of these responses react to Darwin’s work
as if it held a prescriptive model of nature (i.e. employed the
naturalistic fallacy). In this essay, I will prove that Darwin’s
work was by no means prescriptive. The following paragraphs will show
that Darwin did not believe, state, or otherwise imply that man
should follow the example of nature, since he did not support the
ideas that might makes right, that man should take evolution
into his own hands, that man is reducible to an animal, or that man
and nature are entirely one and the same. For this purpose, published
works, including various collections of cartoons and articles, have
been retrieved and included with the essay when appropriate. Proof of
the descriptive nature of The Origin of Species have been
derived from Darwin’s work
and journals,
as well as various secondary sources.
A
common doctrine attributed to Darwin is that of might makes right,
where morality is decided by power (for instance, strength and
influence). A very immediate attribution of this doctrine to Darwin
can be found shortly after the publication of his famous work. In
1896, an extremist book by the name of Might is Right: The
Survival of the Fittest was published under the pseudonym Ragnar
Redbeard. The book begins with a quote from The Origin of Species,
that "inferior organisms succumb and perish or are
enslaved. Superior organisms survive, propagate, and possess."
Might is Right goes on to employ the naturalistic fallacy
full-force, arguing that it is right for the sun to shine, since it
is observed doing so, and that since Darwin’s laws are observable,
they must be right as well.
The logical error comes from assuming that man should base his
actions on what happens in nature. Might is Right argues that
nature favours the fittest, and that man should become more fit, as
nature (and Darwin) commands.
However, Darwin’s definition of the fitness of a given organism is
not based on power (i.e., might) but in “infinitely complex
relations to other organic beings and to external nature.”
Moreover, Darwin clearly states that he uses the concept of struggle
for existence in a metaphorical sense; survival of the fittest
can be a function of mutualistic interactions between organisms, or
even success despite a harsh climate.
It has more to do with success in leaving progeny behind than with
any other observable trait on which one would intuitively (though
erroneously) base fitness. Stephen J. Gould has called Darwin’s
principle of fitness a tautology, since survival of the fittest
refers to "the survival of those who survive."
Indeed, Darwin’s definition of fitness has nothing to do with the
axe and hammer insignia associated with Might is Right, or to
the dog-eat-dog mentality associated with Darwinism. The idea that
might makes right does not echo Darwin’s thoughts, but merely
applies the naturalistic fallacy in anthropocentric ways which Darwin
does not.
Might
is Right is often labelled a Social Darwinist work, since it
applies the principles of Darwin to society. In contrast to Darwin’s
descriptive work, it advocates the idea that the human species should
take its evolutionary fate into its own hands. It is worth noting
that The Origin of Species does not make any mention of
improving human fitness; this is not accidental, but a consequence of
Darwin’s beliefs about the limitations of man. Darwin states that
natural selection is “immeasurably superior to man’s feeble
efforts, as the works of Nature are to those of Art.”
A prescriptive interpretation of Darwin’s natural laws overlooks
his obvious preference for the hand of nature over that of man, and
that as a consequence, a prescriptive application of his natural laws
would not only go against his sense of aesthetic (an minor point),
but very importantly, against the improvement of the species. In The
Origin of Species, Darwin challenges the reader to consider how
he would go about improving the fitness of a given animal in the
wild, for the sole cause of “[convincing him] of our ignorance on
the mutual relations of all organic beings.”
Clearly, Darwin does not believe that the human species could be
improved by anthropocentric selection. Realizing this is key to
separating Darwinism from Social Darwinism, Nazism, and Eugenics.
Another
reaction to The Origin of Species is well-documented in the
form of sensationalist caricatures, articles and other social
artefacts. Cartoons about evolution had been around since before
Darwin,
but became even more prevalent after Darwin’s controversial book.
It is also worth noting that no other Victorian evolutionist was as
frequently or intensely caricatured as Darwin.
Darwin’s proposal of man’s place in nature, wherein man shares
the same types of selective pressures, and parts of an evolutionary
history with every other animal on earth, was misrepresented by
sensationalist media as a proposal that men are reducible to animals.
Three social artefacts have been drawn from Darwin Online
and included with this essay (Images 3, 20 and 26 from the database).
These images show variations on people’s idea of man as animal
as interpreted from Darwin. Image 20 is a very literal
interpretation, wherein Darwin’s theory is satired by showing its
author as an ape. Image 26, a poem about the implications of
Darwinism, is much more metaphorical, drawing on human
characteristics given to different animals (e.g. the courage of a
lion, the lowliness of a snake), and attributing them to a believer
of Darwinism. Image 3 shows yet another take on man as animal,
wherein Darwin is portrayed as being an inhuman beast by way of what
he is alleged to do to his son in the name of science. Here, it
becomes important to take into account Darwin’s personality, as the
labels “ape-like” or “inhuman” seem ill-suited to a man who
sees “beauty and infinite complexity [in] the coadaptations between
all organic beings”,
or who manages to include a beautifully poetic Tree of Life analogy
in a book of science. Even in talking about the struggle for life,
characterized by its brutality, he sugar-coats it by claiming that we
may “console ourselves with the full belief, that the war of nature
is not incessant, that no fear is felt, and that death is generally
prompt,”
all of which are assertions without a scientific basis, and on which
he does not elaborate. He goes on to say that the organisms which get
to multiply are those which are vigorous, healthy, and happy.
Such examples of anthropomorphism riddle this famous work; Darwin’s
charming personifications are far from the work of a heartless
animal. Natural selection gets a similar treatment, alleged to reject
the bad and preserve the good in each species, tirelessly improving
it over time, for “the good of each being.”
Darwin even goes as far as to call slave-making in ants a wonderful
instinct.
Here, any allegations of inhumanity by way of Darwin’s reaction to
slave-making in ants should be quickly quelled by his labelling of
the slave-making instinct (independently of ants) as odious.
This reaction is likely brought on by Darwin’s travels to South
America— particularly his visit to Brazil, which prompted him to
exclaim in his journal Voyage of the Beagle
that he would never again visit a slave-country.
Darwin is as much of a Humanist as anyone else; he writes and thinks
beautifully (at least in the opinion of the author of this essay.)
The
ambivalent treatment of the slave-making instinct brings to mind
another point about Darwin’s placement of man in nature. The only
strong reference to mankind’s place in nature in The Origin of
Species is late in the book, where he nonchalantly states that
his theory will throw light on the origin of man and his history.
There is much more to be inferred, however, from the way in which
Darwin defines what is natural and what is not. In various parts of
the book, Darwin uses the word unnatural to contrast the way
in which things develop in nature. A good example of this is when he
talks about organic beings produced by unnatural conditions
and unnatural crossings,
referring to experimental conditions produced by humans. The concept
of varieties of organisms as a result of domestication is a big theme
throughout this book, particularly in Chapter I. In a later
chapter, the subject matter of Chapter I is referred to in
passing in an interesting term that continues to be used today:
artificial selection.
This term could easily be replaced with human-mediated selection,
as one could call the evolution of certain fungi ant-mediated,
but Darwin chooses not to do that. Darwin’s usage of unnatural
and artificial in reference to human intervention tells us a
great deal about the relationship between man and nature in the mind
of this famous author; namely, that man is different enough from the
rest of nature to be able to intervene. If this is the case, then the
claims that Darwin’s work reduces humans to animals is not at all
justified, as he makes an implicit, yet pervasive distinction between
nature and man. Darwin implies that man is part of nature, but
different enough for his constructs to be unnatural, and his
behaviour artificial. This implicit disjunction of nature and
man leaves no room for the naturalistic fallacy; why should man
behave like nature when he is implicitly different?
In
closing, it is important to realize that in order to truly understand
a work that deals with man’s place in nature, one must be able to
account for whether it is descriptive or prescriptive. It seems that
because Darwin’s theory is so consequential to our perceived place
in nature, critics have overlooked the fact that Darwin’s work does
not tell us what we should do, but only how nature changes
over time. Failure on behalf of contemporaries and later interpreters
of Darwin to categorize his definition of nature correctly is likely,
due to the sensationalist nature of the media, and to the agendas of
the groups which draw their unsound support from Darwin. Hopefully,
it will be clear to the reader of this essay that The Origin of
Species does not employ the naturalistic fallacy, as Darwin
claims that the definition of fitness is beyond human understanding,
and that nature is much better at evolving a given species than would
be man left to his own devices. Additionally, Darwin does not believe
that man is reducible to an animal, since he has very Humanist and
anthropocentric ideals. Most importantly, Darwin believes man to be
distinct enough from nature so as to not be able to take his morality
from it. All of this being the case, we should perhaps reconsider
such terms as Social Darwinism and Post-Darwinism,
especially in the contexts of eugenics and social engineering, which
draw fallaciously from nature, and which have little to do with the
views of Charles Darwin.
Darwin, On the origin of species, various
Works Cited
Browne,
Janet, “Darwin in caricature: A study in the popularisation and
dissemination of evolution,” Proceedings
of the American Philosophical Society 145(4):
496-509, 2001, accessed November
21, 2011,
http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3372264/Browne_Darwin_Caricature.pdf?sequence=1
Darwin,
Charles, On the origin of species. A
facsim. of the 1st ed., with an introd. by Ernst Mayr (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1964), various pages.
Darwin,
Charles, Voyage of the Beagle: Journal
of researches into the geology and natural history of the various
countries visited by H.M.S. Beagle (Online:
Project Gutenberg, 2008), accessed November
20th,
2011, http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3704/pg3704.txt.
[Ctrl+F: “On the 19th of August we finally left the shores
of Brazil”]
Clark,
Constance A., “You Are Here: Missing Links, Chains of Being, and
the Language of Cartoons,” FOCUS—ISIS,
100:3, 2009, accessed November
22, 2011, from http://www.kean.edu/~bregal/docs/You%20Are%20Here.pdf
Gould,
Stephen J., “Darwin's Untimely Burial,” Natural History 85:
24-30, Oct. 1976, accessed November 8, 2011, from
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_tautology.html.
Redbeard,
Ragnar, Might is Right
(Online: Archive.org Community Texts, 2001), accessed November
20th, 2011,
http://www.archive.org/details/MightIsRightByRagnarRedbeard,
various pages.
Wyhe,
Dr John van, The
Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online,
2002, accessed November 8, 2011, from Darwin Online:
http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=CUL-DAR140.4&viewtype=image&pageseq=1.
[Images attached to bibliography]
Image 3
Image 20
Image 26
