Charles Darwin
From Philosopedia
DARWIN
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Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802)
The paternal grandfather of Charles Darwin, Erasmus Darwin wrote Zoonomia: or the Laws of Organic Life (1794), for which he was accused of atheism. He was, however, a philosophic naturalist, physician, and deist. He had a theory about the origin of all life which anticipated the current “primeval soul” hypothesis of many current scientists, including the Russian biochemist, A. I. Oparin. The Vatican prohibited the reading of his works in 1817.
In 1879, Ernest Krause in a biography said of Darwin, “He was the first who proposed and consistently carried out a well-rounded theory with regard to the development of the living world—a merit which shines forth more brilliantly when we compare it with the vacillating and confused attempts of Buffon, Linnaeus, and Goethe. It is the idea of a power working from within the organisms to improve their natural position.” This is an idea which, developed by Lamarck, was modified by his grandson into the doctrine of natural selection. The idea of “the descent of man” from a simian species had been broached before him by Buffon and Helvétius in France, and Lords Kames and Monboddo in Scotland. According to A. Benn, Darwin, rather than a deist, was an atheist along with Bentham, Godwin, and Charles Fox. But Darwin did believe in “the Great Architect” of the cosmos, a “Great First Cause” which breathed life into the primal filament, giving it the potentiality to evolve. Even the Unitarians were too orthodox for him, and, in fact, he described Unitarianism as a feather-bed to catch a falling Christian.
Often unnoticed is the first sentence of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s preface to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. As Stephen Jay Gould and others have pointed out, “he had, in order to justify Dr. Frankenstein’s experiment, alluded to Erasmus Darwin’s atheistical view on the possibility of quickening matter by electricity.”
Darwin’s death was singularly peaceful. “At about seven o’clock,” said his grandson, “he was seized with a violent shivering ill, and went into the kitchen to warm himself. He retired to his study, lay on the sofa, became faint and cold, and was moved into an armchair, where, without pain or emotion of any kind, he expired a little before nine o’clock.” To a friend a few years prior, he had written, “When I think of dying it is always without pain or fear.”
{BDF; CE; EU, H. James Birx; FO; HAB; JM; JMR; JMRH; RAT; RSR; TRI; TYD}
Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882)
(See entry for Charles Robert Darwin.)
BDF; CE; Stephen Jay Gould, Rocks of Ages; FFRF; HNS2; JM; JMRH; PUT; RAT; TRI; TYD}
George Howard Darwin [Sir] (1845—1912)
Darwin, the second son of Charles Darwin, taught astronomy at Cambridge. He wrote the accepted theory of the moon’s origin.
{RAT}
Francis Darwin [Sir] (1848—1925)
Darwin, the third son of Charles Darwin, taught botany at Cambridge and was President of the British Association in 1908. Besides the biography of his father, Darwin wrote many papers on botany and in 1919 sent a cordial greeting to the Rationalist Press Association dinner.
{RAT}
Leonard Darwin [Major] (15 January 1850 - 26 March 1943)
Darwin, the youngest son of Charles Darwin, was in the Staff Intelligence Department of the War Office from 1885 to 1890. He was President of the Royal Geographical Society, Chairman of the Eugenics Education Society, and Treasurer of the National Committee for Combating Venereal Diseases.
{RAT}
Darwinism
Because of the thinking of Erasmus and Charles Darwin, Darwinism according to Prof. Anthony O'Hear of the University of Bradford, as quoted in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, refers to
- any view which sees the development of species, including the human species, as the result of competition among and within species, which weeds out the less fit. The mechanism fuelling this process is that of the selective retention by the environment of those individuals who have particular genetically based features which give them competitive advantage over their fellows. They then transmit these features to their offspring.
O'Hear adds,
- Since in nature genetically based variations within species arise randomly, Darwinism is a non-teleological theory of order: the variations chosen by the environment and which fit it were not designed to do so, nor did they arise in direct reponse to environmental pressure (contra Lamarck). The absence of teleological explanation means that it cannot be applied directly to developments in human society or culture.
As originally formulated, according to the Columbia Encyclopedia,
- Darwinism did not distinguish beween acquired characteristics, which are inheritable. Modern knowledge of heredity - epecially the concept of mutation, which provides an explanation of how variations may arise - has supplemented and modified the theory, but in its basic outline Darrwinism is now universally accepted by scientists.
DARWINIAN MEDICINE
Randolph M. Nesse and George C. Williams, in Why We Get Sick (1995), argue that the human body is adapted to life as hunters and gathers in the Paleolithic communities of 100,000 years ago. Although our way of life has changed since then, they state, our genetics have not. In the Stone Age, humans enjoyed finding the rare sweet and fat foods; today, we find it difficult to suppress that ancient reflex.
Their “Darwinian medicine” treats the symptoms differently. Although a physician might try to bring down a fever or counter an allergic reaction, the Darwinian approach is that the fever is a defense mechanism for putting bacteria at a disadvantage, that suppressing it may prolong the disease although admittedly bringing comfort to a sufferer. Deans of medicine point out that the concepts of Darwinian medicine cannot be tested rigorously.
As critiqued by journalist Nicholas Wade, “Physicians seek immediate causes (what infectious agent is making this patient sick?), whereas evolutionists seek ultimate causes (what genetic adaptation has made humans vulnerable to this disease?).” {Nicholas Wade, “Ask Dr. Darwin,” The New York Times Magazine, 19 Feb 1995}
The Galapagos Islands
The Beagle
