Was There A Darwinian Revolution?

John M. Lynch Barrett, the Honors College, and School of Life Sciences

A “total suspension of judgement is here our only reasonable resource.” Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779)

1858 was not “marked by any of those striking discoveries which at once revolutionize, so to speak, the department of science on which they bear.” Presidential Address, Linnaean Society

quot;When the ideas advanced by me in this volume, or when analogous views on the origin of species are generally admitted, we can dimly foresee that there will be a considerable revolution in natural historyquot;

“You are the greatest Revolutionist in natural history this century, if not of all centuries.” Letter to CD, 21st Nov „59

The detection of intelligent design “is so unambiguous and so significant that it must be ranked as one of the greatest achievements in the history of science. The discovery rivals those of Newton & Einstein, Lavoisier & Schrödinger, Pasteur & Darwin.” Darwin‟s Black Box, 1996, p. 233.

What was before?  What happened?  What was after?  How quickly did the  change happen? Where was there a  revolution?

Mechanism Pathway Fact

“[C]hange in the properties of populations of organisms or groups of such populations, over the course of generations … Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportions of different forms of a gene within a population, such as the alleles that determine the different human blood types, to the alterations that led from the earliest organisms to dinosaurs, bees, snapdragons, and humans.” Douglas J. Futuyma (1998) Evolutionary Biology 3rd ed., p.4

ORGANIC LIFE beneath the shoreless waves Was born and nurs'd in Ocean's pearly caves; First forms minute, unseen by spheric glass, Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass; These, as successive generations bloom, New powers acquire, and larger limbs assume; Whence countless groups of vegetation spring, And breathing realms of fin, and feet, and wing

Limited Variation Speciation due to Environment

If there are variations, and  If these are inherited, and  If one variant is more suited to  some task that the others, and If that task directly affects  survival and therefore reproduction, Then selection will result in  evolutionary change over time If the selective pressure is  applied over time.

Two essays: On Upon Single Vision with Two  Eyes; The Other on Dew…and An Account of a Female of the White Race…Part of Whose Skin Resembles That of a Negro…By the Late W.C. Wells…with a Memoir of His Life, Written by Himself. Darwin wrote “In this paper he [Wells] distinctly  recognizes the principle of natural selection, and this is the first recognition which has been indicated…” (4th edition, 1866)

Appendix to Naval  Timber and Arboriculture Claims priority in  1860 letter to Gardeners Chronicle Darwin  acknowledges this.

“An Attempt to Classify the  „Varieties‟ of Animals, with Observations on the Marked Seasonal and Other Changes Which Naturally Take Place in Various British Species, and Which Do Not Constitute Varieties“ Magazine of Natural History Natural selection working to  preserve type and essence, i.e. selection as a negative force.

Not in originating  natural selection But in seeing what  natural selection was potentially capable of doing

Instinct Classification Fossil Record Natural Selection Embryology Morphology Geographic Distribution

1837 Notebooks on Transmutation 1842 Pencil Sketch Private 1844 Essay Natural Selection 1856 1858 Linnean Society paper Public Origin of Species 1859

Origin of Species 1859 1870‟s Rise of Neo-Lamarckianism 1899 Bumpus‟ evidence for nat. seln. 1900 Re-discovery of Mendel 1930‟s “The Modern Synthesis” Crick & Watson‟s Nature paper 1953 The “Genetic Revolution”

“Descent with modification through natural selection”  Transmutation of Species  „Struggle‟ with biosphere & other organisms  A theory of heredity  Natural Selection  Sexual Selection

We have a professional discipline and an entirely convincing, naturalistic explanation of the design-like appearance of the natural world.

Natural Selection Economy of Tree Thinking Nature Gradual Genealogical Change Classification Darwin Biogeographic Coevolution Distribution Sexual Selective Selection Extinction Deep Time

Tree Thinking

7mya 6mya 5mya 4mya 3mya 2mya 1mya Now Kenyanthropus Homo erectus platyops Homo ergaster “Archaic” A. garhi Homo Homo rudolfensis sapiens Ardipithecus Ardipithecus Australopithecus ramidus kadabba afarensis Sahelanthropus tchadensis Homo habilis Modern Humans Australopithecus anamensis Australopithecus Orrorin africanus tugenesis Paranthropus robustus Neandertals Paranthropus aethiopicus Paranthropus boisei

“Darwin had the luck to please everybody with an axe to grind.” Back to Methuselah 1921

“The growth of a large business is merely the survival of the fittest … This is not an evil tendency in business. It is merely the working out of a law of nature and a law of God.” John D. Rockefeller, jr.

2008 - 2009

“[H]elp students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories” http://www.oklascience.org/

“Evolution had become respectable. No revolution took place, no pyrotechnics, just a quiet change at the top – a palace coup. Society would never be the same.” James Moore

“All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.”

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Was There A Darwinian Revolution?

by John Lynch on Mar 30, 2009

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Was There A Darwinian Revolution? — Presentation Transcript