The father of evolutionism
dismissed as "too democratic", punctuated by jealousy, derided as mono, English naturalist, which will double anniversary in 2009 - opponents had all calibers and sizes but no one managed to overshadow her contribution to understanding human evolution .
One of the most celebrated episodes in the history of science, or rather of certain literature cuasiescolar we all know, is that famous scene from 1860 in which the Bishop of Oxford faces Thomas Huxley in a public debate about evolution. It is no shortage of compelling arguments and Huxley's famous phrase, "I'd rather be descended from a monkey rather than an obtuse as you, nor the public acclaim that embodies the triumph of evolution.
The scene has the same exemplar that Newton's apple, Archimedes' bathtub or tower Pisa, but as Most of the prints, whether religious, patriotic or ideological, is too exemplary to be true. Who took the trouble to trace the facts in the documents and testimonies of the time was none other than Stephen Jay Gould, one of the great scientific figures of the last century, whom no one would see as an enemy of Darwin.
Since the Victorians were accustomed to enter it all down, it was not difficult to reconstruct what happened that afternoon at the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Gould found that the fight between S. background Wilberforce (alias "The Elusive") and TH Huxley (aka "Bulldog") had by opening act to chemist John William Draper, author of a famous book on the conflict between science and religion.
Aligned with the bishop intervened, with particular bitterness, Admiral Fitzroy, the captain of the ship Beagle which Darwin had been around the world. Bishop Wilberforce had had for manager paleontologist Richard Owen, who now began to be sworn enemy of Darwin and Huxley.
However, neither Owen nor Wilberforce were "fixed-comb" but "transformed." But admitted changes were, in the manner of Goethe, as the "transformation" from one species into another. It was accepted that natural selection. Neither Darwin nor Huxley used the word "evolution", which was still property of the philosopher Spencer. Darwin first came to talk about evolution after several editions of his work. Spencer, meanwhile, no longer claim to authorship of the idea, he used almost as synonymous with "progress."
One of the surprises that took Gould was that most of the witnesses, and the bishop himself had been convinced that Wilberforce was the winner. In the canonical version of the science-religion conflict appeared humbled by Huxley, which was not an atheist, although a strong anticlerical.
Years later, Huxley also won the rematch, when faced directly to Richard Owen, the coach of the bishop. Knocked him out when he could prove that the gorilla also had a brain area called the hippocampus minor. Owen had claimed that the anatomical detail that distinguished man from animals.
Paleontologists and FANS
Owen's scientific career was important, and it seemed he had some great achievements. Among other things, was the one they gave names to the dinosaurs that Mantell had discovered. But his ethics left much to be desired, and academic honesty had many dark spots.
When Darwin had just returned from his trip, the geologist Lyell introduced him to Owen, and together they worked on the megatherium in South America. Apparently, Owen felt jealousy at the success of Darwin encouraged him to write an anonymous article in the Edinburgh Review where not only is merciless with the origin of species but used the occasion to praise himself. Owen taught science to children of Queen Victoria, and that condition did not stop despite the debate.
Another great adversary of natural selection was the geologist Adam Sedgwick, who had previously taught Darwin. Sedgwick also defended the immutability of species, but Darwin accused of not following closely the inductive method.
In general, it seems that Darwin had more scientific adversaries ecclesiastical like I was changing a paradigm, and that's always resisted. The English School of Natural Theology, that creationists tend to oppose Darwinism, was well before all this. Darwin himself had in his youth had read Paley "with great pleasure."
The style of the controversies surrounding Darwin starring the "bulldog" Huxley was much more political than scientific. While Darwin was always outside, in the controversial issues of power and prestige were hidden behind the rational arguments. The Punch cartoons are filled with Darwin characterized as a monkey and was invective against him even in Parliament.
The rejection of evolution not only came from the church, also came from other sectors of society, including clerical (including the Nobel Prize in Literature would George Bernard Shaw) and anti-Christian , as the Theosophist Blavatsky. Himself Nietzsche, whose precarious notions of Darwinism may come from the books of Haeckel, repudiated natural selection in The Will to Power. I thought it was too democratic, allowing them to survive the poor, instead of caring for the potential owners.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
The author of Pygmalion, the play that is best known for the musical My Fair Lady, was very sensitive to ideological fashion of his time. The Irish had taken the reputation of Nietzsche to title Man and Superman (1905) a play that evoked Don Juan Tenorio and ran on the "vital force." The drama began in the study of a teacher, ostensibly decorated with a bust portrait of Spencer and Huxley.
After the world war, Shaw had become a socialist. The huge introduction he wrote for Back to Methuselah (1922) was precisely the development of the themes of a lecture delivered at the Fabian Society. Shaw Darwinism him saying all the "political disaster" anomie, revolutions and wars. The clash of science and religion have generated, leaving the unarmed European ante “bandidos y canallas”. Se diría que bandidos y canallas no faltaron, pero no fue por culpa de Darwin.
Resulta bastante extraño encontrar una ardorosa defensa del lamarckismo en este enorme prólogo escrito para una obra teatral. Shaw estaba empeñado en mostrar que antes de Darwin muchos habían hablado de la evolución: era algo rigurosamente cierto, como que entre ellos estaba Erasmus, el abuelo de Darwin. Pero Shaw le restaba importancia a la “selección circumstantial "and inheritance, which are precisely the specific contributions of Darwin and Wallace.
Shaw proposed a Creative Evolution (using the formula of the philosopher Bergson) and sought to overcome the crisis by creating new myths that would meet the needs both religious and scientific vision.
Collet Madame Blavatsky
Among proponents of new myths, but looking in the East, were the Theosophists. In the summer of 1873, Madame Helena Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott founded the Theosophical Society in an apartment in New York. For the writers of the time, I used to call attention to its bizarre scenery. Apart from Chinese and Indian religious imagery was a great display of stuffed animals. Among the lizards, snakes and owls sticking a chuck stuffed with which anyone he encountered upon entering.
The monkey in question had glasses, collar and tie. Under his arm the notes for a lecture on The Origin of Species was about to pronounce. To leave no doubt, a sign identifying him as "Professor Fiske." Was a caricature of John Fiske, then known as the most enthusiastic promoter of Darwinism in the United States. For the Russian prophet, the scarecrow represented "the madness of science, as opposed to the Wisdom Religion."
the case, it was not any great historical religions, but a construction: Theosophy. The visionary was determined to qualify for philosophy, but the rest was in his personal revelations dictated their mysterious Tibetan teachers. Blavatsky used an inductive method peculiar and his criticism of Darwin is based on the visions of primitive man he contributed spiritualist mediums.
kept the Russian prophet claiming to be "evolutionary" but condemned Darwin as an atheist and materialist-change. " A natural selection, he opposed the "Kabbalistic philosophy." Darwin had only seen the one hand, the rise of lower to higher. Instead, his view of evolution was degenerative: the first species were immaterial, and had been losing its higher powers as were contaminated with the material world.
In the fictitious natural history built on its treaties Blavatsky Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine, humanity was just one of seven "butt species, the first of which had coexisted with the dinosaurs 150 million years ago. Each species was divided into seven subspecies, which had seven clans each.
inhabited continents had disappeared (Hyperborea, Lemuria, Atlantis) and had created the demiurge who live on the moon. For Blavatsky, myths did not lie: the continents emerged and sank, the Earth had been many moons prior to the current and had seen them dragons and giants.
SUPERMAN AND RACISM
Despite what they say Darwin and Wallace, the man would be superseded by a new species of supermen. It was a scheme that would provide the basis for the entire twentieth century popular esotericism. Nazi archaeologists looking for evidence Ahnenerbe walked.
The impact was Darwinism provoked controversy had been devastating in the culture. Just as Copernicus had brought to Earth from the center of the cosmos, in the controversy Darwinism did not appear as a call to modesty for our species, but as the radical humiliation of human dignity. The man was no longer privileged, endowed by God with a charge of spirit.
To some, his kinship with apes and other animals seemed to justify the war and racism. And Prussian militarism was legitimized by the law of the jungle and the law of the strongest, eugenicists believed they could to distinguish definitively discriminate animals.
Madame Helena gave a peculiar twist. Equally rejected the Bible and Darwin, considering both materialistic, but deified men originating in each developmental stage had been degenerating a little more. Only in the purest strains was preserved the divine spark that had lost the "degenerate races." The master race was not created by God, was divine. Only animal were lower. Well be explained by Darwinian selection, the top is always safe.
should be remembered that this was the belief of a small esoteric group. If Blavatsky claimed to have fought with Garibaldi, Theosophists had active involvement in the independence of India and the Celtic revival. Before Marxism (which itself took a decidedly Darwinian label) became dominant ideology, Theosophy attracted and trained scientists as Crookes and Edison. Especially influenced artists as Gauguin, Mondrian, Kandinsky, Xul Solar, Klee, Scriabin, Yeats, Meyrink, Joyce, even in Aldous Huxley, who was the grandson of Darwin's bulldog.
One of the worst monsters that European culture was at that stage was certainly racism, which is difficult to attribute a definite paternity, beyond the names we all know. There was a racist eugenicist, I booted directly from Galton and political racism coming from Haeckel, both linked to Darwin.
But worst of all (perhaps because he tried to Europeans as they used to treat people under) was Nazism, which was nurtured by both sides, both of which seemed to be a scientific dogma as esoteric variants created by Theosophy.
What could have been a rational discussion about scientific issues, had become an ideology, and even a tool to gather, exercise and abuse of power.
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/futuro/13-2033-2008-11-08.html
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