In Darwin's Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace ...

206 / In Darwin’s Shadow
Let Theory Guide Your Observations
Once the Origin of Species was published in 1859, Darwin’s confidence grew
as converts confessed their faith to the new doctrine. At the BAAS annual
meeting in which the Origin was savaged for being too theoretical and that
he should have just let the facts speak for themselves, Darwin’s response that
“all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!”
revealed a philosophy of science that included a balance between data and
theory. 11 Of course, there were a lot of metaphysical, deductive ideas floating
around the cultural landscape of which Darwin was quite critical, so he cautioned
about finding the right balance between theory and data. “I would
suggest to you the advantage, at present, of being very sparing in introducing
theory in your papers; let theory guide your observations, but till your reputation
is well established, be sparing of publishing theory. It makes persons
doubt your observations.” 12
What was important to Darwin was not induction, but verification by subsequent
observation. “I had therefore only to verify and extend my views by
a careful examination of coral reefs,” he once explained in reference to his
correct deduction of the evolution of coral reefs in which, in an act of brilliant
historical science, Darwin reasoned that the different types of coral reefs did
not represent different entities with different causes, but the same entity at
different stages of development. And he did this before ever seeing one! “No
other work of mine was begun in so deductive a spirit as this; for the whole
theory was thought out on the west coast of S. America before I had seen a
true coral reef.” 13 But, more important, when Darwin did see a coral reef it
confirmed his theory. In other words, theory came first, then the data. It was
not pure induction, but it was good science, at least to some people, including
Thomas Huxley, who must have been at his wit’s end when he penned this
harangue against the philosophers who pontificated on science, but had never
practiced it themselves: “There cannot be a doubt that the method of inquiry
which Mr. Darwin has adopted is not only rigorously in accord with the
canons of scientific logic, but that it is the only adequate method. Critics
exclusively trained in classics or in mathematics, who have never determined
a scientific fact in their lives by induction from experiment or observation,
prate learnedly about Mr. Darwin’s method, which is not inductive enough,
not Baconian enough, forsooth for them.” 14
Alfred Russel Wallace is a case in point of someone who devoted years to
determining scientific facts by induction from observation, but who, in fact,
converted to evolution long before he ever set foot in the tropics. “The human
mind cannot go on for ever accumulating facts which remain unconnected
and without any mutual bearing and bound together by no law,” 15 he wrote.