Here are some thoughts on what factors provided the fertile ground for Darwinian evolutionary theory to appear plausible when it was published in 1859. This is followed by some of the problems raised at the time the theory was published, showing that they have all become more acute, rather than being resolved, since 1859. The net result is that “variation and natural selection” as the origin of species is now thoroughly implausible, and remains a consensus only by academic inertia.
What made the theory plausible
- There can be no doubt that the overarching factor in the popular acceptance of Darwin’s theory (before it gained wide acceptance among scientists) was the metaphysical attraction of materialist naturalism in the 19th century. That shaped the entire project. A credible theory of naturalistic evolution was needed as the only rational alternative to God: Epicurus was in vogue, but needed some scientific backing.
- The rise of palaeontology – Richard Owen, Mary Anning and so on – showed that there had been radical changes in biota in earth’s history. It also confirmed that extinctions had happened, which many philosophers had formerly believed impossible.
- Charles Lyell’s gradualist geology, highly influential on Charles Darwin, encouraged belief in the governing role of current processes over deep time. It cast doubt on the rival catastrophism based on a worldwide Noachic flood (though his theories proved to be compatible with catastrophism: we now know of multiple mass-extinctions). Lyell’s deep time was not really a theological problem, contrary to anti-Christian propaganda: most thinking Christians then accommodated Gap Theory to their biblical understanding. But seeing gradualism as a strict denial of catastrophism made biological gradualism, too, seem to be “the way things are.”
- The rough correlation of the biota in the fossil record with the geological timeline suggested a progression of species. The fact that this loosely correlated with Linnaean nested hierarchies (which had been built on the theological principle of plenitude, ie common design, not evolution), led to the attractive concept of a rational progress of change. Hence the varying models of Buffon, Lamarck, Erasmus Darwin and Herbert Spencer. Most of these postulated a teleological idea of evolution as an “unfolding” of what was inherent, and though Darwin’s mechanism was intrinsically random, their influence led him to picture natural selection as a quasi-intelligent agent of ever-increasing perfection, conducive to the Victorian myth of progress.
- The recognition of heritable variation and “survival of the fittest” by Darwin, Wallace and others made gradualist evolution plausible in the context of Lyell’s geological gradualism. The influence of Thomas Malthus on both Darwin and Wallace radicalised the concept of biological struggle to a ruling principle of nature, despite early refutations of Malthus like those of Whitley Stokes (1821) which have proven to be justified.
- In a related area, I suggested in my book God’s Good Earth that the pervasive influence of the Promethean myth since the Renaissance initiated a cosmic-fall theology that carried over into “red in tooth and claw” Darwinism. Seeing nature as fallen and cruel had become nearly universal, and a Malthusian theory of nature accorded with that, even as it rejected a historical Adam as the cause.
- One seldom noted factor is the escalation of “scientific” selective breeding in the industrial revolution, which drew attention to the production of “varieties.” This also, of course, led Darwin to use it as the model for his natural equivalent, and gardeners, poodle-owners and pigeon-fanciers everywhere to relate easily to the idea.
Inherent weaknesses that have reduced Darwinism’s plausibility
So the time was as ripe for a theory of evolution by natural selection as it was for Freudian psychology or biblical Higher Criticism. Yet Darwin was aware of many serious problems raised by critics against his theory: one writer has numbered 39 of them. Some were major challenges for him, and he used a number of rhetorical devices in Origin of Species to minimise their force. Here are some of them, together with how they have only become more substantial with increased knowledge, rather than being answered by science as Darwin hoped.
- The final demise of spontaneous generation by Pasteur, not long after the Origin was published, left the formation of life an unanswerable question. It has become increasingly unanswerable as the stringent extrinsic and intrinsic requirements for life have been understood. Not only has Darwin’s “warm little pool” dried up as a credible root for his tree of life, but the mathematical improbabilities feed through, in various ways, to the whole theory. For example, if the conditions for life to begin are so improbable, why should any organisms at all survive to be selected? Divine creation is no less likely.
- Although Darwin used plant and animal breeding as his main analogy, the severe limits on adaptation were recognised by breeders. Species have strict limits, and the closer selective breeding approaches them, the more fitness suffers. Nothing has changed in relation to this, and the problem has only increased by an understanding of developmental biology and micro-evolutionary processes. Mutation and selection is either gradual and trivial, within strict limits, or catastrophically lethal.
- The lack of gradualism in the fossil record was one of the problems Darwin recognised as potentially a defeater for his theory:
“That the geological record is imperfect all will admit; but that it is imperfect to the degree required by our theory, few will be inclined to admit.” And “He who rejects this view of the imperfection of the geological record, will rightly reject the whole theory.”
This issue has not been solved, but rather accentuated by subsequent palaeontology, which through collector’s curves, the pattern of stasis/extinction, and so on, demonstrates that the fossil record is, though incomplete, adequately representative. But it shows even fewer signs of gradualism and genuine intermediate forms than appeared the case in Darwin’s time. If we take his own advice, we will “rightly reject the whole theory” on this basis alone.
- The abrupt appearance of new forms of life in the fossil record was a related problem for Charles Darwin. But examples have only multiplied since. Apart from the Cambrian explosion or flowering plants, issues he himself raised, virtually every new form appears out of the blue, fully specialised, either without fossil precursors or with ambiguities that regularly yield alternative phylogenies. Consequently the science of cladistics, on principle, never deals with precursors and descendants, but only sister species from a hypothetical stem. And his own examples have become more problematic with, for example, Burgess Shale type deposits showing the abrupt change from Ediacarian to Cambrian biota in exquisite detail.
- The challenge of irreducible complexity raised by Darwin (though he did not use the term) remains a vulnerability for evolutionary gradualism. Darwin made life difficult for critics who questioned the ability of his theory to explain complex structures, by challenging them to show it could not happen – though science cannot prove a negative. But complex interdependent structures have been demonstrated in a pervasive fashion as biological mechanisms, with nothing approaching adequate evidence that they could have arisen by “successive gradual changes.”
- The quasi-magical powers of variation/selection described in the Origin were questioned by critics from the start. Darwin’s optimism is now rejected by mainstream biologists. “Evolution is a tinkerer,” they say, capable of producing only the minimum necessary to survive. Yet Darwin’s observations of perfect adaptation are found to be more ubiquitous than ever, sometimes reaching the limits of what is physically possible, without an adequate Darwinian mechanism.
- The inadequacy of Darwin’s millions of years for the development of the whole panoply of life was raised by some in his own time. Those doubts have now been quantified mathematically, for example by the measurable rates of beneficial mutations over even billions of years.
- Darwin could only explain beauty in nature by ad hoc epicycles to his theory like sexual selection. This raises more problems than it solves, as his colleague Wallace pointed out. Meanwhile beauty is found to permeate even the microscopic and ecological levels.
- Darwin was also troubled by unlikely similarities between widely disparate species. Now, this so-called “convergence” has only become a bigger problem with increased knowledge. There are, for example, cases of the multiple use of similar genes for specialised functions like echo-location in unrelated creatures. Darwin’s own example of the eye is now thought to have evolved independently between 40 and 60 times, which pushes the power of blind mutation and selection to magical dimensions.
- Conversely Darwin also found similar functions to be served by different organs in closely related species, which strongly militates against recent common descent. This problem has only increased with current knowledge of, for example, fundamentally different embryological pathways in vertebrates, or ORFAN genes in every new genome decoded.
- Explaining complex instincts caused Darwin headaches. This has only been compounded by increased knowledge of unique animal behaviours, and the lack of the ability of genetics to account for them. Since genes do not code for complex behaviours, genetic mutation and natural selection cannot account for them either.
In summary, I’m hard put to it to find even one problem that Charles Darwin acknowledged for his theory that has been solved rather than getting worse since 1859. I’m open to suggestions if any reader can think of one. Knowledge has of course increased: the source of inheritance proved to be the genome rather than Darwin’s “gemmules,” but gemmules were only his hypothesis of heredity, not a problem. It seems to me the problems remain problems, only more so. Consequently, I don’t find any logical reason to accept the theory, and nor do I find any of the proposals for an “extended evolutionary synthesis” to be any better.
To be candid, this is no longer the nineteenth century, and I don’t see any need for evolution, when a perfectly adequate God is proving to be a “necessary hypothesis” in every area of life the Victorians questioned.
