Preface:
This paper was submitted to my History 1110 class at KSU in the Spring Semester of 2012. When doing any kind of paper or presentation, I like incorporating any part of the CvE dispute when appropriate—it's a great way to make a splash in the eyes of the professor and classmates as few are willing to have any taint of hostility (real or perceived) towards evolution in their works.
As the word limit was 1200 (which I made it under by only 22 words, so long as you don't count the citations), I didn't go into as much detail as I would have liked. In particular, I allude to a few things in my conclusion that aren't explicitly stated in the body, but are apparent in several of the sources.
Perhaps I will expand upon it later in another post—if there is a particular part you would like to see more of, or if you have questions, let me know in the comments!
As the word limit was 1200 (which I made it under by only 22 words, so long as you don't count the citations), I didn't go into as much detail as I would have liked. In particular, I allude to a few things in my conclusion that aren't explicitly stated in the body, but are apparent in several of the sources.
Perhaps I will expand upon it later in another post—if there is a particular part you would like to see more of, or if you have questions, let me know in the comments!
Too often Charles Darwin is simply credited with the
idea of evolution without any reflection of the history behind the theory of
evolution. This paper aims to recount the journey this monumental theory has
had over the centuries and discuss the major themes required to put it in the
honored position it has today.
Evolution has an especially deep history, going all the
way back the ancient Greeks. Most of the earliest writings alluding to a form
of Darwinism also included a type of spontaneous generation or divine creation.
Aristotle is credited with the “The Great Chain of Being” or “Ladder of Life,” [1]
[2]
in which he believes all species has a fixed hierarchal place. Zeno, via the
writings of Cicero, claims nature is concerned with “namely to secure for the
world, first, the structure best fitted for survival...” [3]
With the advent of the Dark Ages in Europe, Islamic
thinkers continued the Greek and Roman train of thought on evolution. Al-Jahiz’s
Book of Animals expanded on the
Hellenic philosophers to state something very near what we now regard as the
theory of natural selection. [4]
Ibn Khaldun anticipated both human evolution
from primates and the gradual progress from particles to animals. [5]
Europe was reintroduced to the thoughts of Plato,
Aristotle, and the other classical thinkers via the Islamic world where the
Greek manuscripts had been preserved. Throughout the high middle ages, the
Christian church struggled to combine the Bible with the works of the Greeks,
often leading to many quandaries and much confusion as Aristotle and his peers
was very highly regarded on every subject. In the thirteenth century, Thomas
Aquinas cleared up some of the questions regarding the works of Aristotle and
the Genesis account, although he also said there are two kinds of knowledge:
neutral or natural knowledge, and revealed Truth from the scriptures. [6]
This line is where we get our present-day physical and meta-physical realms of
knowledge. He was arguing against the Aristotelians’ view on what we now
consider the theory of evolution, but he inadvertently started the march to the
eventual separation of church and science. In the 1300s, William of Ockham
strengthened the line Aquinas drew and completely separated the two; now
natural knowledge could no longer be used to argue for anything theological. [7]
The progress of scientific advancement continued, but the theory of evolution
took a bit of a respite for a few centuries.
The term evolution,
from Latin meaning “unrolling of a book,” was first used in the 1640s. [8]
Rene Descartes’ meta-physical and physical divide and the growing deism
viewpoint of the 17th century further moved the concept of evolution
into secular territory, although Descartes didn’t contribute directly. The 17th
and 18th centuries abound with hypothesizes about the origin and the
diversity of life. Benoît de Maillet, a French diplomat and naturalist, is one
of the first to introduce the idea of the Earth being billions of years old, in
contrast to the prevailing religious reckonings of his time. Using the decline
of the sea level, Maillet estimated the Earth to be at least 2 billion years
old in 1748. [9] [10]
[11]
Maillet’s method was quickly abandoned, [12]
but perhaps the principle idea of the Earth being very old was not.
Bowler asserts Pierre Louis Maupertuis was a forerunner
of the natural selection theory in 1745, but that Maupertuis had misgivings
about how the particles knew how to arrange themselves. [13]
Georges Louis Leclerc, Count of Buffon, (known throughout the literature simply
as “Buffon”) advanced the evolutionary thought in the mid-18th
century by proposing common ancestry of the different varieties of animals,
such as cats; however, cats and dogs did not share a common ancestor. [14]
[15]
Buffon also suggested similar results could occur on other planets. [16]
[17]
While Buffon held onto some kind of “internal mold” hypothesis explaining how
nature put organisms together, Denis Diderot believed pure chance was the
reason life originated—interestingly, Bowler asserts Diderot was not referring
to the diversity of life. [18]
In 1774, James Burnett posited humans had descended from
apes. [19]
Immanuel Kant stated a near perfect rendering of modern evolutionary theory in
a footnote of his 1792 Critique of Judgement:
“certain water-animals transform themselves gradually into marsh-animals and
from these, after some generations, into land-animals.” [20]
[21]
A few years after Kant, Charles Darwin’s grandfather, Erasmus, published Zoonomia in 1796. In Zoonomia, Erasmus continues the deism
theme, and suggests both millions of years and “that all warm-blooded animals
have arisen from one living filament…” [22]
Between Erasmus and Charles, many people published
various forms of evolution, such as Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Robert Chambers, and
Patrick Matthew, with the latter two being large influences on Charles Darwin.
Darwin acknowledged Matthew had “anticipated by many years” the ideas in The Origin of Species; [23]
indeed, Jerry Bergman charges Darwin with outright plagiarism. [24]
These authors, while influential on the theory of evolution, are not the
subject of this paper and argue for many of the same themes already covered.
A final development necessary for full justification to
completely sever ties with the church and establish naturalism as the only
necessary cause of life was to have sufficient reason for the Earth to be
millions or billions of years old. The early 1800s gave the sufficient reason for
scholars with significant advancements in the long-age theories of geology. Of
the geologists, Charles Lyell is the most important for our considerations
since Charles Darwin had a copy of Lyell’s Principles
of Geology with him on the Beagle
and studied it “attentively.” [25]
[26]
Lyell’s work espoused uniformitarianism, a necessary component of the long-ages
he insisted on. As Statham claims, Lyell’s work was of great importance and
influence on Darwin as he sailed around the world collecting what would eventually
be evidence for The Origin of Species.
[27]
This author won’t analyze the Darwinian Theory, but it
is clear we can draw some conclusions from the analysis we have undertaken. The
first and most obvious is that deism played a large role in the development of
the theory. While it started out as innocent thoughts on how God worked in the
universe, small corruptions slowly crept into the accepted beliefs of the
church—or, at least into the sects that were more tolerant. Second, when Aquinas
criticized the Aristotelian thoughts of his time, he inadvertently (I can’t stress this word enough, Aquinas really did mean well by his works, but others
expanded on them greatly, and some would argue too much) drew a line in the
sand that stated where natural knowledge was to reign. Aquinas’ line was the
turning point of evolutionary thought, even if it took a while to gain speed.
In the course of time, the boundary was strengthened and expanded to include
everything except those explicitly theological. Regardless of how happy one is about how much God is
represented in the sciences, the history is quite clear how much involvement
the church had in the matter: they moved it along until it was too late, and only
recently have they started to realize how far science has come without them.
[1]
Fancher, Lynn. "Aristotle and the Great Chain." College of
DuPage. College of DuPage, n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://www.cod.edu/people/faculty/fancher/Aristotl.htm>.
[2]
Anonymous, . "History of Evolution." The Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. N.p., 14 Apr. 2001. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://www.iep.utm.edu/evolutio/>.
[3]
Cicero, . De natura deorum. London: W. Heinemann, 1933. 179. Web.
30 Apr. 2012. <http://archive.org/stream/denaturadeorumac00ciceuoft#page/178/mode/2up>.
[4] Al-Khalili,
Jim. "Science: Islam's forgotten geniuses." The Telegraph, 29 Jan.
2008. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3323462/Science-Islams-forgotten-geniuses.html>.
[5]
Khaldun, Ibn. "The Muqaddimah." Muslim Philosophy, n.d. Web. 30 Apr.
2012. <http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ik/Muqaddimah/Chapter1/Ch_1_06.htm>.
[6]
Scott, Ian. "History—Influence & Evolution." Ex Nihilo 2.3
July (1979): 17-19. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://creation.com/history-influence-evolution>.
[7]
Ref 6.
[8]
"evolution." Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper,
Historian. 28 Apr. 2012. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/evolution>.
[9]
Dalrymple, G B. The Age of the Earth. N.p.: Stanford University
Press, 1994. 25-27. Web. 30 Apr. 2012.
[10]
Viney, Mike. "Absolute Time Scales: Early Strategies." The Virtual
Petrified Wood Museum, 2008. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://petrifiedwoodmuseum.org/AbsoluteTimeScales.htm>.
[11]
Krogman, Calvin. "de Maillet's Diminution of the Sea as a Failed
Scientific Clock." University of South Dakota, n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://orgs.usd.edu/esci/age/content/failed_scientific_clocks/sea_level.html>.
[12]
Ref 10.
[13]
Bowler, Peter J. Evolution: The History of an Idea. 3rd ed. N.p.:
University of California Press, 2003. 73-75. Web. 30 Apr. 2012.
[14]
Ref 13, p79.
[15]
Larson, Edward J. Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific
Theory. N.p.: Random House Digital, Inc., 2004. 15. Web. 30 Apr. 2012.
[16]
Ref 15, p14-15.
[17]
Ref 13, p75-80.
[18]
Ref 13, p82.
[19]
Ref 13, p51.
[20]
Kant, Immanuel. Kant's Critique of Judgement. Trans. J H. Bernard.
2nd ed. London: Macmillian, 1914. § 80, paragraph 5, footnote 1. The Online
Library of Liberty. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/1217>.
[21]
Kant, Immanuel. Kant’s Prolegomena and Metaphysical Foundations of
Natural Science. Trans. Ernest B. Bax. 2nd ed. London: George Bell and
Sons, 1891. § “Kant’s Position in Philosophy,” paragraph 38. The Online Library
of Liberty. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/361/54840>.
[22]
Darwin, Erasmus. Zoonomia; Or, the Laws of Organic Life. 2nd ed.
London: J. Johnson, 1796. § XXXIX. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15707/15707-h/15707-h.htm#sect_XXXIX>.
[23]
Gould, S.J., The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, p. 138, 2002.
Cited in
Ref 24, p60.
[24]
Bergman, Jerry. "Did Darwin plagiarize his evolution theory?" TJ 16.3
Dec. (2002): 58-63. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j16_3/j16_3_58-63.pdf>.
[25]
Statham, Dominic. "Darwin, Lyell and Origin of Species." Creation
Ministries International, 5 Nov. 2009. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://creation.com/darwin-and-lyell>.
[26]
Darwin, Charles. The Autobiography of Charles Darwin. London:
Collins, 1958. 77. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F1497&viewtype=text&pageseq=1>.
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