charles_darwin

8
CHARLES DARWIN AND THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES
particularly shocking today—and this fact suggests that Darwin’s ideas
are common knowledge, which are accepted by most—but in the
nineteenth century, these ideas revolutionized scientific thought and
the field of biology. Before Darwin, most people in the West believed
that all forms of plant and animal life were created by a single creator
who had a specific purpose in mind. There was nothing accidental
about this creation: random mutations or variations could not explain
the appearance of species. If those same people were asked to explain
what they meant by a ‘‘purposeful creator,’’ they would have replied
that the God of the Bible had created the world as a home for humans
or something similar. Darwin presented evidence that contradicted the
thesis about the activity of a creator; he argued that life on Earth was
the result of the same kinds of laws that cause the attraction of one
object in the universe to another. There was no person ‘‘running the
show.’’ There were simply laws of nature at work.
Darwin’s explanation for the origins of life is a naturalistic one
(hence, the philosophy associated with it is called naturalism).
Instead of relying on forces outside of or beyond human knowledge,
Darwin proposed that scientists investigate processes and laws that
humans could identify. In The Origin of Species, natural selection is
the process that enables various forms of life to change from a particular
form to a different one. (Darwin called these changes ‘‘descent
by modification’’ rather than evolution.) In The Descent of Man, sexual
selection is the means by which various species preserve characteristics
that will enable them and their descendants to survive. In
1905, Hugo de Vries (1848–1935), one of the botanists who discovered
the forgotten work of Gregor Mendel on heredity, summarized
the importance of Darwin this way:
Newton convinced his contemporaries that natural laws rule the
whole universe. Lyell showed, by his principle of slow and gradual
evolution, that natural laws have reigned since the beginning
of time. To Darwin we owe the almost universal acceptance of
the theory of descent. This doctrine is one of the most noted
landmarks in the advance of science. It teaches the validity of
natural laws of life in its broadest sense, and crowns the philosophy,
founded by Newton and Lyell. 16
Through his theories, Darwin completely rearranged humanity’s
place in the universe. While Darwin made no claims to be a philosopher,
his theory about the origin of species had major implications
for the way in which people in the nineteenth century viewed themselves
and the world around them. (One way to think about this
change is to imagine Darwin saying, ‘‘Let’s just imagine life beginning