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Is Darwinism past its 'sell-by' date?

By Michael Ruse - posted Friday, 13 February 2009


And so finally Darwin comes to embryology. Well known was the fact that the embryos of different organisms - humans and dogs, for instance - are virtually indistinguishable. Here, Darwin goes right into the problem using selection as a tool. Animal breeders care only for the adult forms. Darwin measured the puppies of greyhounds and bulldogs, the foals of carthorses and racehorses, breeds where the adults are very different. To his delight, he found that the puppies and the foals are very, very similar. As in artifice so in nature. The embryos of dog and human have much the same situation and needs; hence, selection does not rip them apart. The adults have very different situations and demands; hence, selection does rip them apart.

So much then for Darwin’s theory of 1859. It was a smashing triumph. For all of the arguments, with scientists and bishops squaring off in public, within a decade almost everyone - with notable exceptions like the American South - was an evolutionist. This applies even to church-goers, who were happy to accept the doctrine, so long as one gives space for immortal souls, not the subject of science anyway.

But now my question is: what about today? Does Darwin’s theory still have legs? Is it still something to which we should subscribe today? Or is it past its “sell-by” date? Is it something that we should admire in a museum, rather like the Ptolemaic system of astronomy that put the earth at the centre of the universe? Is it something we should no longer go on believing in and using as a directive for our researches? In trendy language: is Darwinism an exhausted paradigm?

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The answer is, as so often in life, both yes and no. Not one piece of Darwin’s original argumentation stands untouched, unrefined. Thank goodness! This could only be had evolutionary research stood still for a century and a half. And yet, it is so obviously Darwin’s theory that is alive and well today. Today’s professional evolutionists are Darwinians. The pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus said that you cannot step into the same river twice. That is true. The pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides said that nothing changes. That is also true.

Run quickly through evolutionary theorising today, starting with the fact that as with Darwin it is a consilience of inductions that structures and informs - the living world is explained by evolution through natural selection and conversely the world supports evolution through natural selection. Darwin knew nothing of genetics - at least, he knew nothing right of genetics! Today, starting with the double helix, we have the highly sophisticated theory of molecular biology. With this, evolutionists can peer beneath the surface finding things quite unknown to Darwin.

In the social insects, of which Darwin’s bees are a prime example, we can show the funny genetic relationships between females - queens and workers - brought on by the fact that males have only mothers (their eggs are not fertilised) whereas females have mothers and fathers (their eggs are fertilised). This then lends itself to ask questions about the different castes one finds in some species - soldiers, foragers, nursery attendants, and so forth. The Harvard entomologist Edward O. Wilson has used this information to show how natural selection has ordered the formation of these castes and the proportions of one form to another. Highly Darwinian work, and yet something way beyond the ken of the founder.

In the realm of paleontology, we now know a huge amount hidden from Darwin. Apart from now being able to assign exact dates for events (thanks to our understanding of radioactive decay), we have knowledge far exceeding that of the Origin.

For Darwin and his fellows, the early fossil record - the pre-Cambrian (now thought to extend from the earliest appearance of life, just under four billion years ago, to just over half a billion years ago) - was a blank. Now we have abundant evidence of such life and expectedly it goes from the primitive to the relatively complex. Missing links from Archaeopteryx (the bird-reptile) to Lucy (the small-brained, walking prehuman, Australopithecus afarensis, about four million years old) are abundant. And we know much about causes. The dinosaurs were wiped out by a comet hitting the earth about 65 million years ago. American animal forms were much affected by the joining of the northern and southern continents, leading to the “great interchange”.

Continental drift has of course transformed biogeography. Why do we find fossil specimens of Lystrosaurus, a sluggish Permian reptile, in Africa, in Indian, and on the Antarctic continental mass? It sure didn’t walk and swim to its present places. We find the fossils because these lands were joined and then drifted apart thanks to the actions of plate tectonics. Systematics, anatomy, and embryology are likewise transformed and yet evolution through natural selection is the guiding tool of understanding.

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One of the most incredible findings of the past couple of decades is that there are significant molecular similarities between organisms as different as fruitflies and humans. In these two animals, the genes that control development - the parts and the order of their appearance - are almost identical! Truly organisms are built on the Lego principle. You start with the same simple building blocks and then you make constructions as different as the White House and King Kong, as Drosophila (fruitflies) and Homo sapiens (humans). And evolution through selection did it all.

Think of an analogy. The Volkswagen, the “people’s car,” of Germany in the late 1930s and the Beetle or Bug of today have absolutely no parts in common. And yet, no one seeing photos of the two could have any doubt whatsoever that these are exactly the same car. Likewise, the theory of the Origin of 1859 and the theory of the professional evolutionist of 2009 have absolutely no parts in common. And yet, no one looking at the two can have any doubt whatsoever that these are exactly the same theory. That is why we celebrate Charles Darwin today and that is why his theory is far from past its “sell-by” date. Not by a long shot!

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Michael Ruse, the Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University will be speaking at Sydney Ideas, the University of Sydney’s international public lecture series on Tuesday, February 17, 2009. On Monday, February 16, 2009, he will also be officially opening Accidental Encounters, the University of Sydney’s Macleay Museum Darwin exhibition. First published in the Sydney Morning Herald on February 12, 2009.



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About the Author

Michael Ruse is the Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy, Florida State University, Florida, USA.

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