Trust in Darwin?
It’s the beginning of the academic year, which means students – hundreds of them, with their haircuts and their baggy skinny jeans and their enthusiasm. Indeed, I’ve just seen one of our zoology undergrads in a ‘Trust in Darwin’ T-Shirt, which reminded me of the uneasy feeling I occasionally felt during last year’s Darwinfest – the dual anniversary of the birth of a great man, and of the publication of his seminal work 50 years later.
Let me explain. I would never dispute Darwin’s exceptional qualities, difficult though they are to pin down. For instance, last autumn I saw Jim Moore, co-author of Darwin’s Sacred Cause, present his thesis that Darwin drew his motivation from his moral drive, and that his firm abolitionist stance was key in the development of his ideas of a single family of all human races (and by extension all of life).
I found this a pretty convincing argument; just as, a few weeks before, I had been convinced by Phil Rainbow from the Natural History Museum, who had argued Darwin’s painstaking study of barnacles – culminating in a series of monographs that are still widely consulted – was the real making of him. Surely, studying repeated patterns in the morphology of these atypical crustaceans might easily have stimulated his thoughts on common descent?
In the end, I concluded that what made Darwin exceptional was in fact this combination of qualities – the zeal of the moral crusader, the patience of the brilliant natural historian, the analytical mindset of the natural born scientist. He had the good fortune to be an educated gentleman during a particularly receptive period for new ideas, but his skills, insight and dedication turned these advantages into a series of works of global significance.
So clearly, it is right to celebrate the life and work of Charles Darwin. But the whole ‘Trust in Darwin’ thing concerns me, and seems indicative of the continued conflation in many peoples’ minds of man and his oeuvre with the entire science of evolutionary biology. This is evident wherever creationists venture, using ‘Darwinist’ as a term of abuse, and gleefully pointing out errors or inconsistencies in Darwin’s 150 year old work. Personally I don’t think this is helped by the kind of reverence in which Darwin is held by a certain vintage of evolutionary biologist – you know, the middle-aged professor who fancies himself (it is always a him) as an old school Victorian gentleman naturalist.
This is unfortunate because – whisper it – Darwin’s not actually that relevant to the 21st Century student of evolutionary biology. Of course, to put the subject in historical context his works remain invaluable. Likewise, career-defining papers are still occasionally written on the basis of an untested hypothesis dredged from his notebooks. But for an overview of what we know about evolutionary biology, Darwin is probably the last place to look. Skip along the library shelf just a little bit, and you’d find the book that served me as an undergraduate primer in evolution – Richard Dawkins’ The Blind Watchmaker. There are plenty of others, with Steve Jones’ Almost Like a Whale particularly notable as it copies the structure of On The Origin of Species, simply updating every chapter with over a century of scientific progress.
And this is a crucial point, one that gets lost in an overly fawning appreciation of Darwin. It is a key difference between a scientific viewpoint and a faith-based position. Science allows no room for sentiment, and has no sacred texts. Darwin was brilliant, insightful, but not infrequently plain wrong, for instance on the matter of the mechanism of heredity. It is not heretical to point out these errors, and it is a strength of evolutionary theory that it has constantly, incrementally improved over 150 years.
So while it is right that Darwin’s anniversaries should be celebrated, let’s not fall into the cult of the personality, the fetishisation of his name as something to ‘trust’. We are, after all, supposed to be on the shoulders of giants, looking onwards, not at their feet, looking up.
If there are any students of Tom’s reading this – please turn up to your next lecture from him wearing a "Trust in Webb" t-shirt.
Steve Shapin utters the very same sentiment in the London Review of Books in a piece called "The Darwin Show". Read it here: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n01/steven-shapin/the-darwin-show
Bob – that would, of course, be perfectly reasonable of them!
Bart – thanks for the link, which I will read when I have something approaching reliable Internet access. It is, of course, one of the perils of writing what you think – chances are, someone cleverer has got there sooner!
Tom — My comment was in no way an attempt to delegitimise your thoughts. Writing what you think is what most of us try. We tend to do it for the benefit of many different audiences. That something similar is out there, usually does not mean that the people reading your thoughts, have read someone else’s too. Nature Network and the London Review of Books serve (very) different publics.
Bart – having now safely arrived in Australia, and so having had the chance to read Shapin’s excellent, learned and insightful piece, I can only say I’m very flattered by the connection!
You’re welcome
As the wearer of the "Trust in Darwin" t-shirt in the photo I feel I should at least make some comment! The idea behind it was simply to have a little bit of a jibe at the expensive of the outwardly overzealous Christians who walk around wearing "trust in Jesus" t-shirts, nothing more. A little more sense of humor perhaps?
Hi chris, and thanks for the comment. I got the joke of the tshirt, and I hope my post didn’t come across as too po-faced. The point I was trying to make was that taking the piss out of the extremely religious risks playing into their hands – they want to characterise ‘darwinism’ as a faith, to legitimise their own. But maybe I’m over-intellectualising again – have been travelling for well over 24 hours nonstop, so thinking is not easy!
Perhaps we should have one that says at the top:
"Trust in Darwin"
and then below, in contrast colour:
"- but ALWAYS question his ideas
PS: that’s science"
Or a big heart that says: I can’t stop thinking about Darwin.
Yes you make a fair point about playing into their hands. I dont think its a good idea to antagonise them too much (but everyone needs a little entertainment now and then!).
I did recently hear an american preacher in town accusing England of idolising Darwin (although i’m not sure he was making a scientific point about looking at the work not the man, or just accusing us of the worship of false idols…i would guess the latter!).
Science and religeon should stay absolutly seperate (in my opinion) although many people comfotably handle both, and are not worse scientists. As long as the science isnt affected I suppose there isnt any harm. There seems to be a trend within our community to get overly agressive and angry with religeon (although it is at the very least mirrored in their camp), and i’m afraid I often stray into this territory.
Anyway now im just blabbering, ill leave it at that.
Or how about, ‘Trust in the hypothetico-deductive process, as employed so successfully by Darwin, amongst others’?
Maybe we should get Viktor on the case?
haha, i like the sound of that.