history has been an almost insatiable need to question
ourselves in an attempt to find answers to the unknowable
aspects of our lives.We appear to require meaning, to
know where we are from and what we are doing here.The
religions of the world have dealt with these traits of
human nature by providing systems of understanding
which are based on faith and belief. Since the beginnings
of modern science during the Renaissance, when the
knowledge of the Greeks was rediscovered, this has led to
a conflict of ideas between theology and rationality.This is
nowhere more apparent than in the continuing debate
over what is now generally called Darwinian evolution,
after the man who has become the figurehead of a revolutionary
change in human thought.
As revolutionaries go, Charles Darwin cuts an unlikely
figure: a Victorian country gentleman of independent
means, an amateur naturalist, a devoted husband and
father. He is not often compared to his near contemporary
Karl Marx, but the impact of the publication of The Origin
of Species was nothing short of revolutionary in the influence
it would go on to have on the biological sciences and,more generally, on how we as human beings perceive
ourselves and our place in the world.
In the history of thought, few theories have had such a
fundamental effect on humanity or been so controversial.
Darwinian evolution provoked a furious response from its
critics when the Origin was first published in 1859 and
now, 150 years later, the debate continues, and the positions
on both sides of the argument seem as intractable
and entrenched as they have ever been. Perhaps it is a sign
of the importance of the issues at stake, which go to the
heart of what it means to be human, that what is essentially
the same argument has gone on for so long, particularly
as the evidence in favour of evolution is now so
overwhelming.
At the heart of Darwin’s work was the theory of variation
by natural selection, which he outlined in the Origin.
The theory itself is really quite straightforward and can be
expressed simply in a few lines. Recalling the first time he
read about natural selection, Thomas Huxley, Darwin’s
great public defender, remembered being astonished at
how obvious it was once he had read about it and how
stupid he had been for not thinking of it himself.The idea
of evolution – the notion that species of animals and
plants changed over time – was not, in fact, new at all
during Darwin’s day. It had been put forward in the eighteenth
century by, among others, Buffon and Lamarck,
the leading French naturalists of their day. Darwin’s own
grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, had also written on the
subject. The difference between previous ideas about
evolution and Darwin’s theory was that, in natural selec-tion, Darwin provided a mechanism by which change in
species could occur entirely by natural means.This is what
sets Darwin’s work apart from the speculative theories of
his predecessors and why it has come to be so crucially
important.
This may seem something of an overstatement of the
impact of a theory which describes how the variety of life
on our planet has arisen, but there can be no doubt of its
continuing relevance. At a time when we are having an
unprecedented effect on our environment, Darwin’s ideas
that all of the natural world belongs to what he called a
‘tree of life’ – with each branch being connected to
another and humanity being an integral part of the whole
rather than separate and above it – are as important now
as they have ever been. The Earth, Darwin showed us, is
not simply there to be exploited for our own gain, but is
at the centre of a system on which all life, including our
own, depends.
As both the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth and the
150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of
Species approaches, it is, perhaps, as good a time as any to
look back at Darwin’s life and work and to consider its
continuing relevance. But this book is not intended to be
a straightforward biography of the man or a book about
the science of evolution, although it contains relevant
details of both. My aim is to trace the development of
Darwin’s theory and to place it within the context of the
period in which he was working.
As a starting point, I have chosen to begin in 1859, with
what I have called ‘Darwin’s Big Year’, the year that heturned fifty and that the Origin, his major work and the
book that changed the world, was published. From there,
the book goes back to his early life to examine those
important events leading him towards natural selection,
particularly the five years he spent on board HMS Beagle,
an experience which had a profound influence on him and
which laid the foundations of the work he would continue
to do for the rest of his life.
The book goes on to look at evolution after Darwin,
how it moved forward and was, in some cases, misappropriated.
It then considers why it remains so controversial
today. Perhaps it is a symptom of the fractured times we
live in that those who refuse to accept Darwinian evolution
use a version of the argument from design in an
attempt to discredit it.This argument – that the complexity
of the natural world could only have arisen through the
actions of a designer, or God by any other name – was
current more than two hundred years ago. It has been
shown to be unsustainable any number of times, including
by Darwin himself, but it continues to resurface again and
again. The main area of conflict has been the American
courts where legal battles have raged over whether
creationism can be taught alongside evolution in the classroom,
going back to the so-called ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’
in 1925 and continuing today in Louisiana, which has
recently passed a law to allow the use of creationist textbooks
in its schools.
In recent years a counter offensive has developed
among the opponents of Christian fundamentalism, who
see religion as having a dangerous and damaging influenceon society. The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins
has been at the forefront of this counter offensive and,
although the argument has been about more than just
evolution, the theories articulated by Darwin 150 years
ago remain at its core. It is for this reason, and because of
the need to increase our understanding and appreciation
of the world in which we live, that this book examines the
origins of evolution and the arguments which continue to
surround it.
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