Over the Bones of the Dead (by Ted Hall)

7/29/2019 Over the Bones of the Dead (by Ted Hall)

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Over the Bones of the

Dead

Evolutionary SciencePast, Present & Future


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Published by Hallograph Publishers

PO Box 317

Rainier, Washington 98576

http://www.biofractalevolution.com

Cover photo by Ted Hall, Jr.

Copyright 2003-2005 Theodore Hall


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Drive your cart and your plow

over the bones of the dead.

William Blake


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Table of Contents

Introduction

I

CHAPTER 1

The Fall of Creationism3

CHAPTER 2

The Means of EvolutionLamarck toDarwin..13

CHAPTER 3

The Selection and De-selection of NaturalSelection23

CHAPTER 4

Pangenesis and the Origin of Neo-Darwinism.33


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II

CHAPTER 5

The Neo in Neo-Darwinism43

CHAPTER 6

The Salvational Mission of Neo-Darwinism..53

CHAPTER 7

The Malthusian Wolf in Darwinian

Clothing..65

III

CHAPTER 8

The Death and After-Life of Neo-Darwinism..77


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CHAPTER 9

The Emerging Synthesis of Darwinism &Symbiosis.89

CHAPTER 10

The End of Darwinism...99

CHAPTER 11

Fractal EvolutionA Template for Post-Darwinian Evolutionary Science...111

Afterword.123

References...129

Bibliography137


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INTRODUCTION

As I get older and more aware of theswiftness of the passage of time, the past

seems not so remote as it once seemed.

It was only yesterday that we Western

peoples were, like many of the Islamic

peoples today, bound by theocratic chains,

in servitude to the doctrine that a bible

commanded into existence by the RomanEmperor Constantine was the one and only

God-authorized reference book on reality.

We call that time the Dark Ages.

Only yesterday, in the Age of Reason,did the freeing of the West begin. The very

reasonable basis of the libertarian movementwas the conviction that a proper study of the

Creator begins with study of the creation

the works of God and not the supposedWord of God. In the words of Thomas

Paine: The Word of God is the creation we

behold; and it is this word, which no human

invention can counterfeit or alter, that Godspeaketh universally to man.

One of the liberating philosophies isno longer remembered, much, though the


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future will not only remember it, but revere

it as the first budding of an understanding

that would one day flower into theholographic theory of universe. It was

called "deism," from the Latin for god

deus. The basic idea of deism is that

Providence (the deists' preferred name forGod) distributes its power universally, or

"non-locally" as the new physicists say, notthrough certain authorized channels, namely

church and state. The deists held that every

life form is invested with "sovereignty"--thepower of Providence.

The other liberating philosophy is

familiar to us under the name "science." Noone did more to separate scientific

investigation from theological scholasticism

than Sir Isaac Newton, the founder of

classical physics. Newton, the most

prestigious and influential scientist of his

time, was president of the Royal Society

from 1703 to 1727, the year of his death.

As Stephen Hawking observes in his

A Brief History of Time, Newton was also

known for his hatred of the Catholic Church.

In this, Sir Isaac was heir to the extreme

prejudice of philosopher Thomas Hobbes,

who, in Leviathan, wrote: "From the timethat the Bishop of Rome had gotten to be


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acknowledged for [as] bishop universal, by

pretense of succession to St. Peter, their [the

Church's] whole hierarchy, or kingdom ofdarkness, may be compared not unfittingly

to the kingdom of fairies; that is, to the old

wives' fables in England, concerning ghosts

and spirits, and the feats they play in thenight. And if a man considers the original of

this great ecclesiastical dominion, he willeasily perceive that the Papacy is no other

than the ghost of the deceased Roman

empire, sitting crowned upon the gravethereof...."

Newton succeeded in terminating

ecclesiastical influence in the field ofphysics, but the all-important field of

biology remained disputed territory until just

yesterday ... when the Darwinian vision of

life superceded the Bible-based vision,

which had served as the Wests foundationalparadigm for a very long time.

Foundational paradigms are very

important, to say the least. The character

and life of a civilization are governed by the

foundational paradigm adopted by that

civilization. A foundational paradigm sets

the game, so to speak, that we all must play,

or run away from.


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Over the Bones of the Deadis offered

as a just, play-by-play account of

Darwinism, from its inception as acontrapuntal response to the very first

evolutionary theory (the transformism of

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck), through its

adamantly materialistic phase (neo-Darwinism), and finally to its position at the

present moment. Currently, we findDarwinism readying itself for marriage with

symbiotic theory, which argues

convincingly that evolution is best explained

as the result of genetic mergers among

different species. Thus I project that the last

phase of Darwinism will be called Symbio-

Darwinism.

This bookhad its origin in 1994, in a

series of wide-ranging interviews with the

cell biologist Dr. Bruce H. Lipton. Many of

the Lipton quotations that appear herein

derive from those interviews, which are still

in the process of being transcribed. In myview, Dr. Lipton's theory of "fractalevolution" is likely to become the template

for evolutionary studies in the post-

Darwinism period; and so we include a brief

introduction of the Lipton theory.

Ultimately, symbiotic theory will enjoy a far

happier marriage with Liptonism than with


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Darwinism, for reasons that will becomeclear in the last chapters of this book.

Over the Bones of the Deadconcludes

with two chapters concerning a major

paradigm shift now underway, from theDarwin paradigm to the fractal paradigm.

Several necessary points before

proceeding.

Firstly, the phrase Darwin paradigm

signifies the composite of classical

Darwinism, Social Darwinism, and neo-

Darwinism. At the moment, this is the

ruling paradigm in the West, i.e., theparadigm, or vision of life, having theapproval and support of the ruling powers.

Secondly, this book does not deal with

the controversial issue of the descent ofman. Most people know, by now, that

Darwin never said that man came from theapes. He conjectured that man and apes

might have derived, way back down the line,

from a common ancestor. The descent of

man remains, at this time, an open question,

one that in my view belongs more to the

fields of anthropology and archeology than

biology.


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Thirdly, I believe that in the not so

distant future, we will move beyond the

long-term conflict between creationists andDarwinists, a conflict which has occupied

center stage for too long in the drama of

evolutionary science. Despite their

incessant squabbling, creationists andDarwinists share a common faith, or

bedrock persuasion. I call this persuasionthe Scarcity Premise. The origin of the

premise? Theology. The Bible interpreters

maintain that we human beings are outcasts

of Poker Flats, or Eden rather. Because of

our disobedience, we were ejected from the

place of abundance and wound up in the

world as we know it todaya wasteland.Dire scarcity is our common lot.

The Scarcity Premise was re-

articulated in physics in terms of the so-

called Entropy Law of Clausius, which

maintains that the universe is rapidly

dissipating its energy and that one day soon,all the energy will be gone. Onecontemporary physicist, Paul Davies,

suggests that the universe is only

milliseconds away from completeannihilation.

In social theory, the Scarcity Premisewas re-articulated by the English economist


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Thomas Malthus, whose well-known

Malthus doctrine holds that populations

tend to increase geometrically, whereas themeans to sustain those populations increases

at only an arithmetical rate. This belief is

the source of the population problem wehear so much about.

When Darwin adopted the Malthus

doctrine as the basis of his evolutionary

theory, he imported the Scarcity Premise

into the field of biology and evolutionaryscience.

Thanks be to Providence and the new

sciences, the Scarcity Premise is now beingreplaced by the Abundance Premise. The

vision of Earth as Poker Flats is giving way

to a vision of Earth as a singular and sentient

beingGaia. In physics, the Entropy Lawis no longer supreme. In his book

Cosmography, R. Buckminster Fuller

demonstrates that entropy is trumped bysyntropy, the integrative force, which istwice as powerful as entropy.

Further, the Malthus doctrine has been

thoroughly discredited by Dr. Julian Simon(The Ultimate Resource); and the

Malthusian conviction that we billions ofpeople are a very big problem for the planet


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will soon give way to the view that great

numbers of people are not a planet problem

at all, but a prime indicator that the humanspecies is approaching maturity.

The history presented in this book is

important, and its importance lies in the fact

that it helps to set the stage for the greatest

drama of the twenty-first centurythe

transformation of the West (and the rest of

the world) from Have-not to Have status.

This promises to be the greatest rags-to-riches story ever told.

T heodore Dana Hall

Olympia, Washington

20 August 04


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Historians of science are familiar with this phenomenon; it happens almostinvariably when new facts cast doubt on a generally accepted theory. The

prevailing concepts, although more difficult to define, have such a powerful holdon the thinking of all investigators that they find it difficult, if not impossible,

to free themselves of these ideas.

--Ernst Mayr


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Chapter 1

The Fall of Creationism

Until recently, the great majority of naturalists believed that specieswere immutable productions, and had been separately created. This view hasbeen ably maintained by many authors. Some few naturalists, on the other

hand, have believed that species undergo modifications and that the existingforms of life are the descendants by true generation of pre-existing forms.

Charles Darwin

n 1859, Charles Darwin published a book which hesupposed would be of interest to only an erudite few.The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection turnedout to be a runaway best seller and, indeed, a major

paradigm buster.

The paradigm that the Origin busted was calledcreationism.

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The creationism of Darwins time (not to be confused withthe creation science or intelligent design of our time) was anacademic theory dating from the mid-eighteenth century. Itscentral dogma was: There are no new species on Earth; allspecies were created by God in the beginning. This concept isoften referred to as the fixity of species doctrine.

The fixity doctrine had arisen among theologians as anincontestable implication of the book of Genesis. Further, byconverting all the begats of Genesis into numbers, theologians

estimated that the Earth was about 6,000 years old. This estimatebecame an important, if not critical, component of thecreationism paradigm.

Linnaeus and Lamarck

In the mid-eighteenth century, the fixity doctrine of thetheologians became a general academic orthodoxy after CarlLinnaeus (1707-1778), the great Swedish botanist, expressed theopinion that no new species had appeared on Earth since the

Creation.Linnaeus later had second thoughts about his no new

species proposal, but it was too late. His speculation had alreadybecome the official Word of Science in theological andacademic circles.

The fixity doctrine met with no serious challenge until1809. In that year, the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarckset forth in his bookPhilosophie Zoologiquethe first modern theory


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of evolution, which he called transformism. After a longsuccession of generations, wrote Lamarck, the individuals,originally belonging to one species, become at length transformedinto a new species distinct from the first. (Mayr, 226) Lamarcksspecies from species premise is the foundation of the science ofevolution.

The publication of Philosophie Zoologique initiated the firstgreat battle in the long war of evolution vs. creationism. InFrance, it seemed to be everyone against Lamarck. Napoleon

publicly insulted Lamarck, giving the old scientist a wound fromwhich he never recovered. Even greater damage was inflicted bya man who is still regarded as the greatest scientist of the earlynineteenth centurythe Baron Georges Cuvier.

Cuvier

Cuvier (1769-1832) is the father of paleontology, thestudy of fossils. If you have ever been awed by the dinosaurs in amuseum of natural history, you have Georges Cuvier to thank.

He was the first to assemble dinosaur bones into full skeletalstructures.

For a time, Lamarck and Cuvier were close associates at theMuseum of Natural History in Paris. Both scientists wereinterested in completing the system of classification invented byLinnaeus. Cuvier extended the system to the fossils. Lamarck

completed a thorough classification of the invertebrates, a taskculminating in the publication of his seven-volumeNatural Historyof Invertebrates.


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In their philosophies however, the two men were asdifferent as day and night. Lamarck, who had been mentored byRousseau, held that the power of God is distributed to all lifeforms in a non-discriminatory manner. Cuvier shared theorthodox establishment view that Gods power is channeled alonga specific, authorized routefrom the Almighty to the church,then to the state, and thereon down the pecking order.Historically, this power route was established in the Western

world via two doctrinesthe church doctrine of apostolicsuccession, which made the church the only authorized

representative of God and Son, and the state doctrine of thedivine right of kings.

If the Creator power is inherent in all life forms, then thereis a good reason to suppose that the formation of new species isan ongoing, continuous process and not a one-shot deal thathappened six thousand, or six million, years ago. This

suppositionthat new species arise from precursor specieswasat the core of Lamarcks theory.

As the fixity of species doctrine was a very fixed feature inCuviers philosophy, he found Lamarcks view abhorrent, indeedhighlyheretical. Thus Cuvier dedicated his later years to destroyingthe reputability of Lamarck and his theory of evolution.

Cuvier was a formidable opponent. Though an activeProtestant all his life, he won constant admiration andadvancement in predominantly Catholic France under a variety ofgovernments. Indeed, so popular was Cuvier, he was transformedin 1831 into the BaronCuvier.


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Catastrophism

As part of his war against Lamarck and Lamarckism (criticsof Lamarck never call his theory by its proper name), Cuvieradvocatedand won wide acceptance ofcatastrophism.Indeed, he managed to turn it into a mainstream academic scienceparadigmCatastrophism with a capital C.

Catastrophism was the brainchild of the Swiss naturalistCharles Bonnet (1720-1793), who postulated that the Earth isperiodically destroyed by catastrophes. Bonnet, the first to usethe word evolution in the modern sense, believed that after eachcatastrophe, all forms of life stepped a notch upward. Hepredicted a future catastrophe after which the apes are humansand the humans are angels.

Planet Earth is destroyed periodically, Cuvier maintained,the latest great catastrophe being the flood that Noah and hisfloating zoo survived. The fossil record, he argued, is a record ofancient prehistoric worlds; the biblical record is an accounta

valid account, of courseof just the current historical era. Bythus reconciling the fossil and biblical records, Cuvier was able to

preserve, for a time, the credibility of creationism.

In the year 1802, Lamarck won the undying enmity ofCuvier by publishing a book critical of catastrophism.


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The Cuvier Attack on Lamarck

Lamarck died in 1829, and the occasion offered Cuvier anopportunity to make a devastating attack on transformism and itsauthor.

At the time, Cuvier held high office in the French Academy(the equivalent of Englands Royal Society). In this position,Cuvier became a kind of reputation maker or breaker by virtue ofhis frequent work as eulogist of departed Academy members.Generally, Cuvier was fair in his eulogies, but in his eulogy forLamarck, he wrote with a poisoned pen. Clearly, his intention

was to deliver a death blow to Lamarckian theory.

The French word besoincan mean either need or wish.Lamarck used besoin in the sense of need, to describe that whichactivates organismal change, i.e., the transformational process.

Were he writing today, in English, Lamarck might summarize hispoint of view in these terms: Necessity is the mother ofevolutionary invention.

Cuvier intentionally misrepresented Lamarcks thought,

claiming that he used besoin in the sense of wish. Animalsevolve, according to Cuviers version of transformism, becausetheywish to evolve. The seed of ridicule having been planted,

writes H. Graham Cannon in Lamarck and Modern Genetics, Cuviercontinues by giving examples . . . he pretends are Lamarcks

views. Aquatic birds . . . acquired their webbed feet by dint ofwishing to swim; from continually wishing to fly, the bird

developed its wings and feathers; from continually going to thewaters edge but wishing to avoid wetting the body, the long-legged bird appeared. (Cannon, 10-11)


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Cuviers eulogy was presented at the Academy inNovember 1832. To its credit, the Academy refused to publish it.

Nevertheless, Cuviers view was circulated, with the resultthat Lamarcks reputability as a scientist was destroyed. Not until1914more than fifty years after the publication of the Origindid the revolutionaryPhilosophie Zoologique, the foundational text ofevolutionary science, appear in an English edition.

Because of Cuviers misrepresentations, Lamarckism inmodern times is considered synonymous with spurious science.For instance, the well-known Darwinist Richard Dawkins has thisto say about Lamarckism: Lamarckian types of theory aretraditionally rejectedand rightly sobecause no good evidencefor them has ever been found (not for want of energetic trying, insome cases by zealots prepared to fake evidence). (Dawkins,287)

Lyell Attacks Cuvier

The catastrophic principle of Bonnet and Cuvier was theonly postulate of creationism that had real scientific merit and inthe years and decades following Cuviers attack on Lamarck, thisprinciple became the principal target of the uniformitarians.

Uniformitarianism was the invention of Scottish geologistJames Hutton (1726-1797), the father of geology. Huttonsgeological studies convinced him that the surface structure of theEarth was a product of a very slow evolutionary process. In 1785,he published a book, Theory of the Earth, in which he suggested that


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the forces now operating to change the Earths surface had beenoperating throughout Earths history in the same way, and at thesame rate, i.e., uniformly.

Huttons suggestion fell, for the most part, on deafcreationist ears, but there was one scientist who heard it loud andclear and who embraced it as the science equivalent of the bookofRevelationCharles Lyell.

Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875), also a Scottish geologist,amplified and popularized the uniformitarian principle of Huttonin his three-volume The Principles of Geology, which went throughtwelve editions in his lifetime. Lyells Principleswas first publishedin 1830, and so that year may be regarded as the year in which thesecond battle in the evolution/creationism war commenced.

Lyells great historical importance lies in the fact that hewas the man, more than any other, who brought down thecreationist paradigm and who fathered the Darwinian Revolution.Even as Cuvier was dying, writes Isaac Asimov, Lyell wasforcing catastrophism into a catastrophe of its own and wasestablishing . . . the dominance of the uniformitarian principle ofHutton. (Asimov, 169)

1832 and After

1832 was a very bad year for the creationists. The BaronGeorges Cuvier passed away, leaving the creationist ranksleaderless. In the same year, Charles Lyell was well on his way tobecoming a science giant in the Western world. And aboard the


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H.M.S. Beagle, Charles Darwin was avidly reading the secondvolume ofThe Principles of Geology, which Lyell had shipped to him.

In this volume, Lyell expresses a view that might beconsidered the essence of Darwinism: The stability of a speciesmay be taken as absolute, if we do not extend our views beyondthe narrow period of human history; but let a sufficient numberof centuries elapse, to allow for important revolutions in climate,physical geography, and other circumstances, and the charactersof the descendants of common parents may deviate indefinitelyfrom their original type. (Appleman, 11-12)

In the three decades after the death of Cuvier, thecreationists worst nightmares were realized.

Though Cuvier was out of the picture physically, his literarylegacy was still formidable. The legacy proved no match for Lyellhowever, who shifted the battlefield from paleontology togeologywhere he was the acknowledged world expert. Thegeological record, said the master, shows uniform evolution over

vast stretches of time.

Frequently Lyell, donning the hat of karmic correctiondirector, subjected Cuviers catastrophism to merciless ridicule.Like Lamarckism, catastrophism was practically hammered intooblivion.

For Darwin, the uniformitarian principle provided just thesort of background he needed for his theory that the developmentof species is a process that occurs very slowly, over vast stretchesof uninterrupted time. Soon after publication of the Origin,

uniformitarianism proved victorious in the field of biology as wellas geology. Creationism was finishedat least in academiccircles. The next century belonged to Darwinism.


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In Retrospect

There were two major difficulties with the creationistposition. One is that it rested upon mythic information--the veryshort opening of Genesis. Myths may well be true, evenprofoundly true, but they cannot be interpreted literally. They arebeyond words.

The second great difficulty with creationism is that it failedto base itself on the best possible basethe Christ teachings. Anadequate reading of those teachings, as they appear in the New

Testament, certainly would have underscored the point that Godis omniscient and omnipresent, the necessary implication beingthat the mind of God is actively involved in the creationeverywhere and at all times. A creationism built on this

understanding would not have been at odds with Lamarckism.

Neither the catastrophist nor uniformitarian positions alonewas sufficient. The geological records show that Earth hasexperienced both long periods of stability and times ofcatastrophic change. A sufficient theory would have accountedfor both.

Unfortunately, catastrophism was so discredited by Lyelland company that Earth catastrophe did not re-emerge as asubject of serious scientific inquiry until the mid-twentiethcentury, with the publication of Immanuel Velikovskys Worlds InCollision(1950). Velikovsky was much attacked for his pioneeringtheory, and to this day, his work is largely ignored.


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Chapter 2

The Means of EvolutionLamarck to Darwin

Although Darwin was in the habit of repudiating any intimationthat he has profited from Lamarck, he as acquainted at an early age withthe latters work and in 1845 there is a reference in an unpublished letter to[Charles] Lyell regarding my volumes of Lamarck. His rather cavalierrejection of his distinguished forerunner is tinged with an acerbity whose causeat this late date is difficult to discover.

Loren Eiseley

n his History of Creation (1873) the eminent GermanDarwinist Ernst Haeckel had this to say aboutLamarck: To him will always belong the immortal

glory of having for the first time worked out the theory of descent[evolution] as an independent scientific theory of the first order,I


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and as the philosophical foundation of the whole science ofBiology. (Mayr, 8) Indeed Lamarck coined the word biology.

Transformism, or Lamarckism as it is usually called thesedays, received a very chilly reception when it appeared. In arguingthat new species arise from precursor species, it challenged theprevailing theological and academic doctrine that all species werecreated by God in the beginning.

The fixity of species doctrine, as it is termed, had immenseimportance as an academic validation of the biblical story of thecreation of the Earth and its inhabitants. To challenge the fixitydoctrine was to challenge the faith upon which the West wasbuiltfaith in the infallibility of the Holy Bible, the Word ofGod.

Pioneering doesnt pay, John D. Rockefeller once said,and the case of Lamarck was proof of the point. Lamarckpioneered a major paradigm shift and received the customaryreward for such endeavora deluge of insults.

Fortunately, Lamarck was spared by death from witnessingthe fate of his theory. In 1832, Baron Georges Cuvier utterlytrivialized transformism by describing it as a theory that animalsevolve because they wish to evolve. At about the same time, SirCharles Lyell published an abstract of transformism in the second

volume of his popular Principles of Geology that made the theoryseem preposterous.


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Transformism and Its Repudiation

The attack on transformism centered not on itsfoundational premise that new species arise from precursorspecies but on its hypotheses regarding the meansof evolution.

Those hypotheses are:

(1) Significant environmental change +organismal adaptation [arrow pointing right] speciation.

(2) Speciation + heritance (passing along) ofacquired characteristics [arrow pointing right] evolution.

In other words, significant environmental change activatesbiological processes that result in significant organismaladaptations. At a certain point, these adaptations become sopronounced, the altered organism(s) must be regarded as a newspecies. Further, new species have the ability to transmit theiradaptations to subsequent generations.

Cuvier might have been the official discoverer of the fossilrecord, Dr. Bruce Lipton has remarked, but Lamarck was thefirst to readit.

In his reading, Lamarck observed among other things thatcertain species appeared on many pages (levels) of the fossilrecord, but their physical expressions changed significantly frompage to page. From this, Lamarck concluded that life-forms musthave a protean quality, i.e., the capability of transformingthemselvesgreatlyover the eons.

Lyell quotes Lamarck on this point: The greater theabundance of natural objects assembled together, the more do we


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discover proof that everything passes by insensible shades intosomething else; that even the more remarkable differences areevanescent, and that nature has, for the most part, left us nothingat our disposal for establishingdistinctions. (Appleman, 12)

What activates this protean adaptive power? Lamarcksanswer: Environmental change. This answer is reasonable,demonstrated by a fossil record which shows major alterations inspecies following major alterations in the environment.

Every considerable alteration in the local circumstances inwhich every race of animals exists causes a change in their wants,and these new wants excite them to new actions and habits.(Appleman, 12)

Common experience had taught Lamarck that individualsadapt themselves, routinely, to environmental changes and to theirchosen activities. Whatever we put into usearms, legs, brains,etc.grows stronger. Whatever is not used, weakens. Use it orlose it, we say today. The expression derives from Lamarcksdoctrine of use.

Considerable change in the environment, Lamarck knew,meant that the organisms in that environment faced newnecessities. They had to adapt to the changes, or perish. Thefossil record indicates, he said, that Organs no longer in use areimpoverished and diminished in size, nay, are sometimes entirelyannihilated while in their place new parts are insensibly producedfor the discharge of new functions. (Appleman, 12)

Lyell chose to give Lamarcks transformism hypothesis a

very unfavorable review, severely chastising Lamarck for failing toprovide factual proof: It is evident that if some well-authenticated facts could have been adduced to establish one


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complete step in the process of transformation, such as theappearance, in individuals descending from a common stock, of asense or organ entirely new. Time alone might then besupposed sufficient to bring about any amount of metamorphosis.

The gratuitous assumption, therefore, of a point so vital to thetheory of transmutation, was unpardonable on the part of itsadvocate. (Appleman, 13)

Lyells critique (coupled with Cuviers) resulted in theacademic rejection of both of Lamarcks hypotheses regarding the

means of evolution. If the first hypothesis was a gratuitousassumption, i.e., scientifically worthless, then the secondhypothesis (heritance of acquired characteristics) was also

worthless, for it rested upon the first.

The academics repudiation of transformism was a fatefulevent in the history of Western thought. Among other things, it

meant that an academically acceptable theory of evolution wouldhave to be distinctly different from transformism. Any theorysmacking of Lamarckism would run the risk of academiccensure.

Darwins Dilemma

The fact that Lamarckism had become forbidden sciencerepresented something of a problem for the aspiring evolutionistCharles Darwin, as his own theoretical basis was Lamarckism.

Darwin received his introduction to transformism circa1826. While a medical student in Edinburgh, he attended a


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lecture by a Dr. R.E. Grant, who clearly adopted the view thatspecies are descended from other species and who burst forthin admiration of Lamarck and his view on evolution. (Bailey, 64)

In 1832, while aboard the Beagle, Darwin received thesecond volume of Lyells Principles of Geology, which contains theshort but devastating abstract of transformism.

Undoubtedly, the Lyell abstract taught Darwin that if hewanted a successful career in biology and evolutionary science, hewould have to distance himself, as far as possible, from Lamarck.

This Darwin did, even though his early theory-buildingfollowed the Lamarckian premise that speciation is a product oforganismal adaptation. In later years, as Loren Eiseley observes,Darwin was in the habit of repudiating any intimation that he hasprofited from Lamarck.

In fact, Darwin relied upon Lamarckism in a number ofways. However, he was always careful to avoid associating hiswork with the discredited work of Lamarck. Unlike hispredecessor, Darwin was a master of the devious art of politicalcorrectness.

Once Darwin had settled into the work of writing anacceptable theory of evolution, he faced, daily, an immenselyirritating problem. He could not come up with a crediblealternative to the hypotheses of Lamarck.

The years passed, Darwins stack of notes grewmountainous and, all too frequently, his friends inquired as toWhen-oh-when will the great theory be published? It is no wonder thatDarwin preferred to live as a recluse. It is no wonder that hismentions of Lamarck were tinged with acerbity.


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A solution to his daily distress arrived in Darwins mail onJune 18, 1858in the form of a manuscript (authored bynaturalist Alfred Russel Wallace) that outlined a theory ofevolution in which the mechanism of speciation is termednatural selection.

Natural Selection

The concept of natural selection was very familiar toDarwin, who was a dedicated breeder. Mans breeding of plantsand animals he called artificial selection. The breeding thatoccurs in the wild he termed natural selection. But did it occurto Darwin, prior to his reading of the Wallace paper, that naturalselection was, alone, a sufficientexplanation of the mechanism ofspeciation?

To his credit, Darwin was extremely cautious about thematter. In a letter to Asa Gray (September 5, 1857), Darwindescribes natural selection not as the onlycause of speciation, butas the most important element in the production of new forms.

As to other elements, he writes, I can come, as you may wellbelieve, only to very partial & imperfect conclusions. (Gould, 3)The arrival of the Wallace manuscript meant the end of Darwinsindecisiveness; he was compelled to go with the natural selectionhypothesis, or face being scooped by Wallace.

After reading the Wallace manuscript, Darwin wrote to

Lyell: Your words have come true with a vengeancethat Ishould be forestalled. You said this when I explained to you herevery briefly my views on Natural Selection depending on the struggle of


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existence. I never saw a more striking coincidence; if Wallace hadmy M.S. written out in 1842, he could not have made a betterabstract! Even his terms now stand as heads of my chapters.(Miller, 123)

Wallace was a deferential man who was happy to haveDarwin carry the ball. And carry it he did. After decades of delay,Darwin completed his opus in record time. On the Origin of Speciesby Means of Natural Selectionwas published in 1859, the year afterhis receipt of the Wallace outline.

Darwinism, vintage 1859, offered quite an ingenious (andacademically acceptable) alternative to Lamarckism. The newtheory, which was to sweep the world in a matter of decades, maybe reduced to two formulas:

(1) Numerous varieties + natural selection [arrowpointing right] speciation.

(2) Speciation + sexual reproduction [arrowpointing right] evolution.

In other words, nature is prodigious in its production ofvariant expressions of the same species. Some of these variantsare more advantaged in the struggle of existence, and theseemerge as the dominant species representatives. (The Lamarckianidea that organisms are involvedin the evolutionary process is side-stepped altogether.) Further, as winning variants reproduce to afar greater extent than losing variants, evolution (which forDarwin meant simply descent with modification) is guaranteedby ordinary sexual reproduction.

Darwins second hypothesis, it may be noted, simplyassumesheritance of acquired characteristics.


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With the ardent support of the Royal Society, the mostprestigious scientific institution in the world, Darwinism became

within a decade of its appearance, the ruling evolutionaryparadigm in Western science. Darwin became a legend, and

Wallacewhatever became of Wallace?

Wallace remained a good friend and associate of Darwins.In 1871, he published Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection,

which asserts that mans mental and spiritual powers do notderive from his animal progenitors.

As he grew older, Wallace placed more emphasis on thespiritual, describing that faculty in The World of Lifeas a Mind notonly adequate to direct and regulate all the forces at work in livingorganisms but also the more fundamental forces of the wholematerial universe.

In Retrospect

In the standard histories, Lamarck and Darwin arerepresented as polar opposites. Lamarck, so the story goes,proposed a theory of evolution that was absurd, whereas Darwingifted the world with a theory that was scientifically sound.

From the point of view of paradigm studies, however, it isapparent that Lamarck and Darwin were partners in effecting thegreatest paradigm shift of the nineteenth centurythe shift fromreliance on the Holy Bible as the foundational reference book onreality to reliance on the Book of Nature. Lamarck initiated the


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shift with the invention of biology and evolutionary science andDarwin completed it.

The scientific soundness of the Darwin-Wallace theory (theoriginal name of classical Darwinism) is very much in question,but the tremendous cultural importance of Darwinism is beyonddispute. Darwinism freed the Western mind from enslavement tothe Dark Ages paradigms and doctrines of the theologians. Forthis reason alone, classical Darwinism is deserving of greatestpraise.

Finally, it should be noted, the Lamarck-Darwin paradigmshift concluded the process of separation of science from religionthat had begun with Francis Bacon, who established inductivelogic as the appropriate method of scientific inquiry. Theseparation widened under the watch of Sir Isaac Newton, whoestablished modern science upon the foundational premise

hypotheses non fingo, which translates roughly, Science has nointerest in hypotheses that are unsubstantiated by fact.


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Chapter 3

The Selection and De-Selection of

Natural Selection

The struggle for existence holds as much in the intellectual as in thephysical world. A theory is a species of thinking, and its right to exist iscoextensive with its power of resisting extinction by its rivals.

Thomas H. Huxley


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s the title of his 1859 opus indicates, Darwintheorized that the principal agency of speciation(evolution) is natural selection.

The concept of natural selection received early andwidespread acclaim, as it provided, or seemed to provide, ascientific alternative to the long-prevailing view that mankind andthe world are governed bydivineselection.

Darwin defined natural selection in these terms: Naturalselection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world,the slightest variations [of species]; rejecting that which is bad,preserving and adding up all that are good; silently and insensibly

working at the improvement of each organic being in relationto its organic and inorganic conditions of life. (Appleman,123)

Rhetorically, this definition is rather ingenious, as itprovided Darwins typical (Bible-steeped) reader with a tolerablesubstitute for God. His eye is upon the sparrow, the HolyBible says; natural selection, Darwin saith, eyeballs each and every

variation of the sparrow species and, whats more, works silentlyand insensibly at the improvement of the species.

Sorcerer & Apprentice

Darwins personification of natural selection led severalturn-of-the-century critics to conclude that his theory had simplyreplaced one anthropomorphism with another. In fact, the

A


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natural selection concept did not depend upon thepersonification. The analogy was offered metaphorically andserved two purposes, the rhetorical one indicated above, and athematic purposeto diminish the ordinary readers highestimation of mind as a formative agency.

To judge by its products, Darwin observed, naturalselection is infinitely superior to the artificial selection of man.Natural selection is a sorcerer and man nothing more than a poorapprentice: Under Nature, the slightest differences of structure

or constitution may well turn the nicely balanced scale in thestruggle for life, and so be preserved. How fleeting are the wishesand efforts of man! How short his time! And consequently howpoor will be his results, compared with those accumulated byNature during whole geological periods! Can we wonder, then,that Natures productions should be far truer in character thanmans productions, that they should be infinitely better adapted to

the most complex conditions of life and should plainly bear thestamp of higher workmanship? (Appleman, 123)

In all, the analogy of natural with artificial selection played acritical role in Darwins argument. If nature could be reckoned asorcerer, albeit a mighty slow-working sorcerer, then it would bereasonable to suppose that extremely complex organs, such as the

eye, could have been produced by the means of evolution heproposeda means that did not include mind.

Sorcerers can create anything; nature is a sorcerer;therefore, nature can create anything. This was the silentsyllogism underlying Darwins theory.


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Darwins Bulldog

Before publication of the Origin, Darwin was, I presume,convinced of the correctness of his uni-causetheory of speciation.As early as 1862, however, he had begun to waver, and by1865 he talked increasingly of the direct action of theenvironment and of use and disuse [a Lamarckian concept] asfactors of change. In the last revised edition of the Descent of

Man, Barzun notes, Darwin had to express again his indecisionabout the factors causing evolution. (Barzun, 60-61)

If Darwin the Indecisive had had sole responsibility for thepromotion of his theory, in all likelihood Darwinism would havefizzled out in a decade or two. The fact Darwinism spread like

wildfire throughout the world was due largely to the passionate

promotion of a man who styled himself Darwins bulldog. Hisname was Thomas H. Huxley.

Huxley (1825-1895) was a notable naturalist who achievedworld fame as a polemicist. In the arena of intellectual battle, hehad few peers, and none of these were anxious to stand up againsthim.

The inventor of agnosticism, Huxley regarded theology as acurse on mankind and the great enemy of science. It seemed tohim abominable that nine-tenths of the civilized world regardedthe writings of the rude inhabitants of [ancient] Palestine asthe authoritative standard of fact and the criterion of the justiceof scientific conclusions, in all that relates to the origin of things,

and, among these, of species. (Huxley, 51-52) He yearned tosee the day when (in his own words) Science would place its footon the neck of Theology.


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In Huxleys rather severe view, any assertion whichoutstrips evidence is not only a blunder but a crime. In hisreading of the Origin, he could not have missed the point thatDarwins personified definition of natural selection implied what

we call today implicate intelligence or intelligent design.Undoubtedly, Huxley viewed this implication as a problem withthe theory, a criminal tendency as it were. His response to theproblem was immediate.

Soon after publication of the Origin, Huxley published an

exposition of Darwins theory called The DarwinianHypothesis. In this essay, Huxley describes natural selection insimple and strictly materialistic terms, beginning his discourse

with mention of Darwins problematical definition: Beforeadmitting the possibility of natural species having originated inany similar way [to mans breeding of plants and animals], it mustbe proved that there is some power which takes the place of man,

and performs selection sua sponte. It is the claim of Mr. Darwinthat he professes to have discovered the existence and modusoperandiof the natural selection, as he terms it; and, if he be right,the process is perfectly simple and comprehensible, andirresistibly deducible from very familiar but well nigh forgottenfacts.

Huxley goes on to affirm the Malthus doctrine that life isincessant struggle, a doctrine underlying Darwins theory: Whohad not duly reflected upon all the consequences of the marvelousstruggle for existence which is daily and hourly going on amongliving beings? Not only does every animal live at the expense ofsome other animal or plant, but the very plants are at war. Theground is full of seeds that cannot rise into seedlings; the

seedlings rob one another of air, light, and water, the strongestrobber winning the day, and extinguishing his competitors.


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Such being unquestionably the necessary conditions underwhich living creatures exist, Huxley continues, Mr. Darwindiscovers in them [the conditions themselves] the instrument ofnatural selection. Suppose that in the midst of this incessantcompetition some individuals of a species present accidental

variations which happen to fit a little better than their fellows forthe struggle in which they are engaged, and the chances are infavour, not only of those individuals being better nourished thanthe others, but of their predominating over their fellows in other

ways, and of having a better chance of leaving offspring, which

will of course tend to reproduce the peculiarities of theirparents. (Huxley, 18-19)

What is the nature of the power that performs naturalselection? It is nothing more than thepower of circumstance, Huxleyreplies. The same wind that ruffles the feathers of the strongfledgling blows the weak fledgling out of the nest.

Huxleys strictly materialistic definition of natural selection(rather than Mr. Darwins ambiguous definition) became theofficial classical Darwinism definitionfor the simple reasonthat most readers learned their Darwin by way of Huxley. TheOrigin was, by all accounts, a very difficult read. It still is.Huxleys presentation of Darwinism was very understandable

and enjoyable as well.

Natural Selection De-selected

There matters stood until 1870, when Alfred RusselWallace threw a monkey wrench into the smoothly running


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Darwin-Huxley theory machine. The wrench was in the form of abook titled Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection. In thisbook, Wallace stated objections to, and placed limits on, theprinciple of natural selection.

No one could question his right to do so. Mr. Wallace was,after all, the acknowledged co-discoverer of the theory ofspeciation by means of natural selection. Indeed, the first namefor Darwinism was the Darwin-Wallace theory.

Wallace postulated that the evolution of mankind had beenaccomplished through intelligent design. In his own words:The inference I would draw from this class of phenomena[anomalies in the case of man] is that a higher intelligence hasguided the development of man in a definite direction, and for aspecial purpose, just as man guides the development of manyanimal and vegetable forms. (Wallace, 8)

Thus Wallace opened the theology door that Huxley thoughthe had closedforever. It is not difficult to imagine whatHuxleys response was. After hitting the ceiling, Mr. Huxley satdown to write a very long essay.

In 1871, Huxley published this essay, which was titled Mr.Darwins Critics. Though there were many critics around andabout at the time, Huxley chose to write about only twoSt.George Mivart, author of a book titled The Genesis of Species, andA.R. Wallace. Mivart is dealt with at length. Wallace is givencursory treatment and dismissed as a befuddled scientist whothinks it necessary to call in an intelligent agenta sort ofsupernatural Sir John Sebrightto produce even the animal

frame of man. (Huxley, 122)


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Issued by the Bulldog of Darwinism, this essay had theforce of a papal bull. Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, co-discoverer ofthe principle of natural selection, was excommunicated fromDarwinism.

What was Darwins response to the book? In the fifthedition of the Origin, which was completed in January 1872,Darwin uses, for the first time, the famous phrase survival of thefittesta phrase coined by Herbert Spencer circa 1853.(Appleman, 99) In the sixth and final edition, Darwin states that

survival of the fittest is a more accurate expression of whathe previously called natural selection. (Macbeth, 65)

In short, Darwins response was to abandon, so far as hecould, the doctrine of natural selection, replacing it with survivalof the fittest. The term survival of the fittest is, unlike naturalselection, unambiguous.

What is Classical Darwinism?

In current textbooks, classical Darwinism is defined as thetheory of Charles Darwin that evolution is the product of naturalselection acting upon accidental variations.

Official priority for the discovery of natural selection wasawarded to Darwin by his peers in the Royal Society. However,the historical record indicates that Wallace has a far greater claim

to priority. The issue of priority is dealt with at length in afascinating book by Arnold C. Brackman titled A Delicate


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ArrangementThe Strange Case of Charles Darwin and Alfred RusselWallace.

Among the points Brackman makes:

Darwins claim to have found an important key to thistheory while reading Malthus, for amusement, in 1838, is notsubstantiated by Darwins pre-1858 literary record. In 1858,Darwin received a manuscript of the Wallace theory, which wasbased on the Malthus doctrine. The following year he publishedhis own theorybased on Malthus.

Further, Brackman states, Wallace encouraged Darwin totake the lead in publishing his version of their common theory, ashe believed Darwin had a far better chance than he of triumphingover the forces of reaction. Darwin was an upper class celebrity;Mr. Wallace was a little known commoner.

In all, the Brackman book underscores, in various ways, thefact that Darwinism was the product of two naturalists, not justone.

Is the textbook definition of classical Darwinism correct?Yes, and no. Yes, it is correctas a revisionist definition ofclassical Darwinism. It is Huxleys definition based on his readingof Darwin (and upon his complete disdain for anything smackingof supernaturalism).

No, it is not correctas an authoritative definition ofclassical Darwinism. An authoritativedefinition of a concept is that

which is provided by the author, or authors, of the concept.

What would be the authoritative definition of classicalDarwinism? A definition that would include the speculations ofboth Darwin and Wallace, such as: Classical Darwinism is the


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theory that speciation is the agency of evolution; that speciation isthe product of natural selection and other material factors actingupon variations (Darwin, Wallace); and that certain anomalies (asevidenced in the case of man) can be explained only as the resultof intelligent design, supernatural selection (Wallace).


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Chapter 4

Pangenesis & the Origin of

Neo-Darwinism

"In my opinion, the greatest error which I have committed has been notallowing sufficient weight to the direct action of the environments, i.e., food,climate, etc., independently of natural selection.... When I wrote the 'Origin,'

and for some years afterwards, I could find little good evidence of the directaction of the environment; now there is a large body of evidence.

Charles Darwin, in an 1872 letter to Moritz Wagner

"A direct influence of the environment on the genetic material isimpossible, an influence postulated by the majority of Lamarckians...."

Ernst Mayr, neo-Darwinist, 1976


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he term "neo-Darwinism" was coined by authorG.J. Romanes circa 1897 to designate, in ErnstMayr's words, "Darwinism without an inheritanceof acquired characteristics."

Inheritance of acquired characteristics is generally regarded as aLamarckian doctrine. Those accustomed to think of Darwinismas anti-Lamarckian are likely to be surprised by Mayr's definition,and to ask, "Was there ever a Darwinism that included thedoctrine of inheritance of acquired characteristics?"

The answer is "yes." In his 1868 book The Variation ofAnimals and Plants Under Domestication, Darwin endeavored to showhow inheritance of acquired characteristics might work. He calledhis provisional hypothesis "Pangenesis," which meant to him,"every separate part of the whole organization [organism]reproduces itself...." (Darwin, 350)

The basic premise underlying Pangenesis is the idea that"an organic being is a microcosma little universe, formed of ahost a self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute andnumerous as the stars in heaven." (Darwin, 399) After notingthat the units of the body [cells] are generally admitted to beautonomous, Darwin states, I go one step further and assume thatthey [the units] throw off reproductive gemmules...." (Darwin,398)

The term "gemmule" originated circa 1841. It meant "asmall bud." Darwin uses the term interchangeably with "germs,"

as in the following: "Ovules, spermatozoas and pollen-grains,the fertilised egg or seed, as well as buds,include and consist of

T


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a multitude of germs thrown off from each separate part or unit."(Darwin, 350)

For Darwin, the Pangenesis hypothesis provided an initial,provisionalexplanation for a wide variety of biological phenomena,including the inheritance of acquired characteristics: "A multitudeof newly-acquired characteristics, whether injurious or beneficial,

whether of the lowest or highest vital importance, are oftenfaithfully transmittedfrequently even when one parent alonepossesses some new peculiarity; and we may on the whole

conclude that inheritance is the rule, and non-inheritance theanomaly...." (Darwin, 367-68)

"In some instances [an acquired] character is not inherited,"Darwin adds, for the reason that "the conditions of life [are]directly opposed to its development...." (Darwin, 368)

Where do "varieties" [organisms with new characteristics]come from? One type of variety, Darwin states, originates as theresult of use or disuse. "A horse is trained to certain paces," forinstance. The training is incorporated into the cellular structure ofthe horse; the cells, now modified, give off gemmules (containingthe modification). The gemmules congregate into reproductivecells, and lo and behold, "the colt inherits similar consensual

movements." (Darwin, 367)

Reaction

The Pangenesis hypothesis was severely criticized by manywriters. Darwin, dutifully, lists his critics in a lengthy footnote


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that may be found in the 1896 Appleton edition ofThe Variation.Of special interest in this footnote is a reference to the work ofDarwin's cousin, Francis Galton.

Galton, according to some accounts, worked with Darwinon an experiment which disproved Pangenesis. The footnote tellsa different story: Mr. F. Galton, after describing his valuableexperiments ... on the intertransfusion of the blood of distinct

varieties of the rabbit, concludes by saying that in his opinion theresults negative [negate] beyond all doubt the doctrine of

Pangenesis. He informs me that subsequently [sic] to thepublication of his paper he continued his experiments on a stilllarger scale for two more generations, without any sign ofmongrelism showing itself in the very numerous offspring. Icertainly should have expected that gemmules would have beenpresent in the blood, but this is no necessary part of thehypothesis, which manifestly applies to plants and the lowest

animals.... (Darwin, 350)

In other words, Darwin scaled back his view of theapplicability of Pangenesis, but he never abandoned the doctrine.He died a Lamarckian.

Bechamp

It is a pity that Darwin was not familiar with the work ofthe brilliant French biologist Antoine Bechamp, who suffered the

fate of Lamarck after a long, bitter struggle against Louis Pasteur,whom he regarded as a plagiarist, and Pasteur's hypothesis thatdisease is the result of microbial invasion.


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Darwin would have been quite fascinated by Bechamp'shypothesis that there is a third anatomical element in the blood"microzymas." Bechamp regarded these microenzymes as thebasic units of life. Dr. M. R. Leverson writes in his preface to TheBlood and Its Third Anatomical Element: "Not the cellule but themicrozymas must, thanks to Bechamp's discoveries, be todayregarded as the unit of life, for the cellules are themselvestransient and are built by the microzymas, which, physiologically,are imperishable, as Bechamp has clearly demonstrated."(Bechamp, ix)

Bechamp's theory gives no meaning to the biblical adagethat "from dust we come and to dust return." Bechamp: "Thegeological microzymas of certain calcareous rocks and of chalk,those of the dust of the streets and of the air also bear witness tothe microzymas which functioned as anatomical elements in thetissues of organisms of geological epochs [past] even as they

function in those of the present time." (Bechamp, 226)

Had Darwin known of Bechamp's work, he might wellhave been persuaded to regard microzymas as an agency ofheritance.

By the way: Bechamp maintained, against Pasteur, that

disease comes from within, not from withoutfrom themicroenzymes themselves, which become pathogenic when thecells they constitute are not properly nurtured.


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Weismann

Among the opponents of Pangenesis was AugustWeismann (1834-1914), a German Darwinist who is viewed today(by Darwinists) as the most important evolutionist after Darwin.

After the publication of the Pangenesis hypothesis,Weismann concocted an experiment which he claimed offeredthe final refutation of the Lamarckian doctrine of inheritance ofacquired characteristics. He "cut the tails off 1592 mice overtwenty-two generations and showed that all continued to bearyoung with full-sized tails." (Asimov, 328)

What Weismann disproved was not the Lamarckiandoctrine, but Darwin's materialistic version of the doctrine. For

Weismann, each cut tail represented multitudes of tail-gemmuleswhich would never find their way to the germ cells. If thePangenesis hypothesis was correct, he reasoned, the deficiency oftail gemmules should show up in subsequent generations. Itnever did.

On the basis of this questionable experiment, Weismann

offered his counter-hypothesis, the so-called "continuity of thegerm plasm" doctrine.

Asimov describes this doctrine in the following terms:"Germ plasm, forming the eggs and sperm, can be viewed as thereal essence of life. It [germ plasm] can then be pictured asperiodically growing an organism about itself, almost as a form of

self-protection, and also as a device to help produce another eggor sperm out of a piece of the germ plasm carefully preservedwithin the organism...." (Asimov, 327)


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Samuel Butler's famous comment on this hypothesis: "Ahen is only an egg's way of producing another egg."

The road from genotype (egg) to the phenotype (hen) is aone-way street, Weismann declared, and this declarationthe"Weismann Barrier"became the basic doctrine on which earlyneo-Darwinism was built.

In subsequent times, the Weismann Barrier evolved intothe central doctrine of contemporary neo-Darwinismthe primacyof DNA. The primacy doctrine is defined by Ernst Mayr in theseterms: "The way from the DNA (via the RNA) to the proteins isa one-way street. The environment can influence thedevelopmental process but it cannot affect the blueprint thatcontrols it...." (Mayr, 11)


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II


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If you want war, nourish doctrine. Doctrines are the most frightfultyrants to which men ever are subject, because doctrines get inside of mansown reason and betray him against himself. Civilized men have done their

fiercest fighting for doctrines.

William GrahamSumner


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Chapter 5

The Neo in Neo-Darwinism

Evolution by natural selection could not be faster than the mutationrate, for mutation is, ultimately, the only way in which new variation entersthe species.

Richard Dawkins


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orty years ago," historian Henry Adams wrote in1903, "our friends always explained things andhad the cosmos down to a point, teste[by witnessof] Darwin and Charles Lyell. Now they say

they don't believe there is an explanation, or that you can choosebetween half a dozen, all correct. The Germans are all balled up.Every generalization that we settled forty years ago is abandoned.

The one most completely thrown over is our gentle Darwin'sSurvival [survival of the fittest], which no longer has a leg to standon." (Barzun, 101)

Adams knew what he was talking about. Natural Selection,or Survival of the Fittest, was the central doctrine in Darwinism,and both Darwin and Wallace, the authors of the doctrine, cameto question its adequacy.

As Loren Eiseley observes, "It is an ironic aftermath of the

[classical] Darwinism era, that the two discoverers andpopularizers of the theory of natural selection should both havefound the doctrine inadequate when applied to man. Wallacemade the more spectacular rejection ... Darwin, by contrast,escaped attention through a gift for being ambiguouslyinconspicuous. Yet it is plain ... Lamarckism increasinglycharacterized his later years...." (Eiseley, 309)

If Darwinism was legless, as Adams observed, why didn't itfall? By 1903, Darwinism was far more than a theory. It was, as

Jacques Barzun notes, the "rallying point of innumerablescientific, philosophical, and social movements." Darwin hadbecome an oracle and the Origin the "fixed point with whichEvolution moved the world." (Barzun, 69) Indeed, Darwinism

had become synonymous with evolution and evolutionsynonymous with science. It was too important to fall.

"F


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While the public was distracted by a world war, a globaldepression and a second world war, Darwinism wasreconstructed, with legs (academic legs), and given the name "neo-Darwinism."

In 1947, neo-Darwinism was crowned "The Orthodoxy" inbiology and evolutionary science. "A milestone conference washeld at Princeton ... geneticists, paleontologists, systematists, andother biologists got together and agreed, in effect, that the Neo-Darwinian paradigm was both necessary and, in the main,sufficient to explain evolution...." (Eldredge, 39)

What was "new" in the new Darwinism?

Genetics

The contemporary science of cell biology originated in theearly decades of the twentieth century as the science of just onecomponent of cellsthe genes. In 1905, at the suggestion ofEnglish biologist William Bateson, this precursor science wascalled "genetics."

Genetics had its start in 1900, when the Dutch botanistHugo DeVries (1848-1935) and two other botanists announcedthe Mendelian law of inheritance and offered their own work asconfirmation. Gregor Mendel was a Moravian monk whocompleted, in the mid-nineteenth century, "some beautifullysimple and clear experiments on the proportions in which thecharacters [characteristics] of the common garden peas areinherited upon crossing." (Barzun, 117)


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"Mendel had shown that the vast array of livingcharacteristics was controlled by mathematical laws of assortment,and biological units [genes] were transmitted independently. 'Thecourse of development,' he remarked, 'consists simply in this, thatin each successive generation the two principal characters issuedistinct and unattended out of the hybridized form, there beingnothing whatever to show that either of them has inherited ortaken over anything from the other.' Heredity and variation in theold Darwinian sense could, therefore, not be synonymous. Theunit factors had a constancy which the Darwinians had failed to

guess." (Eiseley, 225-26)

In 1901, DeVries asserted that there are two kinds ofvariation"the random variations previously observed by Darwinand what he himself called 'mutations,' or sizeable divergencesfrom the present form...." (Barzun, 116)

DeVries' genetic mutability hypothesis had its origin in adiscovery he made in 1886. "The American evening primrose hadbeen introduced to the Netherlands some time before," Asimov

writes, "and DeVries, out on a walk, came across a colony ofthese plants growing in a waste meadow. It did not take the sharpeye of a botanist to see that some were widely different fromothers."

Asimov continues: "He brought them back and bred them separatelyand together and found the same results Mendel had found. But he also

found that every once in a while, a new variety, differing markedly from theothers, would grow and that this new variety would perpetuate itself in future

generations." (Asimov, 367)

Subsequently, DeVries suggested a new doctrine ofevolution by sudden jumps, or mutations, a word from the Latinmeaningchange.


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DeVries and other pioneers of genetics believed that theirwork would eventually replace Darwinism. Darwinists, however,had another idea: They believed that the new genetic science, andespecially the hypothesis of DeVries, fit neatly into the Darwinianframework. As Asimov remarks, "DeVries ... plugged the hole inDarwinian theory and successfully completed its structure...."(Asimov, 367)

What else was new in the new Darwinism?

Accidental Genetic Mutations

Today, a number of leading edge biologists recognize thefact that the primary source of genetic mutability is environmentalsignaling mediated by the network of IMPs (integral membraneproteins) in the membrane of the cell. Refer to Bruce LiptonsThe Biology of Belief, for details.

In the time of DeVries, however, the importance of thecellular membrane was not understood at all. Thus, it seemed notincorrect to combine the DeVries theory with the WeismannBarrier, the hypothesis that the road from the genotype (germ cell)to the phenotype (fully developed organization) is a one-waystreet. "He [Weismann] postulated a germ plasm which wasbasically immortal and inviolable. By this he meant that thereproductive cells are isolated early and are passed alongunchanged from individual to individual. By 'unchanged,' he

meant unaffected by exterior environmental influences...."(Eiseley, 218)


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From this combination of hypotheses arose the centraltenet of neo-Darwinism, the primacy of DNA doctrine. "Allchanges which emerge in the phylogeny of a given organism musttherefore emerge from the alteration or elimination of particularhereditary determiners within the germ plasm itself, not from'messenger' determiners carried into the germ from sources in theadult body...." (Eiseley, 218)

The question arises: If environmental influence is ruledout, what is the origin of genetic mutations? The mutations mustbe accidental.

The blueprints for new cellular parts, and new cells, are contained inthe DNA. When the cell needs a new part, the DNA pattern for that partis exposed to the RNA. The RNA makes a copy of the pattern, and then

proteins, using this copy as template, construct the new part.

Genetic mutations, writes neo-Darwinist Richard Dawkins,are the result of copying errors: "Occasionally, because ofrandom copying errors, a slightly different, mutant RNA moleculespontaneously arises. If for any reason, the new variety iscompetitively superior to the old one ... it gets itself replicatedfaster or otherwise more effectively, the new variety will obviouslyspread ... outnumbering the parental type that gave rise to it...."

(Dawkins, 132)

Gangster Genes

An evolutionary theory can be built upon the basis of oneof three different premisesthat evolution is a result of


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competition; that evolution is the result of cooperation; or thatevolution is the result of both competition and cooperation.

Contemporary leading edge evolutionary science is beingbuilt upon the third premise. Classical Darwinism was built uponthe first; and neo-Darwinism continued the emphasis on theimportant of competition. After the classical idea that variation isthe result of "the struggle of existence" lost credibility, neo-Darwinism stepped in to argue that struggle is indeed the maindrive and that it operates not so much in the macrocosmic world

but in the microcosmic realm, where "invisible determiners [do]the work of evolution prenatally." (Barzun, 117)

Richard Dawkins took the evolution-from-microcosmicstruggle conjecture to its logical extreme in his book The SelfishGene: "Like successful Chicago gangsters, our genes havesurvived, in some cases for millions of years, in a highly

competitive world. This entitles us to expect certain qualities inour genes. I shall argue that a predominant quality to be expectedin a successful gene is ruthless selfishness...." (Dawkins2,2)

Dawkins view is neatly summarized by Niles Eldredge:"There are in life but two kinds of entities, replicators and vehicles... Genes are replicators, but they can't exist and operate on their

own. Genes need a vehiclean organismto house and nourishthem and to facilitate their replicative functions. It isn't organisms(the mere vehicles) that are competing for reproductive success,but the genes themselves. Organisms as vehicles are simply theunwitting dupes of their genic [genetic] components." (Eldredge,28)


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It was views such as those advanced by Dawkins whichcaused the Darwinist Stephen Jay Gould to remark, "I wellremember how the synthetic theory [neo-Darwinism] beguiled me

with its unifying power when I was a graduate student in the mid-1960s. Since then I have been watching it slowly unravel as auniversal description of evolution.... I have been reluctant toadmit it ... but if [Ernst] Mayr's characterization of the synthetictheory is accurate, then that theory, as a general proposition, iseffectively dead, despite its persistence as text-book orthodoxy."(Gould, 120)

As a textbook orthodoxy which has remained oblivious toits own demise, neo-Darwinism teaches that the nucleus and thegenome are the brain of the cell. This view has beenexperimentally refuted, on numerous occasions. If the nucleus

was the cell's brain, then its removal would mean the death of thecell. In fact, when a cell is enucleated, the cell continues to

behave normally, until such time it requires new parts. Thegenome contains the plans for parts.

What is the nucleus?if not the brain of the cell. "In spiteof the fact that all text books from the elementary school level tothat of graduate education refer to the nucleus as the brain of thecell, Dr. Bruce Lipton states, the truth is the nucleus actually

represents the cell's gonads. The function of the nucleus with itsenclosed genes is strictly reproduction, from reproduction of thecell's protein mechanisms to reproduction of the whole cell. Thenucleus is not a seat of awareness; it has no 'insight' into what thecell needs or plans to do. The nucleus is a response mechanism,responding to cytoplasmic derived signals. It's not inherentlyintelligent." (Zohs, 37-38)


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In Retrospect

It is over a hundred years after historian Henry Adamsdeclared that classical Darwinism was "legless." Today, we mightsay the same of neo-Darwinism.

All considered, there was not much that was really new inthe new Darwinism. Genetics could have, and perhaps shouldhave, been developed independently; its link with neo-Darwinismensured that it would be put into the service of the long-standingDarwinian ideal of a scientifically bred human race. Geneticengineering replaced the discredited eugenics as mankind's besthope.

One of the centers for this work was the Cold SpringHarbor Laboratory in New York, which was between 1904 and1939 the home of the Eugenics Records Office, headquarters fora national movement to improve the human race throughselective breeding, i.e., the de-selection of unfit genetic lines.The Cold Spring eugenicists, writes Carl Zimmer in a review of

War Against the Weak, believed that the unfit had to beprevented from passing on their defective genes for blindness,insanity, and--of coursestupidity. Time and again, they spokeof sterilizing the submerged tenththe most unfit 10 percent ofthe population.

A contemporary proponent of a genetic solution to the

supposed unfitness problem is James Watson, co-discoverer ofthe DNAs double helix. If you really are stupid, I would callthat a disease, Watson said on a documentary titled DNA, which


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aired in Britain in March. His solution, Zimmer writes, isengineering the genes that influence intelligence in order toeliminate stupidity in future generations. It would be foolish forparents not to use this technology, he [said], because geneticallyenhanced children are going to be the ones who dominate the

world. (Zimmer, 77)


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Chapter 6

The Salvational Mission of Neo-Darwinism

Today, we face "terrifying problems," butfortunately, "our culture hasproduced the science and technology it needs to save itself. The geneticist whochanges the characteristics of a species by selective breeding or by changing genesmay seem to be meddling in biological evolution, but he does so because his

species has evolved to the point at which it has been able to develop a science ofgenetics and a culture which induces its members to take the future of thespecies into account.

B.F. Skinner

"By substituting Natural Selection for Providence, the new sciencecould solve a host of riddles arising in practical life, though by the sameexchange the new science had to become a religion."

Jacques Barzun


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eo-Darwinism is built on the premise that theDNA is impervious to influence from theenvironment. This hypothesis is known, in thejargon, as the primacy of DNA doctrine.

An hypothesis becomes a doctrine, it should be noted, notbecause it is correct, but because academic opinion leaders enterinto an agreement that it is, to use the typical justification, "bothnecessary and sufficient." Whether the hypothesis in question isscientifically valid is a secondary consideration, though none ofthe doctrine-makers will ever admit, publicly, that this is, indeed,the case.

Ten Years Ago

Ten years ago, the prominent neo-Darwinist RichardDawkins was at the height of his career, preaching the gospel ofthe inviolability of the DNA from his seat in Cambridge, England."Like successful Chicago gangsters," saith Dawkins, "our genes

have survived, in some cases for millions of years, in a highlycompetitive world. This entitles us to expect certain qualities inour genes. I shall argue that a predominant quality to expect in asuccessful gene is ruthless selfishness...." (Dawkins, 2)

Inviolability is not the same as immutability. Inviolabilitymeans the genes are impervious to environmental influences,

excepting, of course, extreme influences, such as bursts ofradiation. Genetic mutations happen, the neo-Darwinists say, butthe idea they are the result of environmental influences (the

N


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"Lamarckian heresy") is scoffed at. "No, no," the neo-Darwinistsproclaim,genetic mutations are strictly an internal, genomic matter.

Ten years ago, Ernst Mayr, most influential American neo-Darwinist of the last century, was winding down a very longcareer at Harvard, after indoctrinating generations of America's"best and brightest" in the faith that DNA is impervious toenvironmental influences.

Ten years ago, Californian Franklin Slavensky, a self-taughtbio-engineer who had recently retired from the heating and airconditioning business, was astonishing the EPA (EnvironmentalProtection Agency) by proving he could train microbial organismsto gobble up oil and gasoline spills.

"Mystic microbes" he called the little fellows. Why"mystic"? According to orthodox biology, the microbes couldn'tbe doing what they're doing. Anything unorthodox ismysticism, right?

If a mulch-eating species of microbes can be trained toprefer a diet of oil and gasoline, we're talking about a directed(and not accidental) change in genetics. We're sayingenvironmental changes induce changes in the DNA. We are(Darwin forbid!) espousing the Lamarckian heresymost seriousof science crimes in biology.

Life has a way of trumping theories, and so, despite the facthe was doing what could not be done, Slavensky established"bioremediation" as a very workable, low-cost means of dealing

with contaminants in the environment. "'This is eighth-grade

stuff,' Slavensky boasted as he tended ten barrels of cultivatedbacteria in his Sacramento back yard. 'We should all know aboutit. It's not far-out stuff. It exists.'" (Martineau, 21)


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"The technology's premise is simple: bacteria that havebeen cultivated in the presence of oil or gasoline will acclimatethemselves to the foreign substance and eventually learn to eat it.Once acclimated, the bacteria can be introduced to waste sites,

where they ingest unwanted pools of spilled petroleum-basedproducts." (Martineau, 21)

Couple of questions: Can microbes acquirecharacteristics?such as learning to digest oil. Supposing thatthey can, can these microbes pass along their new characteristicsto off-spring?

If your answer to these questions is "yes," you're aLamarckian. Nothing to be embarrassed about. Some veryfamous scientists were (or are) Lamarckian, such as CharlesDarwin in his later years (a fact conveniently ignored by neo-Darwinists); Luther Burbank, the world's most eminent botanist,

who said in 1906, "Acquired characteristics are inherited or Iknow nothing of plant life" (Barzun, 120); and Bruce H. Lipton,who has described, in great detail, the physiological means bywhich the environment regulates genetics. "The biological worldis made in the image of the environment," Lipton states in arecent article. "Each of the body's 200,000-plus proteins [is a]physical-energetic complement of [an] environmental signal...."

(Zohs, 38)

Ten years ago, Dr. Lipton patiently explained to yours truly, ascience writer initiate, why the primacy of DNA doctrine wasdead wrong. "If the nucleus, which contains the genome, was infact the brain of the cell, as the neo-Darwinists claim, thenremoving the nucleus would result in cell deathright? (Right.)

In fact, as has been shown thousands of times, when the nucleusis taken out of the cell, the cell continues to behave normally!However, if the receptors in the cell membrane are shaved off, the


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cell goes comatose and dies, unless the receptors are repaired byinternal visceral processes.

What does that tell us? The brain of the cell is in themembrane! The genes are nothing but patterns for new parts andnew organisms. They regulate nothing. Rather, they areregulatedby environmental signals mediated by the network ofreceptor complexes in the membrane. Metaphorically, the genesare records in a juke box; the receptor complexes are the playbuttons. So what determines which records are played? Theenvironment."

"So why," I asked, "is a doctrine that's been proven invalidnumerous times still taught in academe as the latest and last wordof true science?" I forget Lipton's exact response. Somethinglike, "Apparently, the neo-Darwinian mind-set is impervious tocorrect scientific information. I had to research the matter

myself.

The Malthus Doctrine

My initial inquiry focused on the most basic doctrineunderlying Darwinism and neo-Darwinism, the so-called Malthusdoctrine. Both Darwin and Alfred Wallace claimed to have beeninspired by a 1798 essay on population. In this essay, ThomasMalthus set forth his famous doctrine that the rate of populationincrease is geometrical, and that if populations are not down-sized

on a continuing basis by famine, disease and war, they soonexhaust the means of subsistence, which increases at a simplearithmetical rate.


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Though the Malthus doctrine was censured by the eminentSamuel Coleridge, who called it "the abominable doctrine," andthough the rationale for the doctrine is flawed in a dozen ways,the monarchs of Europe seized upon the Malthus argument as abrilliant scientific explanation of the reasons behind the recentrevolutions in North America and France. Looking through thespectacles of Malthus, the monarchs and their ministers sawclearly that the revolutions had nothing whatsoever to do withinadequacies on their part and everything to do with unregulatedpopulation growth. Thus was born the famous "population

problem."

Among Darwin's least scientific but most politically correcthypotheses was his application of the Malthus doctrine to theentire biological realm. "There is no exception to the rule," he

writes in the Origin, "that every organic being naturally increases atso high a rate, that if not destroyed, the earth would soon be

covered by the progeny of a single pair. Even slow-breeding manhas doubled in twenty-five years, and in a few thousand years,there would literally not be standing room for his progeny."(Darwin, 63)

This hypothesis sent a clear message to Thomas Huxley,one of the founding fathers of Social Darwinism (application of

Darwinian biology to social theory), and the message was: Anethical, responsible elite must be formed to deal with the threat ofunchecked population growth. Who will mentor this responsible elite?

To this question, Huxley replied, with complete confidence,scientists.

Thus it came to pass that science took on the mission of

saving humankind from itself. In the literature of SocialDarwinism, from Huxley to Hitler to B.F. Skinner and into ourown time, one finds the constantly recurring point that


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populations must submit themselves to the regulation of aresponsible elite.

Neo-Darwinism, 2000

By 1900, classical Darwinism was regarded by theprofessionals as lacking in scientific merit. Nevertheless, it didnot fall. It was re-structured, with the addition of genetics, andre-named "neo-Darwinism." By 2000, neo-Darwinism was

viewed by the professionals as lacking in scientific merit.Nevertheless, it did not fall. Why? For the same reason thatclassical Darwinism didn't fall ... its primary mission is salvational,not scientific. The neo-Darwinists are in the business of savingmankind, or "civilization" to be more exact. Mankind is theproblem.

Which explains why ... Dr. Lipton, who thinks science is allabout discovering truth and who thinks not at all about religion,finds the fact that the primacy of DNA doctrine is still beingupheld as scientific fact, completely baffling. Alas, Dr. Lipton

just doesn't get it.

Scientific Selection

The Darwinists' first salvational technology was called"eugenics," the science of good breeding. The father of eugenics,

which has been regarded as a pseudo-science ever since the Nazis

Documents

Over the Bones of the Dead (by Ted Hall)