Section 1 — IDs
Naturphilosophie
– A type of German idealism of the 19th C.
– Properties in objects depend on the way we perceive them.
– Individual organism is a material expression of a ‘type’ or ‘idea’ in the mind of God.
– Linked to Romanticism
– Embraces whole of natural world, understanding thinks scientifically and aesthetically—
naturally.
– Humboldt — plant classification on the mountain
– Goethe — skull metamorphosis
– Hilaire — homologies in bone structure
Romanticism
– An idealism in Europe of the 18th-19th C. Connected with Naturphilosophie, but
dominates the literary field. Goethe was a German Romantic. His portrait in a highly
poetic pose with scientific instruments and relics of former ages shows a classic romantic
painting.
– Reaction against rationalization of nature. Stressed aesthetics of nature and emphasis on
individual expression of emotion and imagination over rationality.
Beagle/Fitzroy
– 5 year voyage 1831-36
– Darwin obtained an invite from a professor who had networks in the London government
offices. The captain, FitzRoy, had an open spot on his trip to survey South America.
FitzRoy, and admiral, was interested in science and rigorous with his surveying accuracy.
– Darwin’s father listed many reason for him to not take the voyage including that the trip
was a worthless undertaking and a wild scheme.
– Darwin studied before the trip proper collection techniques, taking advice on what to
collect and how to document properly so to collect ‘useful natural history specimens.
– On the voyage, he read Lyell’s Principles of Geology (reading feb14) and adopted his
theory of gradualism, where small changes repeated over an over during time have a
large affect.
– On the trip, Darwin conducted a lot of geological work and collected specimens
– FitzRoy became devastated when his attempt to spread Christianity through three
converted Fuegians failed. Darwin on the other hand realized that civilization was just a
cover and a primitive could be converted to a high level of sophistication. This shows his
evolutionary thought, and realization that certain humans weren’t just born inferior.
Creation Myths
– Every society seeks to know its beginnings and has a way to talk about the past. At various
points this search involves: (1) myths; (2) religion; (3) science
– We must acknowledge that people today and in the past believed in their stories (even
though today we refer to them as myths). They generally have the same pattern: (1) the
universe was created out of chaos (represented as something watery); (2) there is separation
of light/dark (3) a force, breath, or spirit brings life to animals and plants; (4) human beings
are created (emphasizes humans special place in the world); (5) separation of good and evil
(represented as devil, trolls, monsters); (6) generally based on a dualistic systems (day
night, man woman, good and evil); (7) rebirth occurs (Day of Judgment, etc);
– We looked at the Aztecs, Egyptians, Hindu, Buddhist, Koran, N. American Shaman,
Australian, Blackfoot, and Judo-Christian myths.
Natural Theology
– In connection with Paley (clockwork universe). It holds that knowledge of God can be
acquired by human reason with out divine revelation. Deism is connected with Natural
Theology. Paley said that the evidence for God and his divine plan is seen through the
complexity of nature an all it little finely tuned ‘parts.’
Vestiges
– Themes: “Law of development” throughout astronomy, biology, human society
– God made the universe but let it go on by itself through the means of “natural” laws
– Weaknesses:
1. Used popular science as sources (ie. Spontaneous generation, phrenology)
2. Vagueness of mechanism (ie rats from geese? How does this happen?)
3. Atheistic (seen as a problem at the time)
– Reactions:
o Positive: liberals, radicals
o Fascinated: middle class readers
o Interested: Owen (cautiously though), A.R. Wallace
o Hostile: Establishment scientists, Sedgewick, Buckland, Whewell, Lyell
o Darwin: nervous…
– Why did we learn about it? Very important b/c talks about evolution- it was missing a
mechanism for it though, later realized by Darwin & Wallace to be natural selection
Deism
– god begins things but then things open up for a much more secular society. God doesn’t
interfere with the world on a daily basis, but set things into motion and let the world run
according to laws (scientists must discover these laws)
Atheism
– Don’t believe in any gods- Wallace was an atheist, relevant to out studies b/c this attitude
of decreased dependency on God led to more reason-based approaches
Materialism
– holds that the only thing that can truly be said to exist is matter; that fundamentally, all
things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions
Transmutation
– Conversion of one object into another (mechanism unspecified). Very relevant to the
class because this idea was becoming a popular idea with the publishing of Vestiges,
however no mechanism had been proposed for how it occurred. Darwin solved this
problem by proposing the theory of natural selection.
Chain of Being
– It is a conception of the world's structure that was accepted, and unquestioned, by most
educated men from early on until the Darwinian revolution. The chain of being is
composed of a great number of hierarchal links, from the most basic and foundational
elements up through the very highest perfection, in other words, God, or the Prime
Mover.
– God, and beneath him the angels, both existing wholly in spirit form, sit at the top of the
chain. Earthly flesh is fallible and ever-changing: mutable. Spirit, however, is
unchanging and permanent. This sense of permanence is crucial to understanding this
conception of reality. One does not abandon one's place in the chain; it is not only
unthinkable, but generally impossible. The hierarchy is a chain and not a ladder.
Unity of Plan
– The individual organism is a material expression of a ‘type’ or ‘idea’ in the mind of god.
An orderly and purposeful development of embryos, fossil record, living beings.
– Relevant to the class because this was Agassiz’ belief, represented a more traditional
religious thought
Spontaneous Generation
– Holds that complex living organisms are generated by decaying organic substances…i.e.
dead organic matter such as meat could give rise to living things such as flies. Pasteur, in
several experiments, disproved this theory.
Recapitulation
– Recapitulation was a theory developed by Ernst Haeckel in 1866. Haeckel, a
contemporary of Darwin, explained the apparent similarities between humans and other
animals using two principles: ontogeny (the growth and development of an individual
organism) and phylogeny (the evolutionary history of a species).
– Recapitulation ties ontogeny and phylogeny together by claiming that the development
of an individual of every species fully repeats the evolutionary development of that
species. Each successive stage in the development of an individual represents one of the
adult forms that appeared in its evolutionary history.
– He came to this theory using comparative embryology i.e. gills in the neck of the early
stage human embryo signify a fishlike ancestor.
Nomenclature/Classification
– Linnaeus was a pioneer in Classification and Nomenclature. With the vast variety of
species being catalogued, Linnaeus recognized the need for a standard procedure of
naming each species.
– Nomenclature is significant because it leads to several important questions. Should we
name a species in accordance to its use to humans? Should we name it after the country
from which it was procured, or should we name it after its explorer (Consult the article
on British Imperialism and nomenclature)?
– Linnaeus eventually introduced a technical Latin nomenclature system.
Fossils/Extinction
– Fossils were used as evidence for both catastrophists and gradualists. Catastrophists
believed they were either left by God or remnants of beings that were destroyed during a
flood while other animals and plants were saved by Noah. Gradualists use fossils as
evidence of the age of the earth. Evolutionists can also use the remains for comparative
anatomy.
Fixity of Species
– Linneaus believed in the fixity of species. He thought God created animals and plants
and that they did not change. The living things God himself fashioned are the ancestral
forms of all that he saw around him. He felt that if animals and plants were changing and
were not stable and fixed, they could not be classified. Buffon rejects this idea and
believes in spontaneous generation but thinks that animals and plants adapted to the
changing conditions. This change from fixity of species was an important step leading up
to Darwin.
Geology
– Fossil discovery was important to evolutionary theory. Cuvier deduced catastrophism
from studying fossils because he did not see the possibility of modern elephants deriving
from extinct mastodon fossils. He also recognized the idea of extinction. Lyell wrote
Principles of Geology and used fossils to extend the life of the earth (important concept).
Lyell also strayed away from literal interpretation of the bible from studying
fossils/geology.
Comparative Anatomy
– This concept refers to the study of the same part of the body being expressed in different
ways in different animals. It is important in that it was a great change from studying
function to studying structure. Owen and St. Hilaire believed in a “unity of type” which
said that a certain basic type led to the specific types of animals. Animals have
comparative anatomy because they derive from a basic type. Agassiz believed in unity of
type and created the Museum of Comparative Zoology to show that animals and plants
from similar geographic areas have comparative anatomy.
Homology/Analogy
– Owen defines these terms in his The Archetype and Homologies of the Vertebrate
Skeleton.
o “analogue- a part or organ in one animal which as the same function as another
part or organ in a different animal”
o “homologue- the same organ in different animals under every variety of form and
function”
– This is important because these terms were introduced in the context of non-evolutionary
thought but hold a basic observation for evolution and diversification.
Phrenology
– This is the science of understanding the brain by apportioning different faculties to the
substance of the brain… brain can be topologically subdivided between emotions and
behavioral traits. Many people who believed in this were subscribing to an imagery of
human progress; through identifying your own characters and educating particular parts
of you character, you could progress (science of self improvement of not only an
individual, but the human race). Chambers included in Vestiges that the doctrine of
phrenology supports that humans may not be changing physically but our minds are still
progressing (self improvement). We could evolve into a super human race. The fact that
this is a popular science was important in the distribution of Chambers’ ideas.
Natural Selection/Survival of the Fittest
– The idea that not everyone survives or reproduces and beneficial variations within a
species can be selected for. This was the mechanism by which evolution occurred.
Darwin used the phrase Natural Selection, but Wallace suggested it should be replaced
by the phrase Survival of the Fittest (very Malthusian). It is very important because it
finally gave a means for evolution to happen.
Contrivance
– Argument put forth by Paley that contrivance in natural world logically requires that
someone made it (clockmaker metaphor). This idea came at the end of the 18th century, a
time of tremendous upheaval. It was a time when people were looking for stability;
Paley’s metaphor for a clockwork universe gave them stability. Darwin calls the process
that results in contrivance “adaptation.”
Gradualism
– The idea that changes occur in slow, gradual steps, brought forth by Charles Lyell in the
19th century. This idea is contrasted by castrophism, in which sudden, short events bring
about large amounts of change. The idea is important because it may have influenced
Darwin’s views that change in nature was a gradual process (he read Lyell’s Principles of
Geology).
Variant Species
– Slightly different “versions” of the same organism that might better (or worse) exploit
their environment. It is through these variants which are progressively selected for or
against by selective pressure that a “species” may change.
Age of the Earth
– Originally thought to be about 6000 years old, based on biblical accounts. Buffon first
postulates that it might be about 75000 years old, and William Buckland establishes that
there was a pre-flood world from fossils. This is important b/c without a large timescale,
gradualism cannot explain how the earth may have changed.
Section 2 — People
Cuvier
– French philosophy of natural history, contemporary of Lamarck
– Wrote Discours preliminaire (Theory of Earth)
– decided there were 4 different types in the animal kingdom based on plans:
- vertebrate - molluskan - articulates - zoophytes (primitive, radial system)
– Criticized Lamarck saying they could not have evolved from one another since they were
fundamentally different God-given plans
– claimed from single bone he could reconstruct animal, because bone had embedded in it
all the keys of what the animal was; could tell if it were land animal, if herbivore or
carnivore, etc.
– Put together system of the world that integrated all of this information, felt that world had
experienced successive revolutions that had their own animals, much like the revolutions
that were occurring politically during his time (American Rev, French Rev).
– there had been a catastrophes in earth’s history: flood, volcanic eruption, that wiped out
those species and then another bunch was created
– Noah’s flood separated all of this time from the present
Lamarck (1744-1829)
– Protégé of Buffon, then Professor of Insects and Worms in Paris
– Philosophie Zoologique 1809, evolution by acquired characteristics:
– Transformisme - transformism: "the science of life"
– The definition of life is the circulation of fluid within a body, More use of an organ will
strengthen it and disuse will lead to deterioration, All characteristics are bequeathed to its
children, Needs will change and this causes to an increased flowing of fluid which
changes and then is passed to children, The duck has more fluid in its feet so that it can
develop webbed feet and walk on mud
– Allows him to put forth term Transmutation (branched staircase)—things need to get
more complex b/c environmental push
– Lamarck does not believe in extinction—Fossils are just he remains of a continuum
– Lamarck saw the ibis remains brought back by Napoleon and concluded they "proved"
his theory because there was no change in the environment and therefore no need to
change the animal.
Linnaeus
– Swedish naturalist; Mid-18th century (OCD) you can classify things into a box
– world about him is an expression of God’s plan and laws
– classification showed God’s plan
– there is something rational in chaos and violence; believed in creation story, waters
subside and animals move out to colonize the rest of the world; created animals and
plants and they did not change; if they did they could not be classified.
– lived at a time during geographical exploration (colonial); Cook, Lewis/Clark
– pragmatic reason for Linnaeus to start classification; involved nomenclature and
hierarchal way of arranging categories; artificial scheme;
– divide botanical world into 24 orders on the basis of male organs in flowers (stamen)
Further divided up by number of female organs (gaeuncious – pistols);
William Paley: English philosopher (1743-1805)
– Watchmaker analogy: no watch without a maker, no design without a designer.
o Used the eye as an example of complexity which couldn’t be found without a
creator
– “looking at the natural world we see perfect contrivance”- Darwin saw this as adaptation
– Lived at end of period of great upheaval- beginning of Napoleon’s rise- people were
looking for stability- provided this with clockwork metaphor
– “interaction between plants/environment, beauty and perfection are evidence that a
creator exists”
o Darwin says “there’s no perfect adaptation”
– Christian apologist
o Wrote Natural Theology
o Strategy to show how latest ideas fit with Christian theology
Louis Agassiz: zoologist, glaciologist, geologist (1807-1873)
– Came to do a series of lectures in Boston, convinced by Harvard president to stay as a
professor
o 1st professor of zoology and geology
o Studied glaciations extensively- came up with controversial theory of an ice age
where “glaciers had expanded over the tops of mountains”
o Followed biblical flood story but adapted it to his research and writings
o Against evolution
– Friends with Cuvier for a year until Cuvier died in 1832, abandoned Naturphilosophie
– Not quite as successful in research in the U.S. as he had been in Europe in his younger
days, but still very successful as a teacher
– Came up with idea to produce an annual volume (10 planned in total): “Contributions to
the Natural History of the United States”- wanted to prove to people that he hadn’t been
idle during his first 10 years in the U.S. and re-establish himself as a high level
researcher
– The first 2 volumes were a success and very well received (lots of people bought
subscriptions etc.). Next 2 volumes were late and not very good- most of the technical
work had been done by his assistant anyway (who he had a falling out with later)
– Claimed ice age had frozen all the earth at one point then the divine creator had created
everything again (Lyell, his friend, criticized him for this theory)
– Could never abandon creation ideas- didn’t accept Darwin’s theories
– His 2nd wife founded Radcliffe college
– Very central during his era
– Quote about Agassiz:
o “…disparity between Agassiz dreams and memories of youthful intellectual vigor
and the realities of his old age”
Robert Chambers (1802-1871), Scottish
– Wrote “Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation” in secrecy- published anonymously
for protection of family, less risk of reputation, gives the reader less bias, there was a
literary genre at this time of anonymous authors
– Had a publishing company with his brother, William
– Popularized science in “chambers Edinburgh Journal”
Wallace
– Alfred Russel Wallace was a mid 19th century naturalist and explorer. He did extensive
field work in the Amazon River Basin and the Malay Archipelago. He also
independently proposed a theory of natural selection prompting Charles Darwin to
publish his own more developed and researched theory sooner than he had intended.
Wallace was a strong advocate of spiritualism and was of lesser social standing. For this
reason, before he published his theory, he first contacted Darwin (hoping that Darwin
could leverage his friendship with Lyell).
Lyell
– Middle 19th century geologist and lawyer (Scottish). Lyell spent most of his time in
England, however. He worked under William Buckland, and his most famous book was
Principles of Geology published in 1830. This introduced the doctrine of uniforitarianism
(The present is the key to the past-geological remains from the distant past can be
explained by reference to geological processes now in operation and directly observable).
– Lyell defines geologic change as the steady accumulation of minute changes over
enormously long spans of time and his theories had an impact on Darwin. Lyell was also
a part of Darwin’s network (Wallace had to go through Darwin to reach Lyell). Initially
Lyell rejected organic evolution eventually coming to a slight endorsement of it after the
publishing of origins of a species. Lyell championed gradualism in contrast to
catastrophism
Malthus
– Thomas Malthus was a late 18th century, early 19th century figure who introduced several
theories on population growth. His main theory was the Principle of Population-Since
population, if unchecked increases at a geometric rate and the food supply grows at an
arithmetic rate, the world would eventually outrun its food supply leading to a decrease
in food per person. Only a few factors can check it population growth: natural causes
such as old age, misery, such as pestilence and war or famine, moral restraint and vice
such as infanticide, murder, contraception. This theory of a struggle for existence had a
decisive influence on Darwin and his theory of natural selection and likely led Herbert
Spencer to develop the term “survival of the fittest.” In his Origins of a Species, Darwin
regards Malthus as the great philosopher.
Buffon (1707-1788)
– He is known for criticizing Linneaus’ artificial classification. Buffon believed in the
great chain of being (animals and plants can be arranged in order of complexity), species
are not fixed (adapted to conditions), and spontaneous generation. He defined species as
the ability to produce fertile offspring. He made a provocatively long estimate for the age
of the earth. He was a king of the natural history world.
Von Humboldt
– He was really interested in measurements of things and used these measurements to form
an undercurrent for naturphilosophie. In 1805, he pubished a textbook integrating all of
the info he collected. Wallace and Bates read Humboldt’s works when forming their own
theories.
St. Hilaire (1772-1844)
– He was a comparative anatomist who was not an evolutionist but what he writes is
meaningful retrospectively. He believed in the unity of plan and thought there was one
basic type of animal. His was a science of pure structure. Wrote Anatomical Philosophy
1818.
Karl Von Baer (Baltic German-Russian, 1792-1876)
– Disagreed with recapitulation and critiqued it. He refuted it be showing the argument
could work both ways as far as hierarchical structure and that there were many
differences between human and animal embryos. He believed in individualization and
differentiation: starting at the general and getting more specific. His ideas regarding
animal development not being linear may have influenced Darwin’s use of the word tree.
Henry Walter Bates
– English Naturalist and Explorer. Went with Wallace to Brazil in 1848 to collect samples
and sell them, but stayed there longer than Bates. When he returned, Bates’ book
describing their trip and findings was much more popular than Wallace’s.
Charles Edward Mudie
– Started a lending library (Mudie’s) in England during the 1840s. Members could take out
books, and typically the members were not the intellectual elite, there were “regular”
people interested in reading. It is institutions like these libraries, as well as institutions
like the “mechanics institute” that allowed men like Wallace to gain access to
information and contribute to science even if they weren’t born into the elite.