Darwinian Questions and Darwinian Myths

1. Darwinian Questionsand Darwinian Myths Jonathan Smith Darwin Anniversary Colloquium 21 January 2009

2. Who Was Charles Darwin? Robert Darwin (father) A wealthy physician Resided in Shrewsbury, in the west of England Susannah Wedgwood (mother) First child of Wedgwood Potteries founder Josiah Wedgwood Died when Charles was 8

3. Who Was Charles Darwin? Erasmus Darwin (grandfather) Physician, inventor, poet, entrepreneur A promulgator of evolutionary ideas Emma Wedgwood (wife) Darwin’s first cousin She and Charles had 10 children, 2 of whom died in infancy, 1 in childhood

4. Was Darwin Going to be a Minister? “I attended on two occasions the operating theatre in the hospital at Edinburgh, and saw two very bad operations, one on a child, but I rushed away before they were completed. Nor did I ever attend again, for hardly any inducement would have been strong enough to make me do so. . . . The two cases fairly haunted me for many a long year.” – Darwin, Autobiography University of Edinburgh’s Old College in the 1820s. Darwin would have studied anatomy and surgery in this building

5. Cambridge and the Clergy “To my deep mortification my father once said to me, ‘You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.’” – Darwin, Autobiography “Go it, Charlie!” A caricature of Darwin at Cambridge, riding a beetle and brandishing a collecting net, around 1831

6. “An Opportunity of SeeingMen and Things” • Darwin’s father: “a wild scheme” and “useless undertaking” that would be “disreputable to your character as a Clergyman” • But: “If you can find any man of common sense who advises you to go, I will give my consent.” • Uncle Jos: “The pursuit of Natural History, though certainly not professional, is very suitable to a clergyman. . . . It affords him such an opportunity of seeing men and things as happens to few.” Josiah Wedgwood II (Darwin’s Uncle)

7. How Did Darwin Get on the Beagle? “Fitz-Roy was convinced that he could judge a man’s character by the outline of his features; and he doubted whether anyone with my nose could possess sufficient energy and determination for the voyage. But I think he was afterwards well-satisfied that my nose had spoken falsely.” – Darwin, Autobiography Beagle Captain Robert Fitz-Roy (1805-1865)

8. What Was the Beagle Doing? • Mapping the coast of southern South America for military and mercantile purposes • Launching a mission settlement in Tierra del Fuego • While the ship did its surveying, Darwin went on extended inland expeditions The Beagle in the Straits of Magellan

9. Did Darwin Have a “Eureka Moment” on the Galápagos? “It never occurred to me, that the productions of islands only a few miles apart, and placed under the same physical conditions, would be dissimilar. I therefore did not attempt to make a series of specimens from the separate islands.” – Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle (1839) Finches’ beaks, added to the second edition of The Voyage of the Beagle (1845)

10. Did Darwin Discover Evolution? • Evolution is an ancient concept • Many theories of “development” or “transmutation” in Europe in 18C/19C • Darwin provided a plausible mechanism for evolution: natural selection Darwin in 1840, age 31

11. Traits of individuals within a species vary Populations tend to grow faster than food supply “struggle for existence” Individuals with an advantageous variation are more likely to survive and produce offspring with the same trait Over time, new species develop “I am almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable.” – Darwin to Joseph Hooker 11 January 1844 How Does Natural Selection Work?

12. My Dear Emma, I have just finished my sketch of my species theory. If, as I believe, that my theory is true, it will be a considerable step in science. I therefore write this, in case of my sudden death, as my most solemn & last request, that you will devote £400 to its publication. – Charles to his wife 5 July 1844 The example of Vestiges and the fear of backlash The desire to accumulate more evidence Ill health Barnacles! Why Did Darwin Wait So Long to Publish? Darwin in 1855

13. Does the Origin DiscussHuman Evolution? “Probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed. . . . Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.” –Origin of Species, 1st ed. (1859) “The early progenitors of man were once no doubt covered with hair, both sexes having beards; their ears were pointed, and capable of movement; and their bodies were provided with a tail . . . . The foot . . . was then prehensile; and our progenitors, no doubt, were arboreal in their habits, frequenting some warm, forest-clad land.” –Descent of Man (1871)

14. With such moderate abilities as I possess, it is truly surprising that thus I should have influenced to a considerable extent the beliefs of scientific men on some important points. – Darwin, Autobiography Responses ran from horrified shock to skepticism to cautious acceptance to full endorsement “almost every naturalist admits the great principle of evolution” (Origin, 6th ed., 1872) Natural selection did not fare as well until the 1930s and 40s How Was the Origin Received?

15. Is Darwinism At Odds with Religion? “I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of any one. A celebrated author and divine has written to me that ‘he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws.’” – Origin of Species, 2nd ed. (1860) Top: Photograph of Darwin in 1867, age 58 Bottom: A caricature of Darwin as an ape (1871)

16. Does Evolution = Progress? “As natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection.” –Origin of Species, final sentence of penultimate paragraph, all edns “The ultimate result [of natural selection] will be that each creature will tend to become more and more improved in relation to its conditions of life. . . . Natural selection includes no necessary and universal law of advancement or development.” –Origin of Species, 3rd ed. (1861)

17. Who Were the Origin’s Best Critics? “Fleeming Jenkin has given me much trouble.” – Darwin to J. D. Hooker, 16 January 1869 Electrical engineer Fleeming Jenkin (1833-1885) and “swamping” “I am greatly troubled at the short duration of the world according to Sir W. Thomson.” – Darwin to James Croll, 31 January 1869 Physicist William Thomson, Lord Kelvin (1824-1907) and the age of the earth.

18. Was Darwin an Atheist? • “Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority” • “I deserved to be called a Theist . . . about the time when I wrote the Origin of Species” • “The old argument of design in nature, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered.” • “I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.” – Darwin, Autobiography Annie Darwin at age 8 in 1849, two years before her death

19. Was Darwin a Racist? “I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country. . . . Picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over you, of your wife and your little children being torn from you and sold like beasts to the first bidder! And these deeds are done and palliated by men, who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God, and pray that his Will be done on earth! It makes one’s blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty.” – Darwin on leaving Brazil, Voyage of the Beagle (1845) “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?” Wedgwood Medallion for Britain’s Abolition of Slavery Movement

20. Was Darwin an Imperialist? “No country can be named in which all the native inhabitants are now so perfectly adapted to each other and to the physical conditions under which they live, that none of them could anyhow be improved; for in all countries, the natives have been so far conquered by naturalised productions, that they have allowed foreigners to take firm possession of the land. And as foreigners have thus everywhere beaten some of the natives, we may safely conclude that the natives might have been modified with advantage, so as to have better resisted such intruders.” – Darwin, Origin of Species The Fuegians returned by the Beagle to their native land as part of a missionary project.

21. Was Darwin a Sexist? “The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by man attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than woman can attain—whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands. If two lists were made of the most eminent men and women in poetry, painting, sculpture, music, —comprising composition and performance, history, science, and philosophy, with half-a-dozen names under each subject, the two lists would not bear comparison.” – Darwin, Descent of Man (1871) Top: Caricature of Darwin taking a woman’s pulse, 1872 Bottom: Peacock displaying for peahen

22. Was Darwin a Social Darwinist? “A most important obstacle in civilised countries to an increase in the number of men of a superior class has been the fact that the very poor and reckless, who are often degraded by vice, almost invariably marry early, whilst the careful and frugal, who are generally otherwise virtuous, marry late in life. . . . . . . . Yet man might by selection do something not only for the bodily constitution and frame of his offspring, but for their intellectual and moral qualities. Both sexes ought to refrain from marriage if in any marked degree inferior in body or mind; but such hopes are Utopian . . . .” – Darwin, Descent of Man Top: Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) Bottom: Francis Galton (Darwin’s cousin) (1822-1911)

23. How Did Darwin Regard Animals? “For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper; or from that old baboon, who carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs—as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practises infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions.” – Darwin, Descent of Man Julia Cameron photograph of Darwin at age 59, 1868

24. Darwin and the Problem of Pain “I was so bold during my wife’s confinement as to administer Chloroform before the Dr. came & she knew nothing from first pain till she heard that the child was born.— It is the grandest & most blessed of discoveries.” – Darwin to J. S. Henslow, 17 January 1850 An English gentleman would not himself give a moment’s unnecessary pain to any living creature, and would instinctively exert himself to put an end to any suffering before his eyes: yet every game preserver sanctions a system which consigns thousands of animals to acute agony, probably of eight or ten hours duration, before it is ended by death. – Darwin, “An Appeal Against Steel Traps,” 1863 I am fully convinced that physiology can progress only by the aid of experiments on living animals. – Darwin to the Royal Commission on Subjecting Live Animals to Experiments, 3 November 1875

25. What Does Darwinism Do to Wonder? “It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. . . . 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 by the Creator 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.” – Darwin, Origin of Species, closing paragraph Darwin in 1881, the year before his death

26. Upcoming Darwin Anniversary Colloquium Events Don Bord and Kent Murray (UM-Dearborn), “The Age of the Earth and the Age of the Universe” February 3, 3:00-4:30 p.m. 1030 CB John Mitani (UM-AA), “The Behavior of Wild Chimpanzees” February 17, 4:30-6:00 p.m. 1030 CB Marsha Richmond (Wayne State), “Darwin and Genetics, 1909-2009” February 25, 4:30-6:00 p.m. 1010 SLRC Audrey Smedley (Virginia Commonwealth), “Race and Evolution” Late March/Early April. TBA. Carl Cohen (UM-AA), “Darwin and the Ethics of Animal Experimentation” April 6, 1:05-2:20 p.m. 1030 CB