charles_darwin

88
CHARLES DARWIN AND THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES
the town of Darwin’s birth, recognize: the commonness of Darwin,
perhaps?
Darwin definitely sells. The number of books dealing with the
life, ideas, and impact of Darwin is so voluminous that more than
one commentator has called these analyses ‘‘the Darwin industry.’’
Talking about Darwin or seeming to talk about Darwin draws
attention to the speaker. For example, the book Darwinian Dominion:
Animal Welfare and Human Interests (1999) is actually about animal
rights but putting ‘‘Darwinian’’ in the title makes the book seem
more appealing. Social Darwinism and the dominance of one species
over another, ideas addressed in Darwinian Dominion, are more accurately
associated with Herbert Spencer and Francis Galton. Charles
Darwin was not a Social Darwinist. Darwin’s theory, however, has
had such an impact on everything from zoology to ethics that ‘‘Darwinian’’
is a beginning point for a discussion of what is good or bad
about society.
The debates about Creationism or Intelligent Design or Saltationism
or Punctuated Equilibrium may have less to do with Darwin
or the theory of evolution and much more to do with understanding
or explaining the place of humankind in the world and the universe.
2 Humans may seem superior to all other species, but Darwin
suggests in The Origin of Species, and states explicitly in The Descent
of Man, that humankind is not that much different or better than the
other animals on the planet. Darwin’s theories confirm that the special
place of humankind is only in its skills. Compared with the long
periods of time in which the Earth evolved, and the vast size of the
universe, humankind is quite small.
The Continuing Significance of Charles Darwin and
The Origin of Species
What would Darwin have thought about the continuing use
and misuse of his name and his ideas? He would have been pleased
and displeased. Commenting on the time when he heard that Adam
Sedgwick thought he would become a leading scientist, Darwin said
I clambered over the mountains of Ascension [Island] with a
bounding step, and made the volcanic rocks resound under my
geological hammer. All this shows how ambitious I was; but I
think that I can say with truth that in after years, though I cared
in the highest degree for the approbation of such men as Lyell
and Hooker, who were my friends, I did not care much about