charles_darwin

The Reception of Darwin’s Theories, 1859–1920
The first major opportunity to ‘‘debate’’ this question in public
occurred at the British Association meeting. In fact, this famous incident
was not a debate in the sense that ideas were argued back and
forth: the participants gave a series of speeches. Furthermore, the
eyewitness accounts of the ‘‘debate’’ vary. Two of the protagonists,
Huxley and Wilberforce, both left the meeting thinking that his position
had triumphed.
Some of the details of the meeting are indisputable. The debate
occurred at a session of the meeting dealing with botany and zoology.
John William Draper (1811–1882), an American scientist who
was the president of City University of New York, read a paper entitled
‘‘On the Intellectual Development of Europe, Considered with
Reference to the Views of Mr. Darwin.’’ (In 1874, Draper published
one of the best-known nineteenth-century books describing the supposed
clash between science and religion, History of the Conflict
between Religion and Science: it was more a diatribe against religion
and for the preeminence of science than a history.) Because there
were more than seven hundred people packed into the room, including
Oxford professors, Oxford students, and visiting scientists, the
session had to be moved to a larger room. Draper’s paper lasted more
than an hour and, with the introductory speeches, the session had
been going for two hours by the time Samuel Wilberforce stood up
to reply to Draper. The room was stuffy. Wilberforce pontificated
elegantly—his smooth speaking style had earned him the nickname
‘‘Soapy Sam’’—but many of the scientists present thought he had
been coached by Richard Owen, a known opponent of Darwin’s
theory. Wilberforce repeated most of the arguments he used in his
as-yet-unpublished review of The Origin of Species. Then Wilberforce,
probably in an attempt to lighten the mood of the audience, made a
flippant comment asking whether Thomas Huxley had descended
from an ape on his grandfather or grandmother’s side. (Darwin had
said nothing about man’s descent from apes in The Origin of Species.)
Huxley gave a impassioned response to Wilberforce, which included
saying that he would rather have descended from apes than misuse
the talents he had by injecting ridicule into a serious scientific
debate. Although Huxley thought he had been convincing, most of
the audience either could not hear what he said or were not persuaded
by his arguments. More effective was the speech of Joseph
Hooker who addressed Wilberforce’s points one by one and pointed
out that Wilberforce’s arguments suggested that he had not read The
Origin of Species. Among the other speakers was FitzRoy, now Admiral
FitzRoy, who begged the audience to adhere to the account of
creation in the Bible: he was shouted down.
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