Lamarck theorised it, Wallace independently discovered it, and Spencer coined its most famous phrase. So why, then, is Darwin synonymous with evolution? Peter J. Bowler’s ‘Darwin’s Originality’ suggests natural selection sets Darwin apart, and explores how the ability to synthesise ideas made for both an original and, all too often, controversial figure.[1]
Many take Darwin’s originality for granted today, and forget how truly revolutionary it was in the 19th century. The Tree of Life, his idea that life diverges unceasingly into separate branches of new species (or extinction), rather than converging towards a common (often divine) goal, seems obvious today, yet its idea of common descent was so repugnant in the 19th century that it spawned a wave of alternative theories, some circular, others linear, but always with an attempt to move away from Darwin’s divergent, unending, and unguided theory.
Why was Darwinism resisted so? We might understand the religious or psychological objections to a lack of teleology and the divine, though the concept of death as nature’s creative force is also up there as its most disagreeable feature. After all, Darwinism itself states we strive for survival by nature, so the idea of progression through elimination (of the least fit individuals in a population) is not a surprising target for resistance, though it is interesting how he came to the conclusion.
People have many ideas about Darwin’s key influences; Lyell’s biogeography, the Beagle voyage, slavery, animal breeders, Malthus’ Principle of Population. In reality, it’s likely all had some impact. Darwin was a master at synthesising ideas to come up with new (and controversial) conclusions, and what led to death being identified as nature’s selective agent was the way in which animal breeders knowingly forced trait changes in captive animals. It highlighted that in nature, species are just interbreeding individuals, and without a breeder there must be something to replace the agent of evolution. It was only when Darwin’s genius connected these observations to Malthus’ “struggle for existence” that it dawned on him; survivorship was that substitute for breeders. Similarly, combining Lyell’s biogeography to his observations on the Galapagos Islands culminated in the Tree of Life, and reinforced natural selection by explaining the similarities between groups of species, or indeed, groups within groups. These observations jolted even Darwin’s critics into reassessing their train of thought.
Yet still, in modernity, Darwin is as famous as he is infamous, and while this highlights how inimical his originality towards traditional foundations, it is also often the result of misinterpretation and misrepresentation. Reflecting the way Darwin’s ideas get misinterpreted, “social Darwinism”, understood as natural selection applied to social politics, is really just a teleological conflation of Lamarck’s “inheritance of acquired characteristics” with Spencer’s competitive and adaptive progress. Worse still, attaching Darwinism to atrocities in history (such as Nazi human artificial selection) is an exploitive misrepresentation unfortunately resonating to this day with those who do not, and may never, fully understand the theory.
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