Discussion note: Darwin, Whewell, and natural selection

The General Science Journal, 2022

This article 8 of the series is devoted exclusively to the conception, development, preparation and publication, in 1859, of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species, as well as to the methodological and scientific analysis of Darwin's work and the social reception of his theory of evolution. It covers a long period of Darwin's life from 1828 (his arrival in Cambridge) to his death in 1882. The article analyses from his training as a naturalist to his commitment and effort to adapt his work to the canons of Newtonian science, both from the deductive and the inductive point of view, the latter supported by an overwhelming empirical documentation collected mainly from the observation of nature and, to a lesser extent, from experimentation.

Both Darwin and Wallace tried to find the challenge that triggers new species: for Darwin this was the ‘competition between populations’, in Wallace's opinion the most important factor was ‘a change in the environment’. Both of them tried to show that their theory had two major consequences in the general knowledge of species: (1) the fact that all species adapt by progress (improvement) and (2) the fact that new species would branch out from old species, characteristics of the last being increasingly different from each other. The attempts of the two writers show a great deal of ‘explanatory responsibility’ (Jonathan Hodge’s formula). And this explanatory responsibility turned into beautiful imaginary examples. This paper will try to show (in a nutshell) the method Darwin used to fill in explanatory gaps in the theory of the evolution of species: he took it over from Thomas Malthus, the father of social sciences, he adapted it according to Charles Lyell’s principles and he gave it the shape of imaginatory illustrations.

Victorian Web, 2008

This essay treats pre-Darwinian evolution in Great Britain not only to consider the ways in which Charles Darwin adhered to or diverged from the views of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century thinkers, but also to understand these works in their own right. I consider the theories of earlier evolutionists and some uses to which their systems were put. I argue that we cannot arrive at a full appreciation for Darwin’s contribution without understanding his evolutionary ancestors.

Under nature, the slightest differences of structure or constitution may well turn the nicely balanced scale in the struggle for life, and so be preserved. How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man! how short his time! …… In order that any great amount of modification should be effected in a species, a variety when once formed must again, perhaps after a long interval of time, vary or present individual differences of the same favourable nature as before; and these must be again preserved, and so onwards step by step. 1

Evolution, 2011

Comptes Rendus Biologies, 2010

Kritikon Litterarum, 2018

Understanding Evolution in Darwin’s “Origin”. The emerging context of evolutionary thinking, 2023

The sixth chapter of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species is called “Difficulties of the theory”. In that part of his work, Darwin reveals some possible objections to his theory and attempts to provide an answer to all of them. Such a chapter was part of the first edition of the Origin of Species, therefore the difficulties described were not reactions derived from the publication of the book. Some of them have been probably presented by friends, such as Charles Lyell. Others can be found in works published before Darwin’s work, such as Natural Theology by William Paley, which argued for creationism and introduced arguments against any natural explanation of the origin of species. Many other problems dealt with in the sixth chapter were born, however, from Darwin’s own internal dialogue, from his own initial doubts concerning the theory and from this anticipation of criticism, as one can gather from his manuscripts. This paper describes the main difficulties shown in the sixth chapter of the Origin of Species, providing a more detailed exposition of a few topics, and analyzing Darwin’s defense, in those cases. It also discusses some of the weak points in Darwin’s line of reasoning, from a diachronic point of view.

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 2005

Reports of the National Center For Science Education, 2013

The theory of evolution put forth by Charles Darwin in 1859 and the modifications given to it by endless contributions by biologists over the last century and a half is the best explanation for the diversity of life on earth. Darwin's "one long argument"-as he called it-also changed the way we think about aspects of our lives beyond biology: society, culture, economics, religion, politics, the list could go on. So, when someone considers Darwin, are they referring to the man (Charles Darwin, 1809-1882), his ideas (much more than just evolution), his influence (his name took on a lineage of its own), or his legacy (his life and work remain highly debated today)? It is a topic with a grand scope of material to digest. One could spend a life time reading books and articles written about Darwin and evolution, yet in the busy and quick access world of today, there is value in small, concise collections of material for the non-specialist to peruse and become acquainted with a topic. Barton Bite-Sized Darwiniana RNCSE 33.6, 2.2 November-December 2013 Bite-Sized Darwiniana RNCSE 33.6, 2.3 November-December 2013 Bite-Sized Darwiniana RNCSE 33.6, 2.4

Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 2008

harles Darwin's enthusiasm and expertise in natural history contributed hugely to his elucidation of evolution by natural selection, which stands as one of the grandest intellectual achievements in the history of science. Darwin was a lifelong observer of nature, stating in correspondence that some of his happiest times in youth were spent fishing on rainy days and ''entomologizing'' when England's weather was nice. At the age of 22, he boarded the HSM Beagle for a 5-year stint as Captain Fitzroy's traveling companion and the ship's naturalist, an appointment that introduced him to biodiversity on a global geographic scale. Darwin's breadth and depth of naturalhistory experience would later be on full display in his most defining scientific works (3-5) in his detailed treatises on orchids, insectivorous plants, coral reefs, barnacles, and earthworms (6-10).

Journal of the History of Biology, 1990

In 1860 Frederick Wollaston Hutton, a young British geologist, published a review of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species in the Geologist, a popular monthly magazine of geology published in London. 1 He began by assessing a recent review of the Origin 1. This article draws substantially from my Ph.D. thesis: John Stenhouse, "The 'Battle' between Science and Religion over Evolution in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand," Ph.D. diss., Massey University, New Zealand, 1985. Because this may be virtually inaccessible to scholars outside Australasia, I shall not refer to it in great detail in this article. In it I discuss most of the figures mentioned here at greater length, especially the New Zealand scientists, so it may be regarded as a general reference where I do not cite a more specific one. 2. Frederick W. Hutton, "One the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; or the Preservation of Favoured Species in the Struggle for Life,"

2008

The Review of Politics, 1988

Science & education, 2013

This is an impressive two-volume ''Variorum'' collection of previously published papers and reviews by M. J. S. Hodge, a veteran of the history and philosophy of science, that are reproduced as they first appeared and with original pagination. The papers selected encompass the broad range of his interests in Darwin studies, the history and philosophy of evolutionary thought, the historiography of biology, the philosophy of biology and Charles Darwin himself. They span a broad interval of time from 1971 with the first paper on Lamarck exploring his ''great change of mind,'' and his turn towards ''transformism,'' to 2005, with the appearance of a revisionist critique of what has been called ''The Darwinian Revolution.'' The papers thus span over 30 years of scholarly focus on the history and philosophy of evolutionary thought, comprising nearly an entire career's worth of scholarly articles and reviews. That's important for readers of Science & Education to note, because these were some of the most active, and indeed formative years of what has become known as the ''Darwin Industry,'' a term of reference used often with humor or irony by historians of biology, for a group of scholars busy mining not only Darwin's work, but also what came ''before and after'' the publication of his magnum opus, On the Origin of Species in 1859. To be sure, Hodge is not one of the ''archive-rats,'' the super-specialists who work the archives laboring over Darwin's voluminous correspondence, manuscripts, notebooks and other papers, but he has nonetheless contributed an appreciable amount of scholarship to understanding the origins and development of Darwin's theory, as well as its subsequent history. As the title to volume II denotes, the emphasis on theory matters, and is crucial to understanding Hodge's interests and his oeuvre. Virtually all of the papers concentrate on contributions to the theory of evolution, or track changes thereof. That's because Hodge is a specialist in the history of ideas, tracing the complex trajectories by which they arise, are disseminated, gain acceptance (or rejection), and make their way into grand explanatory accounts of the natural world. He is, in short, best understood as a historian of ideas, or an intellectual historian who usually focuses on major well-known figures like Darwin, Lamarck, or more recent figures like R. A. Fisher or Sewall Wright. It's an older