In a letter to his friend the
botanist Joseph Hooker, Charles Darwin said he thought the theory of “the common
descent of species” (i.e., the general theory of evolution) “is the more
important point” as compared to his theory of natural selection. And the
widespread belief in the theory of evolution “may be fairly attributed in large
part to the ‘Origin.’”
Yes, Darwin’s book certainly
deserves some of the credit, but not all the credit and I would not even give
it the lion’s share of the credit. At the very least an equal share must go to
Robert Chambers’s Vestiges of the Natural
History of Creation (1844). The book went through ten editions before
Darwin’s Origin was published. (Though
published anonymously, by 1847 most scientists were pretty sure Chambers was
the author.) Not only was it enormously popular and turned on many people,
including many budding scientists, to evolutionary theory (the development
hypothesis, as it was then called), but we have suppressed its major
accomplishment: It proved that the transmutation of species was the better
explanation for the variety of life we see on this planet.
Before Darwin ever published a
word on this, Chambers presented much of the same evidence that Darwin was
already working on, but would not publish for another 15 years. Chambers saw
that embryos, commonality of structures (such as the bones in a human hand and
in a bat’s wing), artificial selection, and more made it more likely that
species descended from other species than that each species was specially
created. Evolution as an explanation of life had greater probability going for
it.
Was Chambers as rigorous or
methodical a thinker as Darwin? No. Could he have been clearer and more
thorough? Yes. But these are not the issues. The questions are: Did Chambers do
it, did he prove greater probability for the development hypothesis, and did he
use the right evidence to make his proof compelling and correct? The answer is a
resounding yes to all three of these questions. Yet he has never been given the
credit he deserves.
Just to give one intriguing
example of how unfair everyone has been to Chambers, in his follow-up book, Explanations (1846), Chambers spent some
time explaining why John Stuart Mill’s ideas on logic were so important to
development theory. It was correct procedure to formulate a hypothesis based on
a little bit of data and then scan nature for more evidence that could be
explained by the hypothesis. When Darwin’s book came out, Mill praised it as
logically sound and friends of Darwin reported this to him. He was thrilled. He
took it as another sign that he was on the right path. Everyone simply forgot
that Chambers had been there a dozen years earlier.
Why this unjust shunning of
Chambers? Part of it is undoubtedly that Darwin became an icon within his own
lifetime and no one wanted to detract from that saintly status by dragging
Chambers into it. But I think that there is a more profound reason. Chambers had
something in common with other exponents of evolution, such as Erasmus Darwin
(grandfather of Charles), Constantine Rafinesque, Georg Gerland, and others.
They were all more interested in the moral and spiritual consequences of the
theory than in the cause. They understood evolutionary theory as giving an
important boost to humanitarianism. It should teach us tolerance and love. It
should teach us that all life is one and interconnected.
Most of Darwin’s supporters and
Darwin himself were more interested in how evolution could be used to support
Britain’s imperialism. One dominant species over all was a lesson Darwin was
quick to draw. Chambers and others would stress that all God’s creatures, even
the smallest and weakest, have a place in the sun—a deserved place in the
scheme of things. Darwin did not see it that way. He was more into ranking
organisms (“groups subordinate to groups” as he frequently says in Origin) and he had no problem with the extermination
of groups, even Europeans exterminating native peoples.
So let’s remember why we erase
people from history. It is not always because their accomplishments were
somehow less. It is often because we are afraid of their greater insights into
morality and the spirit of mankind. And maybe too their science was better than it was made out to be.
© 2019 Leon Zitzer
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