Content provided in partnership with
Darwinism defined: the difference between fact and theory - essay
Discover, Jan, 1987 by Stephen Jay Gould
Charles Darwin, who was, perhaps, the most incisive thinker amongthe great minds of history, clearly divided his life's work into two claims of different character: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory (natural selection) for the mechanism of evolutionary change. He also expressed, and with equal clarity, his judgment about their different status: confidence in the facts of transmutation and genealogical connection among all organisms, and appropriate caution about his unproved theory of natural selection. He stated in the Descent of Man: ''I had two distinct objects in view; firstly, to show that species had not been separately created, and secondly, that natural selection had been the chief agent of change . . . If I have erred in . . . having exaggerated its [natural selection's] power . . . I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations.''
- Most Popular Articles in Reference
- The importance of understanding organizational culture
- Credit card attitudes and behaviors of college students
- What factors attract foreign direct investment?
- Libraries Need Relationship Marketing - mutual interest marketing concept, ...
- How to set performance goals: employee reviews are more than annual critiques
- More »
Darwin wrote those words more than a century ago. Evolutionary biologists have honored his fundamental distinction between fact and theory ever since. Facts are the world's data; theories are explanations proposed to interpret and coordinate facts. The fact of evolution is as well established as anything in science (as secure as the revolution of the earth about the sun), though absolute certainty has no place in our lexicon. Theories, or statements about the causes of documented evolutionary change, are now in a period of intense debate -- a good mark of science in its healthiest state. Facts don't disappear while scientists debate theories. As I wrote in an early issue of this magazine (May 1981), ''Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air pending the outcome.''
Since facts and theories are so different, it isn't surprising that these two components of science have had separate histories ever since Darwin. Between 1859 (the year of publication for the Origin of Species) and 1882 (the year of Darwin's death), nearly all thinking people came to accept the fact of evolution. Darwin lies beside Newton in Westminster Abbey for this great contri- bution. His theory of natural selection has experienced a much different, and checkered, history. It attracted some notable followers during his lifetime (Wallace in England, Weismann in Germany), but never enjoyed majority support. It became an orthodoxy among English-speaking evolutionists (but never, to this day, in France or Germany) during the 1930s, and received little cogent criticism until the 1970s. The past fifteen years have witnessed a revival of intense and, this time, highly fruitful debate as scientists discover and consider the implications of phenomena that expand the potential causes of evolution well beyond the unitary focus of strict Darwinism (the struggle for reproductive success among organisms within populations). Darwinian selection will not be overthrown; it will remain a central focus of more inclusive evolutionary theories. But new findings and interpretations at all levels, from molecular change in genes to patterns of overall diversity in geological time, have greatly expanded the scope of important causes -- from random, selectively neutral change at the genetic level, to punctuated equilibria and catastrophic mass extinction in geological time.
In this period of vigorous pluralism and intense debate among evolutionary biologists, I am greatly saddened to note that some distinguished commentators among non-scientists, in particular Irving Kristol in a New York Times Op Ed piece of Sept. 30, 1986 (''Room for Darwin and the Bible''), so egregiously misunderstand the character of our discipline and continue to confuse this central distinction between secure fact and healthy debate about theory.
I don't speak of the militant fundamentalists who label themselves with the oxymoron ''scientific creationists,'' and try to sneak their Genesis literalism into high school classrooms under the guise of scientific dissent. I'm used to their rhetoric, their dishonest mis- and half-quotations, their constant repetition of ''useful'' arguments that even they must recognize as nonsense (disproved human footprints on dinosaur trackways in Texas, risible misinterpretation of thermodynamics to argue that life's complexity couldn't increase without a divine boost). Our strug- gle with these ideologues is political, not intellectual. I speak instead of our allies among people committed to reason and honorable argument.
Kristol, who is no fundamentalist, accuses evolutionary biologists of bringing their troubles with creationists upon themselves by too zealous an insistence upon the truths of Darwin's world. He writes: ''. . . the debate has become a dogmatic crusade on both sides, and our educators, school administrators, and textbook publishers find themselves trapped in the middle.'' He places the primary blame upon a supposedly anti-religious stance in biological textbooks: ''There is no doubt that most of ur textbooks are still written as participants in the 'warfare' between sci- ence and religion that is our heritage from the 19th century. And there is also little doubt that it is this pseudoscientific dogmatism that has provoked the current religious reaction.''
Find Research Guides for:
Find Featured Titles for: Autos
Most Popular Articles in Reference
- The importance of understanding organizational culture
- Credit card attitudes and behaviors of college students
- What factors attract foreign direct investment?
- Libraries Need Relationship Marketing - mutual interest marketing concept, ...
- How to set performance goals: employee reviews are more than annual critiques
- More »