CHARLES DARWIN
Posted by anthonynorth on March 25, 2007
Born in 1809 at Shrewsbury, Charles Darwin was to go on to reluctantly rock the world. Grandson of Erasmus Darwin, his mother died when he was eight, and to his father’s chagrin seemed to care nothing but for bugs and plants. Sent to study medicine at Edinburgh, Darwin hated it, and went to study Theology at Cambridge, which he also had little time for.Encouraged by botanist John Henslow, it was the natural world that fascinated him. Hence, when he had the chance to join the ‘Beagle’ as naturalist on a five year voyage around South America and the Galapagos Islands, he jumped at it.
The study of various environments on the voyage led him close to the theory of evolution through natural selection for which he became famous for. He married his cousin, Emma Wedgwood in 1839, going on to have eight children, and in 1842 he moved to Down House in Kent, where he remained the rest of his life. By 1844, he had written up notes on his theory, but did not publish, sitting on it for years while he wrote a study of barnacles.
The obvious reason for this is that he realised the damage his theory would do to religion. However, when Alfred Russell Wallace wrote to him in 1858 with virtually the same theory, Darwin decided to publish. In 1859 his epoch making ‘Origin of Species’ appeared, selling out on the first day, and provoking the violent reaction he expected.
Darwin himself took little part in the debate, happy to stay at home working on other books, most quite bland, but including his 1871 ‘Descent of Man’, where he argued man came from a hairy anthropoid. By this time, he was quite ill, being wheelchair bound. One explanation for this is that he contracted Chaga’s disease from an insect bite, but what we now know of psychology, the mysterious element of his ill health could suggest psychosomatic ailments, such was the pressure of his findings.
Darwin was, infact, an amateur, with no scientific training, and this was to lead to a hard fight for acceptance of his ideas. But when they WERE accepted, he guaranteed his place
as one of the greats of history. He eventually died in 1882, a man who truly changed the world, his ideas often perverted into the ’survival of the fittest’, the notion behind everything from Hitler’s Super Race to modern capitalism.
© Anthony North, February 2003
September 16, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Amateur? He studied for geology, and he apprenticed to the best geologists of the day, spending as much time trekking with Sedgwick as many graduate students of today would spend in their graduate studies, and then staying on for further sharpening of his science chops after he graduated.
Darwin is the greatest single contributor to the science collections at the British Museum in history. On the basis of his amazing work, he was nominated for membership in the high science societies that marked professional scientists of his day years earlier than most, even before he returned from his voyage.
It wasn’t Darwin’s lack of credentials that had anything to do with religionists rejecting the authority of his work.
September 17, 2007 at 8:12 am
Hi Ed,
Tell me if I’m wrong, but Darwin first studied medicine and flunked it, turned to geology, where he made little academic progress, and actually graduated in theology after his father had decided he would be a clergyman.
Much of his early studies were not with academic groups, but student bodies.
Now don’t get me wrong. Darwin was a brilliant man and I have a great deal of respect for him. He deserves his place near the top of the great scientists, but he was never academically qualified in any of his chosen spheres.
I make this point for a specific reason. If a Darwin appeared today, modern science would not even give him a chance. The criticism is aimed at modern science, not brilliant amateurs like Darwin.
September 17, 2007 at 9:29 am
In college, Darwin studied medicine in Edinburgh, decided he didn’t like it. He was ethically opposed to surgery without anesthesia. He was also dedicated to sporting and nature study. He transferred to Cambridge, stuck to the stuff that interested him rather than studies, but such interests included collecting beetles, and he became a protege of Henslow. Eventually, he graduated with honors, but with highest marks in the sciences (he was #10 in a class of 175, as I recall). His friendship and studies with Henslow would be a modern day college internship. After he aced his exams, he stayed on studying geology — the modern equivalent of a masters degree. He spent a summer tramping England with the Rev. Adam Sedgwick, arguably the greatest geologist of the time (certainly one of the top two or three), and working in hard core geology where he is said to have had great felicity — certainly his early publications show that. Cambridge did not offer degrees in specialties; one graduated in general studies. Darwin was as academically qualified as anyone else in geology, or any of the sciences. Doctorates were in philosophy, and tended away from modern specialization.
Darwin’s science recognition came from his voyage. As I noted earlier, he made astounding contributions to the collections at the British Museum, astounding in the quantity and scope. His specimens are still type specimens in ornithology, mammals, botany and geology. This astounding range of work got him nominated to the Royal Society, which was then perhaps an analog to the National Academy of Sciences here — his election at such an early age is indication of his outstanding science qualifications. If Darwin appeared today, he’d probably get the same sort of reception on the quality of his work. Amateurs probably have the best shot today in astronomy, but amateurs with solid research get published in every field — remember that middle school girl from Colorado who did the devastating study on touch therapy a few years back? Jane Goodall is another more recent example. Most of her great work was done well before she bothered to take a formal program leading to the Ph.D. she now holds.
I think it likely that were Darwin to appear in a science culture such as we have today, he’d be awarded a masters in geology prior to his voyage, and Ph.D. upon the publication of his first monograph (on the creation of coral atolls).
In research, academic qualifications tend to fall by the way. The question is whether you can devise original ways to test important questions. People who can do that tend to get promoted quickly — like Stanley Miller at the University of Chicago in 1953; or like Paul Serrano at Chicago today.
To make it in science, one needs a good, testable hypothesis. Jeremy Bernstein, the physicist, published a piece several years ago in the New Yorker hypothesizing what would happen today if Einstein’s 1905 series of papers showed up unannounced at a physics journal, as they did originally. Bernstein posed the question opposite his experience of crackpot and crank science advocates constantly complaining they don’t get fair hearings. Bernstein pointed out several things that distinguishes the genuinely genius paper from an unknown person from the crank science paper, even from a famous scientist. Among other things, the serious papers propose tests of the hypothesis that can be done, and they don’t claim that a conspiracy keeps the ideas from getting out — instead explaining how it is that the best scientists can continue to use as theory an idea that may be wrong, usually in the form of “here’s how we look at this problem today under the prevailing theory, and here’s how this new idea provides better or more clear observations.” Darwin’s papers did that, in coral atoll formation, in evolution theory as a whole, in climbing plants, in insectivorous plants, in human evolution, and in the importance of worms.
Darwin’s legacy should be much more than just the theory of evolution. Darwin revolutionized all of science with his observation methods. He avoided conjecture about what might happen whenever simple observation could be devised to provide real data. So, for example, rather that resort to the philosopher’s ramblings on why ivy twines, he spent weeks in his lab actually watching climbing vines grow, discovering the methods of their twining. It’s a stunningly simple monograph (it’s available on the web), but no one had thought, or bothered, to do that before. Darwin’s work is still the standard in climbing vines, he covered it so thoroughly and well.
There’s a lot more background for a modern scientist to get, but I think Darwin would have reveled in the ability to specialize, in geology, entomology or evolutionary development. Modern science might try to compartmentalize him sooner; that would have given him a chance to shine much earlier.
September 17, 2007 at 10:00 am
Hi Ed,
I see you don’t mention Darwin’s theology qualifications. I don’t dispute what you say about Darwin, except today I don’t believe he would even have got started in a radically new field, especially as he was changing science in a radical way.
Let’s put it this way, from my experience, anything that conflicts with a consensus science is ignored. You maybe don’t see this - and I certainly don’t expect you to accept it - because you’re maybe not in a radical field that diasgrees with the consensus.
I work - as an amateur - in fields such as the paranormal. I’m still waiting for mainstream science to get over its loathing for the subject, never mind taking it seriously.
September 17, 2007 at 1:02 pm
What theology qualifications? Cambridge granted a general degree in 1830 and 1831. That degree included some general studies in philosophy and theology — but everybody got those courses. Such a degree was preferred by the Anglican Church for new preachers. Were there even seminaries in England at the time? Darwin’s aiming for a career as a preacher was to enable his studies in natural science; theology training was not part of the bargain.
Darwin did learn William Paley’s Natural Theology extremely well, but of course, it was a text in natural science, or intended to be, when it was published in 1802.
September 17, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Hi Ed,
As the general degree included theology, then he must have had some theology qualification. As I understand it, he didn’t go to Cambridge to advance his career, but because his father made him go there after flunking medicine at Edinburgh.
Prior to going to Cambridge, his success had been with the Plinians, a student body. Again, as I understand it, Henslow took him under his wing before Darwin passed any academic courses in the relevant subjects, so thus held amateur status at that time.
The qualifications he ended up with were also part of the general degree, and not a specifically scientific degree.
September 17, 2007 at 8:56 pm
I suppose the question is whether we wish to denigrate Darwin’s credentials, or accept them for what they were. No one at that time had a degree in science, nor an advanced science degree. No one from Cambridge had a theology degree. Darwin took a course that would be considered qualification in science.
In any case, his election to the elite science societies upon the showing of his work makes it all rather moot. When you win the awards for having done the great work in science, you’re a scientist.
September 17, 2007 at 10:01 pm
No, no, no! It was never my intention to denigrate Darwin’s achievements, Ed. Yes, he ended up a great scientist. I have nothing but admiration for the man. I don’t accept we know the truth, yet, of evolution, but at that time, he advanced our knowledge magnificently. I repeat, yes, he became one of the greatest scientists the world has ever known.
My point is about science today, and the way those who go against the consensus stand no chance. And you know, if Darwin was in a position to read this, I think he would agree with me.
I’ve enjoyed this exchange. I’d like to think you’d call again.
September 18, 2007 at 12:07 am
Again, I don’t think contrarians have a particularly rough row to hoe in science, so long as they have the data and science on their side. People who come up with ideas that run exactly contrary to what key theories say can only be vindicated if their ideas test out as correct. Consider the 2005 Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology, for example: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2005/press.html
All the experts knew that gastritis and gastric ulcers were caused by stress, and too much acid. A couple of Australians noticed an odd link to a bacterium, however. They won the Nobel.
There are a lot of other cranks who lack data, and as with the case of creationists, lack even a testable hypothesis. They won’t get the ear of science. That’s justice, not bias.
September 18, 2007 at 7:28 am
Good morning Ed,
If you take my main field, the paranormal, I am an amateur theorist. I won’t go into my ideas. If you’re interested I’ve plenty of speculative essays on this site (Mysteries Page and Paranormal UFO Occult on Blogroll). From my experience, I see a very different picture.
Yes, there are cranks, fraudsters and more in my field, but also some rational thinkers and even a few scientists. Most of the latter have been repeatedly attacked by other scientists. If we take Rupert Sheldrake, his first book prompted a response by the then editor of Nature that it was fit for burning.
There are organisations, including scientists, whose sole purpose is to keep such studies out of science - CSICOP, for instance. There is a wealth of research that should be being done in places like Loch Ness, but most scientists won’t touch it for fear of being labelled a Monster Hunter.
Now, much paranormal research is speculative, yes, so I won’t go into general trends here, but a few simple areas of research. For instance, in cases of past life regression through hypnosis (a form of recall of reincarnation), and alien abduction scenarios, it is often noted that cases seem to rise more from therapists who believe in the phenomenon. How relevant is this for research into False Memory Syndrome? Literally thousand of cases on record, and totally ignored.
We lack earthquake prediction techniques of real use. Yet we know that geological disturbance is preceeded by electromagnetic anomalies. Research has been done on electromagnetism and the brain which produces specific psychological anomalies such as visions, etc. Could these two fields have something to offer the other? Not a chance. The latter is ignored.
Constantly I am hearing of new scientific ‘discoveries’ that people in my field have been studying for decades. It is a ridiculous waste of talent and research.