Hospitals Prepare for Health Reform Challenges

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BY RANDY EDWARDS
Reform will boost health care coverage,
but the consequences won't be nearly
as cut and dried as you might expect
At first glance, national health care reform seems to be an
unmitigated boon to hospitals: An additional 30 million
insured Americans over the next decade and expanded federal
support for Medicaid could lead to a sharp reduction
in uncompensated care and bring billions more dollars through
the door
A doser look reveals a landscape that is dramatically more
complicated, however and hospital leaders need
to be quick and nimble to dear the hurdles and thrive under the
new law.
"The bottom line is that reform most certainly is not a piece of
cake for hospitals to prepare for, because there
is so much uncertainty," says Paul B. Ginsburg, president of the
Center for Studying Health System Change, a
healtli policy researdi organization in Washington, D.C.

Although laws have been approved and rules are being written,
health care reform remains a moving target:
Will tlie mandates really force Americans to carry insurance.'
Will state budgets be sufBdent to cover the expanded
Medicaid caseload.'̂ Which of the payment and health delivery
demonstrations will eventually be adopted.' WOl
communities really be able to expand their primary care
capacity.'
Hospitals can't wait for every uncertainty to be resolved before
they act, experts say, because the only certainty
is that more change is coming.
Will Expanded Access Lead to More Patients?
The impact of reform will vary from state to state, Cinsburg
says. States with historically low rates of coverage,
like Texas, face greater changes than, say, states in the Upper
Midwest. For some hospitals with large charity care
loads, there may be about the same number of patients, but far
higher numbers of insured patients. In general,
most hospitals wü] see patient numbers increase.
However, hospitals should be autious about taking the ti-
aditional response to an inaeasing census—added
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capacity—because the increased demand for
hospital space could be temporary.
"Hospitals must know today that at some

point in the future, there is going to be real
change in the delivery of care," Ginsburg
explains. "With better coordination of care,
whether it is medical homes or accountable care
"Many of the currentiy
uninsured are already
being cared for
through the existing
system, but often at
the wrong place at the
wrong time. The
question will be, can
we supply access for
the newly insured, so
they can be cared for
at the right place at
the right time?"
Rich Umbdenstock
President and CEO, AHA
organizations, there is a good chance that rates
of use of hospital care are going to decline.

While hospitals may experience a "tiansitory
crunch on their capacity" as millions of people
gain health care coverage, Ginsburg wams that
"ifs not going to be business as usual indefinitely
At some point, there will be this change where
better coordination of care will lead to more judi-
cious use of the hospital."
Hospitals already have been moving toward
improved coordination of care and better inte-
gration, and the trend will be accelerated by health
care reform programs, says Rich Umbdenstock,
president and chief executive officer of the Amer-
ican Hospital Association. But with 30 million
newly insured patients entering the system, the
years leading up to 2014 wül be a good time to
take a hard look at all aspects of care delivery and
payment
"Many of the currently uninsured are
already being cared for through the existing sys-
tem, but often at the wrong place at the wrong
time," Umbdenstock says. "The question will
be, can we supply access for the newly insured,
so they can be cared for at the right place at the
right time?"
Dont Wait and See
The reform legislation calls for a wide variety of
demonstration projects to test innovations in
care coordination and payment systems, includ-
ing managing for chronic disease and bundling
payments. In addition, federal economic stimulus
programs are providing incentives for upgrading
medical record-keeping, an important foundation

for new payment systems that will nudge health
care away from the fee-for-service tradition.
Hospitals that have highly integrated deliv-
ery systems and advanced electronic medical
records wül probably be first in une to participate
in these puot projects, Umbdenstock says. The
demonstrations will likely ti^ansition to mandates,
but hospital boards and administrators should
not wait to see what develops.
"Hospitals need to be building out some of
these capabilities, now, whether they are in the
demonsti-ation projects or not," says Umbden-
stock. "They can't wait to build out those pieces
until aU the experience has been gathered."
Ginsburg agrees. "The important thing is
to get a head start, finding ways to meet the
demand for hospitalization for newly insured per-
sons, thinking all along the way that the payment
systems and rewards are going to be changing."
Fiscal Outiook Remains CInudy
Another critical uncertainty involves the ongoing
fiscal crisis among states. Much of the expanded
access comes in the form of broadened Medicaid
eligibility, and although the federal government
has pledged to cover additional costs at 100 for-
cent at the outset, revenue-strapped state gov-
ernments have struggled to cover their existing
responsibilities to Medicaid.
Anxious state finance officers point to Mass-
achusetts, where health care reform has been
playing out on the state level since 2006. When

the reform program was launched, state oflidals
pledged to inaease Medicaid reimbursements,
which had been averaging about 71 cents on the
dollar prior to reform, says James T. Kirkpatiick,
senior vice president of health care finance for
the Massachusetts Hospital Association. Over
the next two years, the state budget increased
payments to 85 cents on the dollar.
Then the recession hit, and now the state
is paying less than it was before the reform—
averaging about 69 cents on the dollar.
"The fiscal outlook for our country is very
grim, and to think that public spending for health
care is going to be insulated from that is going
to be foolish," Ginsburg says. "There is the poten-
tial for a much more consti-ained public funding
of health care once the countiy starts to seriously
grapple with its fiscal problems."
The IWassacliusetts Model
Politicians and pundits point to Massachusetts
and its five-year history of health care reform as
a case study of what happens when access to
health insurance expands suddenly. There are
good reasons for the comparison; in meaningfiil
ways, the federal reform package is modeled after
the 2006 state legislation that has expanded cov-
erage to 98 percent of the state's population.
Hospital officials say the program has been
successfid in many ways, especially in reducing
the amount of charity care and uncompensated
Medicaid expenses. "We saw real benefits from
the inaeased enrollment," says Kirkpatiick. "In

the first year, we documented a 25 percent reduc-
tion in the amount of uncompensated care hos-
pitals had to cover"
The first thing hospitals leamed, however,
was how difficult it is to change behavior through
legislation. The law mandated health care coverage
and offered insurance to hundreds of thousands
of previously uninsured residents; but Kirkpatiick
says, "legislation doesn't get patients enrolled."
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f i o l u g t a p h b v G r a n t < a s s : e r
"What we learned early on was that the
idea that 'if you build it, they will come' does not
apply to health care," he says. "It is surprisingly
tough to get people enrolled in new programs."
In many cases, the task of figuring out
which prc^ram is most appropriate for a specific
patient falls to the provider, and for hospitals
this meant an inaease in community outi-each
and education, funded in part through a grant
from the Massachusetts Hospital Assodation.
Hospitals, in fact, were responsible for enrolling
about a third of the newly eligible Medicaid par-
ticipants in the first year of tiie Massachusetts
program, Kirkpatrick says.
At Heywood Hospital in Gardner, Mass.,
that meant dedicating employees exdusively to
matching up patients with a source of coverage,
says Daniel P. Moen, the hospital's president

and chief executive officer. "It can be a fairly
daunting administrative task to get that kind of
coverage in place and, for a lot of folks, they don't
have the ability to get that done on their own,"
Moen says. "Anyone who comes to us, through
any portal (e.g., outpatient clinic, emergency
department), if they're not already enrolled or
if they have lost coverage, we do everything we
can to get these people covered."
Overall, it's been worth the effort, Moen
says, noting that the hospital has seen its charity
care cut in half. Heywood now jointly operates
the insurance identification prc^ram with anoth-
er nearby health system, together employing
about six fiJl-dme staff members to keep patients
covered.
One reason it requires so much work to
keep patients covered is that—like the federal
program—the Massachusetts insurance law ae-
ated a number of different programs.
"What hospitals are concerned about is
the flux and chum among the patients," Kirk-
patrick says. As an individual patient's drcum-
stances change, his eligibility changes and he
is shifted fi'om one program to another.
Another concem, as access expands, is the
availability of primary care providers. Even before
health care reform was approved in Massachu-
setts, Heywood Hospital worked with its con-
gressional delegation to bring a federally sup-
ported primary care group to Gardner.
Nevertheless, there are not enough doctors to

go around. And the lack of primary care may be
blocking the achievement of one of the reform
package's goals—getting patients out of emer-
gency departments and into doctors' offices.
According to a recent state report, ED visits
in Massachusetts rose by 9 percent from 2004
to 2008, to about 3 million visits a year. While
experts debate the reasons, Kirkpatiick says pri-
mary care just hasn't been able to absorb the new
patients.
"Many in the state had expected that hos-
pital emergency room usage would fall as more
care would be delivered with primary care clin-
icians, but even though, in Massachusetts we
have a high number of primary care physidans,
it was found that their capadty to grow was Hm-
ited," he says. "As people got coverage and needed
care, they continued to use the hospitals."
Aiternative Staffing
All these factors point to the need for hospital
administrators to take a dose look at operations,
induding staffing and processes, Umbdenstock
says. "How do you expand primary care in
terms of personnel? What's the appropriate
role of nurse practitioners and physician's assis-
tants?"
While the demand for additional primary
care physicians will continue to grow, training
doctors takes too much time to meet the addi-
tional influx of patients coming in 2014, Umb-
denstock explains. Physician's assistants and
nurse practitioners could play an important role

in expanding primary care and ensuring that
patients don't continue to choose expensive emer-
gency departinent care.
"We have to think about building upon the
capability of others, not just primary care physi-
dans," he says.
Hospitals may need to conside other hires,
as well, to gear up for 2014. For one thing, staff
who can help match up patients with insurance
have proved useful in Massachusetts and may
help pay for themselves. Kirkpatrick says he's
also talked to hospital administrators who are
looking at expertise in systems engineering—
stafTor consultants who can evaluate an institu-
tion's physical assets and human resources and
identify bottlenecks to efEdency
Responding to bottlenecks, hiring staff,
recruiting primary care providers, upgrading
medical records systems: all these things take
time. And with 2014 less than three years off
hospitals should not delay says Heywood Hos-
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pital's Moen.
"I would say that any hospital now, with
respect to federal reforms, consider this: How
are you going to put a system in place to take

care of the folks who are still going to show up
at your door?"—Randy Eàvaré is afiedance writer
in Columbus, Ohio. •
"Hospitals must
know today that at
some point in the
future, there is
going to be real
change in the
delivery of care.
There is a good
chance that rates of
use of hospital care
are going to decline.
Paul B. Ginsburg
President,
Center for Studying
Health System Change
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6
Romanticism and Charles Darwin
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of Chapter 6, you will be able to:
• Discuss how the Enlightenment period gave way to
Romanticism.
• Assess the central scientific and cultural aspects
which the theory of evolution developed.
• Understand Darwin and how he developed his
theory of evolution.
• Analyze the relationship between evolution and
society and how Darwin fit into it.
• Understand someof the debates that have arisen
from Darwinian beliefs.

132
CHAPTER 6Section 6.1 From Enlightenment to Romanticism
Introduction
We now move forward chronologically into the
19th century and see how the world moved
from the Enlightenment to Romanticism. We have
seen so far the emergence of specialization as
a way to provide for the continued growth of
knowledge. However, we have not yet encountered
the “professionalization” of science.
The term refers to the advent of the scientific
specialist, trained in a university and who
belonged to a distinct professional society (for
example, the American Medical Associa-
tion for physicians), published in professional
journals, and followed the norms and eth-
ics of the society, which excluded amateurs without
thesequalifications. One example in
the 19th century of a person who bridged the
transition from amateur to professional was
Charles Darwin—we will spend much of this
chapter focusing on his evolutionary theo-
ries and their ongoing intersection with our culture
and religion.
6.1 From Enlightenment to Romanticism
All greateras come to an end, even one as
sweeping and significant as the Enlight-enment.
The event most oftenpointed to as that which

ended the Enlightenment was the French
Revolution, especially the years from 1789 to
1799. France’s abso-
lute monarchy ended, and many people lost their
lives, including one of the most sig-
nificant scientists in the Enlightenment—Antoine
Lavoisier. His ties to the French elite,
his own political interventions, his official role as a
royaltax collector, and his imperious
personality, which led him to openly belittle
the scientific writing of Jean-Paul Marat, who
was to become one of the leaders of the
Revolution—all resulted in his eventually
being
branded a traitor by the revolutionary forces.
He was beheaded in 1794, at the age of
50.
Significant change resulted from the French
Revolution, including the spread of liberal
democracies and a rise of secularism. It is
for this reason that somehave labeled it the
“dawn of the modern era” (Frey & Frey,
2004, p. xiii).
The French Revolution and Science
The end of the 18th century was a tumultuous
time,which is somewhat ironic sinceone of
the central ideals of this period was an
unwavering belief in progress through
scientific, cul-
tural, political, and moral achievements. The unrest
resulted in a revolutionary atmosphere,
most notably in wars for independence in the North
American colonies, Latin America
(Haiti, Mexico, and South America), and France.

While all significantly shaped their regions
of conflict, the French Revolution (1787–1815)
was perhaps the most significant because it
had a class of nobles so hostile to the
revolutionaries. Moreover,the geographical
position
of France in Europe affected the significance of
the Revolution. The resulting social conflict
had a tremendous effect on both European and
world history (Blackburn, 1991, p. 358).
The conflict had an effect on science as well as
on culture. A recent study found a
signifi-
cant reciprocity between science and polity in
France during the French Revolution (Gil-
lispie, 2004). Statesmen and politicians wanted
various “powers” from science as defined
133
by weapons, techniques, information, and
communication. On the otherhand scientists
wanted financial support from politicians and
sought the “legitimation of their com-
munity in its existence and in its activities, or in
otherwords for its professional status”
(Baker, 1990, p. 153).
Scientists were generally not part of the reform
movementat the start of the Revolution, as
they positioned themselves in support of the

monarchy. Thus, scientists were oftenat great
personal risk from the revolutionaries. As the most
violent of the revolutionaries gained
power during the Reign of Terror (1792–
1794), waves of bloodshed spread throughout
the
country. Any who supported the previous monarchy often
paid for it with his or her life.
For example, as we have already seen,Lavoisier, the
founder of modern chemistry, had
an association with the French nobility and had an
official role as a royaltax collector (see
Section 5.3); he was beheaded by the guillotine in
1794.
Did You Know? The Guillotine
Although commonly associated with the French Revolution, the
guillotine was used in France for
executions until 1981, when capital punishment was abolished.
The final phase of the French Revolution was
the Napoleonic Era (1799–1815), led by
Napoleon Bonaparte (1761–1821), who had a much
different perspective on science than
did those revolutionaries who camebefore him. In
fact, Napoleon was a “devotee of sci-
ence” and made an effort to bring logic
and mathematical exactitudeto the problems of
the state. For example, Napoleon made sure that
exiled scientists such as Joseph-Louis
Lagrange, who was the math-
ematician and astronomer to
Louis XVI, returned to France.
He also interacted with and
encouraged the American

inventor Robert Fulton to con-
struct the world’s first subma-
rine. Biographer Alistair Horne
concluded, “Under the [Napo-
leonic] empire science in all its
ramifications was accorded the
highest privileges and priorities,
with enormous strides made
by both technology and science
under Napoleon” (2006, p. 138).
Though the French Revolution
officially ended in 1815 when
Napoleon was defeated, cultural
ideals such as liberty, equality,
and nationalism continued to
spread throughout Europe and
the world for the next 200 years.
During the French Revolution, any scientists who were found to
have supported the monarchy often paid with their lives.
Getty Images/Thinkstock
134
Romanticism
At the turn of the 19th century, new questions arose.
These were as broad as they were
essential to the human condition and included
speculations such as: What is God? What

are man and woman? What is the natural world,
and whose creation was it? What is
beauty? These questions loosely cametogether under
the term Romanticism, which is the
name generally given to the era succeeding
the Enlightenment. This was an “age of reflec-
tion,” and all thesequestions had one aspect in
common—they all “came to be perceived
as questions of self-understanding” (Cunningham &
Jardine, 1990, p. 1).
Romantics were hostile toward what they saw as
the sterile, mechanical natural phi-
losophy of the Enlightenment. This hostility was
expressed in an 1819 poem by English
Romantic poet John Keats (1795–1821) in which he
attacked Newton for robbing nature of
beauty and replacing it with mathematical description.
According to Keats, Newton could
even destroy the majesty and mystery of a
rainbow. He wrote:
Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven;
We know her woof, her textures; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things,
Philosophy will clip an angel’s wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air and gnomed mine,
Unweave a rainbow. (Fara, 2002, p. 124)
Nineteenth-Century Information Excess
The 18th-century philosophes did not solve the
problems of information overload, and with
all the advances occurring,concerns about the

expansion of knowledge continued dur-
ing the Romantic period. Henri Saint-Simon (1760–
1825), a French social theorist, claimed
that his era confronted “acute problems of
knowledge accumulation” (Saint-Simon, 1975,
p. 105). The culture of 19th-century France
supported a “dramatic explosion in scientific
creativity.” In and around Paris, “the experimental
activity produced a flood of learned
papers,” so many that they resulted in unproven
theories in every field of science (Manuel,
1963, p. 80). Saint-Simon argued that a new
encyclopedia was needed to demonstrate the
interconnection of human knowledge (Iggers,
1972). He believed that this encyclopedia
should be an analysis of the progress of
humanity and that it should help manage written
output by organizing and unifying the “specialized
fields of physical and mathematical
science” (Manuel, 1963, p. 106).
It was in Germany, which was the center of
the Romantic scientific world, not France, that
intellectual specialization flourished. Here the idea
that the development of new knowl-
edge through specialized research would improve
the political and cultural status of the
German state slowly took hold (Jungnickel &
McCormmach, 1986). Eventually, this idea
became so ingrained in the German system of
education that the union of teaching and
research became the “German” model of university
training. From Germany this model
spread to the rest of the world.

135
In the United States professional specialization
was consciously modeled after the Ger-
man system. Throughout the 19th century, thousands of
Americans traveled to Germany
to gain experience in advanced academic training.
Upon their return, they incorporated
the German system into the American university,
and specialized intellectuals became
common (Curti, 1991). In 1836 Yale established a
new mathematics professorship, in 1853
the college divorced chemistry from natural philosophy,
and in 1865 natural history was
divided into geology and botany. The day of the
generalist natural philosopher was com-
ing to an end (Oleson & Voss, 1979).
Specialization became an impor-
tant part of intellectual activ-
ity because of the information
explosion. It was the growth
and accumulation of informa-
tion that by the 19th century
created a need for specialists
who, in turn, became academic
professionals (Bowles, 1999).
This end did not come without
a cultural fight. Many men of
science as well as the lay pub-
lic reacted strongly against the
trendtoward increasingspecial-

ization (Daniels, 1968). Many
believed that prior to the Civil
War, specialization was contrary
to the American ideal. Defin-
ing work and knowledge into
narrow segments of expertise
appeared to reduce individual
responsibility while increasingdependence upon others.
Those who espoused the value
of agrarian independence regarded specialization as
counterproductive to the successful
democratic experiment upon which the nation
itselfwas founded. For example, as Ralph
Waldo Emerson wrote in 1837, “Man is
not a farmer, or a professor, or an
engineer, but he
is all.” Emerson said that in a specialized society,
a mechanic was reduced to a machine,
an attorney became a statute book, and a
sailor was transformed into a simple rope on
a
ship—the sense of the whole was lost. These
specialized men were like so many “walk-
ing monsters—a good finger, a neck, a
stomach, an elbow, but never a man”
(Emerson,
1937, p. 6).
Advances in Medical Science
The advances in the basicsciences that occurred during
the first half of the 19th century
led to new fields of medical inquiry, including
microscopic anatomy, physiology, pathol-
ogy, and pharmacy.New apparatus,such as the microscope,
provided those interested in

the human body the means to gain additional
knowledge. The introduction of the stetho-
scope and the ophthalmoscope made it
possible to perform more precise physical exami-
nations. Chemistrycontributed to medical diagnosis
and treatment, making it possible to
Yale University’s science programs started down the path to
where they are today during the 19th century. This illustration
shows the campus as it looked in the 1880s.
Copyright Morphart Creation, 2014. Used under license from
Shutterstock, Inc.
136
CHAPTER 6Section 6.2 Evolution Before Darwin
use urinetests to identify disorders and to isolate
pure substances from raw drugs, giving
rise to the use of morphine (in 1806) and quinine
(in 1820) to combat illness.
The 19th century also saw the gradual acceptance of
the germtheory of disease. The new
science of bacteriology was aided by the
accumulating evidence of microorganisms, which
could be identified and studied for their role in
disease causation. This research allowed
physicians, for the first time,to determine the real
causes of many diseases and to develop
treatments and preventative measures.

In surgery, work in anesthesiaand antisepsis made
more invasive operations possible.
Where surgeons had viewed their work primarily in
terms of emergency interventions,
they could now expand their role to include
eliminating specific causes of disease.
Another advance in medicine of the 19th century
that was not directly related to the
increase in basicscientific knowledge was in clinical
medicine. The 19th century has been
called, in fact, the era of “hospital medicine.”
Hospitals became larger (as urban popula-
tions grew), and the availability of patients to
observe translated into better clinical diag-
noses. In France, medical education was reformed to
include clinical observation.
Even with all of theseadvancements in medicine,
specialization was considered quack-
ery (Rosenberg, 1995). At the turn of the 19th
century, any physician offering a “special
practice” was considered little more than a fake by
his colleagues. Throughout the cen-
tury, medical specialization continued to be regarded as
a nonprofessional offshoot for
the untrained and unsophisticated practitioner. One of
the most prevalent revolutionary
ideascirculating among theselower-class surgeons in
England was that species evolved
over time—evolution.
6.2 Evolution Before Darwin
It may come as a surprise to somethat Darwin
was not the originator of the theory of

evolution. In fact scientists had debated evolution
sincethe 18th century. It was the philosophy of
the Enlightenment that gave scientists the confidence
to speculate on
the most fundamental questions of existence such as
the origins of life (Bowler & Morus,
2005). Because of the Enlightenment belief in
the powers of human reason, scientists ascer-
tained that it was within their right to question
every authority and within their capability
to correct biblical facts and ideaspropagated by
the church. One of the central issues was
that of the age of the Earth itself.
George Buffon
We have already looked at the work of Buffon
and Hutton (see Section 5.2), but we should
also note that they vastly lengthened the Earth’s
age, stating that the planet was far older
than previously thought. If, as many began to
speculate, the Earth had an initial molten
state,
then Buffon knew he could project how long it
would take to cool to a temperature that
sup-
ported life forms. He found that this stagealone
required nearly 100,000 years (Dalrymple,
2004). This enabled the possibility for species to
develop through gradual transformation,as
opposed to direct and immediate divine
intervention. In 1766, Buffon wrote a
chapter called

137
CHAPTER 6Section 6.2 Evolution Before Darwin
“On the Degeneration of Animals” and argued that
species had the ability to adapt to their
environments and that all creatures had a common
ancestor (Roger & Williams, 1997).
Erasmus Darwin
Buffon’s ideasspread, and by the end of the
18th century, two men in particular expanded
upon his thoughts on how species might adapt
to their surroundings. The first was Erasmus
Darwin (1731–1802), Charles’s grandfather.
Erasmus, who was considered one of the most
eloquent poets of his timeafter his publica-
tion of The Botanic Gardens in 1792, also estab-
lished his fame as one of the leading physi-
ciansin England with his publication of four
volumes called Zoonomia, or the Laws of Organic
Life between 1794 and 1796. In a chapter of
Zoonomia he discussed the idea of biological
evolution in which life began as microscopic
“filaments” in the oceans. He wrote that the
evolution occurred due to “contests among
the males” and, specifically, that the “stron-
gest and most active animal should propa-
gate the species, which should thence become
improved” (Arnqvist & Rowe, 2005, p. 3).
The
reaction among the religious and scientific
communities was strong. Erasmus Darwin’s
friend Joseph Priestly wrote, “If thereis such a

thingas atheism, this is it” (E. Darwin & King-
Hele, 2007, p. ix).
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
While Erasmus Darwin’s ideasgained publicity and
created a furor, French naturalist J.
B. Lamarck (1744–1829) proposed a much more
influential scientific theory of evolution.
At the turn of the 19th century, Lamarck cameto
the conclusion that the concept of a fixed
and unchanging species was not consistent with nature;
he speculated that complex organ-
isms changed over time from the simple to the more
complex—an idea known as the great
chain of being—with humans occupyingthe top of
the ladder. God was at the pinnacle
followed by angels, then the human realm,
followed by animals, then plants, and at the
bottom, rocks. However, somebranches were unaccounted
for on this evolutionary tree.
Lamarck’s contribution was a process he called
inheritance of acquired characteristics, or
traitsgained after birth that were passed on to
succeeding generations.
Lamarck believed that species changed over time as a
way to better adapt to their physi-
cal environment. In this respect he accounted for
the length of a giraffe’s neck through
generations of giraffes stretching to reach leaves
to eat that were on higher and higher
branches. If one giraffe lengthened its neck just
slightly, this acquired characteristic was
Erasmus Darwin

Photos.com/Thinkstock
138
CHAPTER 6Section 6.3 Evolution and Darwin
passed to its offspring, because the trait allowed
easier access to food. Ducks have webbed
feet because this characteristic enables them to be
better swimmers while on the surface
of the water, much like the wheels of a
paddle boat. In human terms, if a man
was a body
builder, he would more likely have a son with
strong muscles. Culture becomes central to
this scientific viewpoint. Acquired characteristics are
essentially determined by the cul-
ture in which one lives—the type of work one does or
the hobbies one enjoys result in
traitsthat are passed to offspring.
This concept was not unusual in Lamarck’s time as
organic mutabilitywas an idea many
scientists supported, as well as the notion that
someacquired characteristics or learned
behavior might be passed to succeeding
generations. What was unique about
Lamarck
“was that instead of offering a model of limited
organic mutability, or just a paragraph or
two hinting at a broader view of organic change,
he set forth over a period of twenty years

a series of extended accounts of how nature
began with the simplest forms of life and
from
thesesuccessively produced all the forms of life in
existence” (Burkhardt, 2005, p. xiv.)
Lamarck’s devotion to this idea would eventually
inspire Charles Darwin.
6.3 Evolution and Darwin
Using his status as a wealthy amateur Darwin
was able to devote his life to his pas-sion,
which was investigation into the theory of
the evolution of species. Though he was not a
university-trained biologist, as an amateur he
was among a dying
breed of people who sought to make
revolutionary contributions to science without a
university affiliation. While Darwin was somethingof
a scientific anachronism as an amateur, his most
vocal
defenders were professional specialists who sought to
oppose religion and the influence of Anglican
amateur
scientists. Today Darwin is the subject of
numerous new
books every year, he appears on postage stamps,
and his
face graces the British 10-pound note. From
whatever
direction one approaches Darwin, everyone agrees

that
“Darwin’sepoch making book On the Origin of Species
[published in 1859] transformed the way we
see our-
selves on the planet” (Desmond & Moore, 2009,
p. xv).
Darwin continues to spark debates that are not
mere
scientific curiosity; instead, they touch the very heartof
what it means to be human.
Charles Darwin was ardently committed to
establishing
the truth of nature and his vision of a
materialistic origin
of life. However, one obstacle prevented him from fully
expressing his beliefs—maintenance of a
respectable
social standing. The attempt to preserve his
“gentle-
manly” status in Victorian England caused him to
hedge
his anti-orthodox beliefs with a public persona of
a man
who, while on the cusp of being a radical,
still donated to
Sunday schools and avoided heretical, religious debate.
The title page from Charles Darwin’s
On the Origin of Species.
139

In 1878, nearly 20 years after the publication
of On the Origin of Species, Darwin wrote in a
letter to his vicar, J. Brodie Innes, that he
“never published a word directly against religion
or the clergy” (Darwin, 1961, p. 244). In
that same year, Darwin wrote in his private
auto-
biography that Christianity was a “damnable
doctrine” and that the Bible was “manifestly
false history” (Darwin, 1989, p. 119). It is
this conflict expressed by Darwin himself which
has shaped the relationship between evolution and
religion to this day.
Darwin’s On the Origin of Species
Charles Darwin was born in Shropshire, England, on
February 12, 1809. He was mostly
uninspired by his earlyeducational experiences, so
his father decided that Charles should
follow in his brother’s footsteps and in 1825
enrolled him at the University of Edinburgh’s
medical school in Scotland. There, Charles
cultivated a love for natural history and, after
finishing his first year of studies, spent much of
the summer hiking in the wilderness and
creating a notebook with drawings and observations of
birds. In 1827 he met a Scottish
zoologist, Robert Grant, and during their long walks

together, Grant discussed the idea
of evolution, in particular the theories of Lamarck
and, ironically, Darwin’s own grand-
father. By 1831 Darwin’s work as a naturalist had
gained someattention among scientific
circles in England. As a result he earned an
invitation to serve as an unpaid ship’s
natural-
ist on the HMSBeagle, accompanying Captain
FitzRoy on his planned two-year voyage to
survey South America. There was already a
paid naturalist on the voyage, and Darwin’s
role was more that of a gentlemanly companion of
the captain’s own social class.
What Darwin saw on this voyage led to a
question that Darwin would spend the next
20 years of his life pondering and researching. In
September 1835 the Beagle reached the
Galápagos Islands, located directly on the equator
600 miles off the west coastof South
America, and the timing of his visit therewas perfect.
Because of what he had already
observed in his travels, he was poised to analyze
the biological and botanical distribution
in a unique way. He wrote this in his journal
while on the voyage: “Seeing this gradation
and diversity of structure in one
small, intimately related group
of birds, one might really fancy
that . . . one species had been
taken and modified for different
ends” (Young & Largent, 2007,
p. 43). What could have caused
this diversity when the climate
was the same? Why did the

variations occur? This question
became for Darwin “the greatest
of the evolutionary mysteries”
(Eiseley, 1961, p. 173).
Darwin initially made a mis-
take. Though he had begun to
consider the possibility of evo-
lution, he did not think that
evolutionary differences could
Shown here is an illustration of Charles Darwin observing
Galapagos Tortoise, with the HMS Beagle in the background.
Dorling Kindersley RF/Thinkstock
140
be observed in closegeographical proximity. Thus,
in his notebook he did not keep track
of the specific island in which he gathered
plants, insects, rocks, and fossils. However,
theseislands presented just the right opportunity for
observing evolution, because they
had similar environments yet were completely cut
off from each other. They were like
small experimental laboratories in nature.
Eventually realizing that he was seeing diver-
sity among similar species from island to island,
Darwin began noting the different struc-
tures of similar bird and tortoise species. Oncehe
finished his collections, he remarked

in his journal, “It never occurred to me that
the productions of islands only a few miles
apart, and places under the same physical
conditions would be so dissimilar”
(Hughes,
2009, p. 141).
The Voyage of the Beagle
When Charles Darwin stepped onto the Beagle he stepped onto a
ship that was an unimpressive
coastal carrier, just 90 feet in length and by most accounts of a
less than impressive seafaring design.
Darwin described the moment the trip began: “After having
been twice driven back by heavy south-
western gales, Her Majesty’s ship Beagle, a ten-gun brig, under
the command of Captain Fitz Roy
sailed from Devonport on the 27th of December, 1831 . . . on
the 6th of January we reached Tenerr-
iffe . . . the next morning we saw the sun rise behind the rugged
outline of the Grand Canary Island,
and suddenly illumine the Peak of Teneriffe, whilst the lower
parts were veiled in fleecy clouds. This
was the first of many delightful days never to be forgotten”
(Darwin, 1909, p. 11). The Beagle traveled
to the following locations: Tenerife, the Cape Verde Islands,
South America, the Galápagos Islands,
Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, the Maldives, South Africa, and
Mauritius.
At each of the ship’s stops Darwin took an opportunity to
explore, make observations in his notebook,
and collect fossils, insects, rocks, plants, and bones. Darwin
spent much of the trip on inland excursions

where he escaped sea sickness and conducted his
research. By the end of the voyage he had spent a total
of 18 months on the ship and 36 months on land.
Darwin wrote an account of his great voyage on the
HMS Beagle which has become a classic piece of travel
literature in its own right. What emerges from Dar-
win’s exploits on the Beagle is that he was having fun
(although today we may not think of these activities as
fun). For example, on the Galápagos Islands he spent a
day examining tortoises by chasing them, riding them,
and even flipping them on their backs to see if they
could get upright again. While examining the iguanas
he cut them up to see what they ate, tied them to rocks and
dropped them over the side of the Beagle
to see if they could live under water, and then grabbed a
sleeping one by the tail and hurled it into the
ocean to see if it could swim. “[Darwin] lived the
swashbuckling explorer’s life. A sense of exhilaration
pervades The Voyage of the Beagle—exhilaration totally
dissonant with the Charles Darwin we remem-
ber today as a wrinkled, heavy-eye browed, white-bearded,
finch-beak measurer” (Simons, 2010).
Reflective Questions:
1. What challenges did Darwin face on his voyage on the
Beagle?
2. What is the value of Darwin’s account of his voyage? Is its
value more cultural, scientific, or autobio-
graphical, or some combination of the three?
Image copyright Hein Nouwens, 2014.

Used under license from Shutterstock, Inc.
141
CHAPTER 6Section 6.4 Darwin and Society
Darwin was at the beginning of a new way to
thinkabout evolution that went far beyond
the inheritance of acquired characteristics or the
significance of the environment as a
mechanism for shaping a species. He also
abandoned the idea that God created slightly
different variations all within the same species on
thesedifferent islands. After returning
home in 1836 from what eventually lengthened
into a five-year voyage, Darwin immedi-
ately went to work to try to uncover this mysterious
force. We know that Darwin sought
evidence in the artificial selection techniques of
dog and pigeon breeders, who achieved
desired results by selecting characteristics in one
animal and continuing to breed them
and their descendents until this characteristic became
more prevalent. To Darwin, this
was a piece of the mysterious puzzle, but he
wondered if therewas a natural example of
artificial selection (Bowler & Morus, 2005).
Darwin also read Reverend Thomas Malthus’s Essay on the
Principle of Population which
explored what Malthus called a concern “with
the very nature of man.” Specifically he
said the problem was “the constant tendency in all
animated life to increase beyond the

nourishment prepared for it” (Tobin, 2004, p. 2).
He questioned why no species exhibit an
exponential increase in population when all
populations are highly fertile and reproduce
often. Observation proved that most populations
remain relatively stable over time.The
result according to Malthus was a “perpetual
struggle for roomand food” (Malthus, 1995,
p. 17). It was in this struggle for existence that
Darwin camecloser to understanding the
mechanism of evolution.
Natural Selection
Darwin continued with his own research on barnacles,
the simple life form which appeared
to not have advanced from simple to more complex
organisms. Darwin noticed that some-
times offspring were less advanced than earlier
generations, and in thesedegenerative
results Darwin found his major breakthrough.
By combining ideasfrom artificial selection
and Malthus’s food studies, Darwin conceived of natural
selection. He said all species
endured a struggle for existence, and survival was
determined by the inherited traitsthat
best enabled an organism to exist and have offspring
(Bowler & Morus, 2005). He believed
that random mutations made someoffspring more
inclined to survive than others and
that thesewere more likely to mate and pass the
favorable traitson to future generations.
These were inherited traits,not acquired traits, and this
was a central distinction between
Darwin and Lamarck.

6.4 Darwin and Society
Darwin remained secretive about his work for over 20
years. Scientists today publish their ideasquickly
and give conference presentations to attempt to
stakea claim on their ideas, but Darwin
waited in silence. Why? In part, this was
due to the culture
of the day sincehis ideasappeared so heretical. Darwin
was part of the “gentleman” class of
British society. Evolutionary ideaswere popular in
radical circles of the inexpensive anatomy
schools, which were of a lower social
standing. These schools and their members sought
social and political reform, which threatened
the class base of English society. If Darwin
made it known that he shared their evolutionary
ideas, even though he had a significantly
142
new approach, he would have
jeopardized his “gentlemanly”
and conservative social sta-
tus, not only for himself but
also for his family (Desmond,
1989). Darwin’s life as a gentle-
man required that he maintain
an air of “quiet respectability”
(Desmond, 1989, p. 404). The
problem he faced was that

“respectability” and evolution-
ary theories did not mix.
Radical Christians, dissent-
ers, atheists, and materialists
vociferously condemned the
priestly privilege of the Angli-
can Church, the closeconnec-
tion between church and state,
and the creationist tenets of
biology (Desmond & Moore, 1994). These radicals
championed a Lamarckian evolution-
ary theory (Desmond, 1989). The established
gentry from Oxford and Cambridge uni-
versities were directly opposed to thesepopular views.
This social class consisted of the
conservative, Anglican, nonevolutionary gentlemenwho
sought to retain the inequalities
of the established social order. Darwin, a
Cambridge graduate, and his family were long-
standing members of the gentry class and could
never risk association with the grow-
ing radical element of society. Thus after returning
from his Beagle voyage, Darwin con-
sciously attempted to avoid being associatedwith
radical, religious views and Lamarckian
connotations.
Darwin’s materialistic views aligned him with the
dissenting extremists and artisan
activists who were oftensent to jail. Therefore, to
disguise his growing materialistic and
anti-orthodox philosophy, Darwin emulated a
clergyman’s life and became the so-called
squire-naturalist of Downe. In a time when
“knowledge without character [could] pro-

cure no more than temporary and very transient pre-
eminence,” Darwin chose to sacrifice
complete philosophical disclosure for a distinguished
career, strong character, and contin-
ued respectability (Desmond & Moore, 1994, p.
254). But eventually Darwin was forced to
reveal his secret evolutionary beliefs when he
discovered that not only did someone know
his secret but someone else might take credit
for all his ideas. It was time for Darwin to
come out of hiding. If he did not, therewould
be no scientific reputation left to risk.
Alfred Russel Wallace
What eventually spurred Darwin into action
was an unexpected letter and essay he
received in 1858 from Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–
1913), a naturalist living in the Far
East who did not have either the wealth or the
social standing of Darwin and thus had no
reservation about publically proclaiming his support
for evolutionary theory. Wallace’s
essay, “On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart
Indefinitely from the Original Type,” was
During the period prior to the publication of On the Origin of
Species, England was a socially divided country. Darwin risked
his
place in society with its publication.
iStock/Thinkstock

143
based on research he had conducted in the Ama-
zon valley from 1848 to 1852. Wallace had reached
many of the same conclusions as Darwin. In
other
words, Wallace had independently “solved the
riddle of the origin of species” (Slotten, 2006,
p. 2).
Eventually, Wallace’s essay together with Dar-
win’s notes were presented to the Linnaean
Society of London. After careful evaluation
the
society decided that Darwin deserved the claim
of historical priority and determined that Wal-
lace’s work was important for helping to lend
support to Darwin’s theories. Though at the time
Wallace and Darwin shared credit and fame for
the near-simultaneous discovery of evolution by
natural selection, today Wallace’s name is nearly
forgotten. Just one year later, in 1859, Darwin
published On the Origin of Species.
Supporting Evolution
At the time of publication of On the Origin of
Species, the case for evolution was by no means
decided. Even though both Darwin and Wallace
supported their ideaswith extensive evi-

dence, the topicsparked intense debate. In some
instances religious beliefs based upon
a literal reading of the creation storyin the
Old Testament’s book of Genesis prevented
acceptance of Darwin’s theories. Unlike most other
scientific theories, evolution was held
to a different standard. Proof required more than
scientific argument, “and to someextent
the outcome would depend on the politics of
the scientific community and the possibility
of a wider change in public opinion”
(Bowler & Morus, 2005, pp. 149–150).
For those willing to accept the evidence,
support for evolution came rather quickly
from the scientific community. This support in part
camefrom new findings in the fossil
record. For example, German researchers discovered
Archaeopteryx, which proved to be
an important link between birdsand reptiles. While
touring the United States, English
biologist T. H. Huxley lectured to audiences on
evolution, offered a series of fossils as
what he called “demonstrative evidence of evolution,”
and concluded that the “doctrine
of evolution at the present time rests upon exactly as
secure a foundation as the Coperni-
can theory of the motions of the heavenly bodies”
(Huxley, 1876).
In a way unintended by Huxley, Darwin was
similar to Copernicus in one otherrespect.
The “Copernican revolution” did not result in
immediate acceptance by the scientific
community of a heliocentric solar system. In
much the same way, the “Darwinian revo-

lution” did not create an immediate and
dramatic switch to the belief in natural
selec-
tion as the mechanism for evolution. This took time,
nearly 100 years. Even though the
scientific community quickly accepted evolution, the
core concept—natural selection—
took much longer to gain acceptance and did
not prevail until the mid-20th century
(Gould, 1992).
Alfred R. Wallace was a Welsh naturalist
who came up with a theory of natural
selection independently of Charles Darwin.
144
Social Darwinism
Darwin limited his ideasof evolution by natural
selection to inherited traitsof species.
However, Darwin’s ideaswere not simply confined to
the realm of biology. If they were
they would not have had the same social, cultural,
and political ramifications. Several
influential people who livedafter Darwin rode his
biological coattails to further their own
ideologies, “justifying everything from capitalismto
socialism, war to peace, race and
empire to Nazi-styleeugenics” (Crook, 2007).

Social Darwinism is an example of this influence. Social
Darwinism applies Darwin’s
biological theory to the social realm.
Philosophers, such as Herbert Spencer (1820–
1903),
argued that the inherited traitsapplied equally well to
the social realm. Spencer, in fact,
cameup with the phrase “survival of the fittest.”
He and others used this philosophy to
justify tolerance for social policies that did not
help those unable to support themselves,
because only the strong should survive.
However, Darwin almost immediately recognized,
though did not support, the potential
for theseideasand in fact used his own beliefs to
promote racial equality in a way that
few realized. Keepin mind that Darwin formulated
his theory in the middle of the 19th
century, a time when many people thought
that one race was superior to another, which
provided the moral justification for slavery. Darwin
published On the Origin of Species just
two years before the start of the American Civil
War, in which a divided United States
went to war with itselfessentially over the issueof
slavery.
Did this cultural environment impact Darwin’s
scientific work? Darwin was taught taxi-
dermy by John Edmonstone, a black former
slavefrom South America, and recognized
that therewas no intellectual difference between the
races. In fact, Darwin was a staunch
abolitionist. It was these ideas that formed

the core of Darwin’s notion of “common
descent,” which was outlined in his 1871 book The
Descent of Man. Darwin’s mental and
cultural environment was far more complex than we
previously understood (Desmond
& Moore, 2009). He used science, instead of
social activism, to argue that all human
races
descendedfrom the same tree.
Darwin’s Religious Journey
Darwin’s theological beliefs changed throughout
his lifetime, becoming progressively
anti-orthodox. Growing up in a household with
an Anglican father and a Unitarian
mother, Darwin accepted the “literal truth in every
word in the Bible” (Mayr, 1982, p.
402). He even went on to study to become a
minister at Cambridge in 1829 after his failed
attempt at medical school. However, Darwin began
to question his faith and Natural The-
ology; he knew that he himself felt no
religious fervor, and he began to doubt
his intent of
taking religious orders. His Beagle voyage enabled an
escape, yet, when he was on the trip,
he claimed that he was still “quite orthodox . .
. [and] remembered being heartily laughed
at by several of the officers for quoting the
Bible as an unanswerable authority” (Darwin
& Barlow, 1989, p. 118).
Two years after returning to England from his

journey, Darwin abandoned his Christian
faith principally because his materialistic philosophy
replaced the argument of divine
145
design. Furthermore, the loss of his old-
est daughter, Annie, in 1851 due to scar-
let feverended his deliberations over the
possibility of a Christian morality (Des-
mond & Moore, 1994, p. 386). This aban-
donment allowed him the philosophi-
cal freedom to devise his idea of natural
selection as the mechanism of evolution.
Darwin moved through stages of ortho-
doxy, Natural Theology, and Deism and
ended his theological journey “content to
remain an Agnostic”(Darwin & Barlow,
1989, p. 124). Yet the Darwinian debates
were just beginning.
Charles Darwin
iStock/Thinkstock
Darwin’s Letters to a Vicar
How did Darwin retain his front of respectability with the
Anglican Church before and after the
publication of On the Origin of Species? His correspondence
with his vicar, J. Brodie Innes, provides
one example. Little is known about Innes’s life except for his

letters to and from Darwin. Innes was
the curate of Farnborough in 1842 when the Darwins moved to
the adjoining parish of Downe (Des-
mond & Moore, 1994). Four years later, Innes became the Vicar
of Downe. Darwin, Innes, and their
wives became close friends and remained so throughout their
lives. Innes believed in a separate but
equal doctrine for science and religion with natural history
being best studied without reference to
the Bible. He saw science and religion progressing along
parallel lines that would never cross and
would benefit all (Darwin, 1961). Yet, Innes was open to the
new ideas proposed by the latest scien-
tific findings and was especially “charmed” by Darwin’s books
on natural history. For example, as to
the lengthening of man’s conception of our temporal past, Innes
began to believe in “infinite space
and unlimited time” (Darwin, 1961, p. 222). Thus, Innes could
be “charmed” by the “interesting facts
of natural history,” though he never swayed in his devotion to
his faith and claimed, “I am not a con-
vert” to the Darwinian theory (Darwin, 1961, p. 235).
How did Innes view Darwin? Innes claimed to be “first of all a
Churchman,” and maintained that his rela-
tionship with Darwin would not have been maintained “if Mr.
Darwin had been the avowed Unbeliever
and opponent of religion that was supposed by many who did
not know him” (Darwin, 1961, p. 255).
Innes believed that Darwin shared his ideas on the relationship
between science and religion. Innes
recalled one day when they were discussing apparent
discrepancies between the book of Genesis and
recent scientific work. He recounted Darwin saying, “I pursue
my investigations without considering how
they affect Scripture. I do not attack Moses and I think Moses

can take care of himself” (Darwin, 1961, p.
255). Innes valued Darwin as one of his “dearest friends.” He
occasionally joked to Darwin that if some of
“your naturalists, and my ritualist friends were to hear us two
saying civil things to each other, they would
say the weather was going to change” (Darwin, 1961, p. 233).
Darwin’s secret was safe. (continued)
146
CHAPTER 6Section 6.5 Darwinian Debates
6.5 Darwinian Debates
An idea as culturally significant as evolution does
not simply fade away. Darwin’s publications
caused a cultural ripple in both scientific
and religious ponds, and the ripples have not
faded over time.The Darwinian debates started
in the 19th century,
continued through the 20th century, and showno signsof
diminishing in the 21st century.
The Huxley–Wilberforce Debate
The most significant of the earlydebates between
evolution and religion occurred in
1860, just one year after the publication of On the
Origin of Species. Thomas Henry Hux-
ley (1824–1895), an English biologist known as
“Darwin’sbulldog” for the ferocious way
he defended evolution, and Bishop Samuel
Wilberforce (1805–1873) of the Church of

Darwin was able to keep quiet about his faltering religious
conviction simply by not mentioning
God in any of his letters to Innes. Even when consoling Innes
on his mother’s death, Darwin made
no mention of God and told him “one cannot have a higher
satisfaction” than knowing “how excel-
lent a son you have been” (Darwin, 1961, p. 204). For a
theologian with a strong faith in the afterlife,
Darwin’s consolation must have seemed superficial and hollow.
This absence of religious discussion
in Darwin’s correspondence to Innes is an indication of
Darwin’s desire to separate his work in biol-
ogy from religion and to remain silent about his agnosticism.
Since religion was mostly absent from Darwin’s letters to Innes,
the content of the correspondence
consisted of personal information and natural history. Darwin
kept Innes informed on his latest
scientific work and responded to Innes’s questions relating to
natural history. Innes was obviously
interested in the field as he responded to Darwin with questions
on barnacles, albino donkeys,
canary offspring, white rabbits with black-tipped ears, and
hybrid crosses between a cow and buck.
While at times Innes disagreed with the theories Darwin
proposed, they both attempted to maintain
the respect and friendship of the other. Darwin was concerned
that Innes (and the community at
large) would think him “an outcast & a reprobate” after the
publication of The Descent of Man (Dar-
win, 1961, p. 237). Innes simply replied that it was a “charming
book” with many “interesting facts,”
but he could not accept the theory on which they were founded
(Darwin, 1961, p. 235).
The underlying theme of these letters between Darwin and Innes

was one of mutual respect between
friends with radically different beliefs concerning the creation
of life on Earth. Darwin observed, “We
often differed, but you [Innes] are one of those rare mortals,
from which one can differ & yet feel no
shade of animosity” (Darwin, 1961, p. 232). While animosity
was lacking in Darwin’s personal concep-
tion of science and religion, the Darwinian legacy was creating
a war pitting naturalists and theolo-
gians against each other on the ideological battlefield of
evolution by natural selection.
1. What can we learn by looking at the correspondence between
Darwin and the vicar?
2. What did Innes mean when he wrote: If “your naturalists, and
my ritualist friends were to hear us
two saying civil things to each other, they would say the
weather was going to change”?
Darwin’s Letters to a Vicar (continued)
147
England met at the British Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of
Science. The result of the debate
was actually far less conclusive
than the public perceived. Those
supporting science shaped a

“myth” that emerged from the
discussion and as a result many
educated people began accept-
ing evolutionism, with no room
for a God in any aspect of cre-
ation. Huxley advanced the idea
of “scientific naturalism,” which
operated completely on materi-
alistic principles and excluded
the need for design by a super-
natural being (Bowler & Morus,
2005, p. 356). The debate, how-
ever, was just beginning.
The Tyndall–Porter Debate
The confrontation between John Tyndall and the
religious community illustrates the fight
between the zealous proponents of the Darwinian
theory and devout creationist theo-
logians. The opening salvo of this debate came
from Tyndall’s presidential address to
the British Association for the Advancement of
Science in August 1874 in Belfast. The
response was from J. L. Porter, a minister from
Belfast, whose essay was included in a
series of lectures refuting specific claims from
Tyndall’s address.
Tyndall (1820–1893) was an Irish-born physicist, science
lecturer, and writer who was the
superintendent of the Royal Institution and
president of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science. In his address, Tyndall
referred to the theory of evolution as a
“doctrine” and argued that the strength of the

Darwinian concept of evolution was “in
its general harmony with scientific thought” (Tyndall,
1897, p. 194). Tyndall proceeded
to describe “Mr. Darwin’s views” on evolution and
natural selection as part of science’s
“unrestricted right of search” and the “inexorable
advance of man’s understanding” (Tyn-
dall, 1897, p. 201).
Porter began his retaliationby saying, “There
can be no peace [between science and reli-
gion] until each is rigidly confined to its own
sphere” (Porter, 1875, p. 5). Porter decided
to attempt a “searching logical analysis” and
offer a critique of On the Origin of Species
(Porter, 1875, pp. 7, 23). The faults of the
book, according to Porter, were the absence of
the “missing link,” the inability to test the
evolutionary hypothesis by observing species
originate, and Darwin’s hiding behind an “infinite
past.” In otherwords, saying that the
Earth was millions or billions of years old
and that anything could happen really proved
nothing at all. Porter concluded that Darwin was
not a scientist and that his work was
not scientific because “[s]cience has its basisin
observation; and the things [that Darwin
studies] are outside the field of observation” (Porter,
1875, p. 22). However, the cultural
Thomas Huxley ardently defended Darwin at meetings,
including those of the London School Board.

Image copyright Dave Coadwell, 2014. Used under license from
Shutterstock, Inc.
148
legacy of the Darwinian theory was wielded by
people such as Tyndall and Porter with
a personal vendetta against their perceived opponents.
It was this type of debate that
extended into the 20th century.
The Monkey Trial
In the 1920s, the term Christian Fundamentalism was
coined by those who fought what
they perceived as the lapsein morality and the belief
in cultural relativism. An important
aspect of many Fundamentalists’ belief
structures is a literal reading of the Bible.
With
the rise of theseChristian Fundamentalists, the
Darwinian debate was renewed in the
United States.
The collision course between Fundamentalism and
evolution cameto a head in 1925 at the
so-called Scopes Monkey Trial (Numbers, 1998).
This case involved John T. Scopes, a Ten-
nessee high school teacher accused of presenting
evolution as fact in his science class. This
was illegal because the Tennesseelegislature had
previously passed a law that forbade the

instruction of evolution to students in this
manner. Noted attorneys and orators handled
both sides, with Clarence Darrow defending Scopes
and William Jennings Bryan serving
the prosecution. The debate caused a national
media frenzy, and Hollywood captured this
storyin the 1960 film Inherit the Wind. Though the
jury sided with the prosecution and fined
Darrow $100, the case dem-
onstrated a rift between sci-
ence and religion that con-
tinued throughout the 20th
century.
The Intelligent
Design Debate
The idea of a “designer” of
the universe is one that dates
back to antiquity. Platocalled
this designer the “demiurge”
while Aristotle preferred
the “un-moved mover.” In
the 13th century theologian
Thomas Aquinas called
design the “fifth proof of
God’s existence” in his Summa Theologiae. Deists
in the 18th century used the “watch-
maker analogy” of a God that designed the
universe like an intricate clock, wound it
up, and then let it run. By the 19th century
William Paley had replaced this term with
Natural Theology, also the title of a book that he
published in 1802, which led to the col-

lection of fossils and otherartifacts of the natural
world as a way to appreciateGod’s
creation. The subtitle of Paley’s book indicated the
central position of his theory: “evi-
dences of the existence and attributes of the deity
collected from the appearances of
nature” (Paley, 1802). Despite the publication of
On the Origin of Species nearly 50 years
Clarence Darrow (left) and William Jennings Bryan (right).
Library of Congress
149
later, the idea of a designer remained ingrained in
the culture. In the early1980s, a new
variant of this concept emerged with The Mystery of
Life’s Origin (Thaxton, Bradley, &
Olsen, 1984).
Encouraged to publish this work by the Foundation
for Thought and Ethics (FTE), Thax-
ton was both a chemist and a creationist and
decided that “intelligent design” was a
much better term than “creationism.” His central
argument was that life was too complex
a phenomenon for natural causes to explain.
Since natural cause acted only on random
chance, it was impossible for the complexity of
the first cell to simply emerge. The only

way this could happen is through the mediation of
an intelligentcreator. Though the
work of the Intelligent Design (ID) community
had little influence in the world of sci-
ence, followers devoted their attention to the public
classrooms, attempting to add their
views to high school biology curricula that only
taught evolution. In 1989 FTE published
a book called Of Pandas and People which attempted to
convince high school teachers
and scientists of the importance of intelligentdesign
(Davis, Kenyon, & Thaxton, 1989).
Again, therewas little response.
The Center for Science and Culture
There are many examples today of the debate between
Intelligent Design and Darwinism. Most come
to the discussion with a preconceived allegiance to a Darwinian
or a creation-based belief in the ori-
gins of life. One example in support of Intelligent Design is the
Center for Science and Culture. It began
in 1996 with four main goals. These include: (1) to support the
work of scientists and other research-
ers that challenge Darwinism; (2) to support the work of those
investigating Intelligent Design; (3) to
support scholars who examine the effects of scientific
materialism on culture; and (4) to encourage all
school systems to better teach evolutionary theory by including
its scientific weaknesses as well as its
strengths (http://www.discovery.org/csc/aboutCSC.php). Today
the center has 40 Fellows that include
biologists, biochemists, chemists, physicists, philosophers and
historians of science, and public policy
and legal experts. Many of them have held university positions,
including Stephen Meyer, who holds

a Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of science from
Cambridge University. Other Intelligent Design
proponents have academic ties, such as Michael Behe who has
taught at Lehigh University of Pennsyl-
vania. He is notable as a Creationist who does not reject
evolutionary theory.
1. If Darwin lived today, what do you think his reaction would
be to the Center for Science and Culture?
2. Why do you think that this center chose to include the terms
science and culture in its name?
This lack of notice changed in 1991 when Phillip
Johnson, a law professor at the University
of California at Berkeley, wrote Darwin on Trial, the
first book about intelligentdesign that
gained worldwide attention. In part the notoriety
camebecause the book marked the first
instance of a professor at a major secular
university writing a book advocating an
antievolu-
tionary stance. Other major publications
followed such as Darwin’s Black Box by Lehigh
Uni-
versity biochemist Michael Behe (1996). Behe’s
book marked a “high pointin ID’s efforts to
cast itselfas a science” (Ruse & Travis, 2009,
p. 378). It is important to note that the
Intelligent
Design movementdoes not as a whole believe in
a literal interpretation of Genesis—that the
world was created in six 24-hour days. Nor do
ID practitioners suggest that the Earth is

but
10,000 years old and that the flood of Noah
has been the only significant geological event
http://www.discovery.org/csc/aboutCSC.php
150
in our planet’s history. However, according to Arthur
McCalla, the ID theorists generally
believe that “evolutionary theory is one of the
principal causes of modern society’s cata-
strophic abandonment of biblical values and [have]
the corresponding goal of reintroducing
supernatural explanations into science as the
remedy” (McCalla, 2006, p. 191).
The controversy leadsto this question: Is intelligent
design science? The National Acad-
emy of Sciences has weighed in on this issue. In
its publication Science and Creationism, ID
is not considered a science. The academy argues
the following: “Creationism, intelligent
design, and otherclaims of supernatural intervention
in the origin of life or of species
are not science because they are not testable by
the methods of science. These claims sub-
ordinate observed data to statements based on
authority, revelation, or religious belief”
(Young & Largent, 2007, p. 280).
Darwin and the Pope

Where did Darwin end up in this debate? In
1860 after the publication of On the Origin of
Species, he wrote a series of letters to
Harvard botanist Asa Gray. As a supporter of
Dar-
win’s theories, Gray was also deeply religious. Darwin
wrote:
This [issue of design] is always painful to
me. I am bewildered. I had no
intention to write atheistically . . . . I cannot
anyhow be contented to view
this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of
man, and to conclude
that everything is the result of bruteforce. .
. . I grieve to say that I cannot
honestly go as far as you do about Design. I
am conscious that I am in an
utterly hopeless muddle. I cannot thinkthat the
world, as we see it, is the
result of chance; and yet I cannot look at
each separate thingas the result of
Design . . . . Again, I say I am,
and shall ever remain, in a hopeless muddle.
(Darwin, 1888, pp. 105, 140)
Today many scientists and theologians are still
seeking a way out of this “muddle.”To do
this they replace interpretations of conflict with new
models of complexity. Roman Catho-
lic theologian John F. Haught recently wrote
that “Darwin has gifted us with an account
of life whose depth, beauty, and pathos—when
seen in the context of the larger cosmic
epic of evolution—expose us afresh to the raw
reality of the sacred and to a resoundingly

meaningful universe” (Haught, 2008, p. 2). The
Catholic Church as a whole has supported
Darwinian evolution, without dispensing of an
omnipotent God. In 1996, Pope John Paul
II issued the following official comment on
evolution:
In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor
Pius XII has already
affirmed that thereis no conflict between evolution
and the doctrine of the
faith regarding man and his vocation, provided that we do
not lose sight of
certain fixedpoints. Today, more than a half-century
after the appearance
of that encyclical, somenew findings lead us toward
the recognition of
evolution as more than an hypothesis. (Drees, 2010,
p. 15)
In 2009 the Vatican hosted a Darwin conference
which marked the 150th anniversary of
the publication of On the Origin of Species.
151
CHAPTER 6Chapter Closing
Chapter Closing
Debate has been one of the constants that surround
the relationships between Darwin, the idea of
evolution, and its cultural reception. This debate

has taken many forms over the past two
centuries. Initially it was waged among
scientists
who wrestled with the implications of evolution more
from the realm of philosophy.
It was Darwin who moved this discussion to
the realm of science with his theory of
evolution by natural selection. While almost
immediately otherscientists accepted his
theory of evolution, it was not until the 20th century
that the vast majority of scientists
accepted his mechanism for evolution—natural
selection. That does not mean that the
evolutionary debates ended. Instead they transitioned
to cultural and religious debates
as the implication of humanity evolving from apes
was far more than an abstract sci-
entific idea. Instead it touched the core of what it
meant to be alive and in somecases
challenged long-standing religious convictions. This
debate continues today, and while
most scientists side with Darwin, others wish to
emphasize that his work was a mere
theory and that othercompeting theories such as
intelligentdesign deserve equal atten-
tion in the classroom. These debates promise to
continue as scientists and otherscholars
continue to challenge each otheron the existence of
life, the nature of humanity, and its
place within culture.
152
CHAPTER 6Chapter Closing

iStock/Thinkstock
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Hemera/Thinkstock
1806: Medical
Advancements
1802: Natural Theology
The study of chemistry
helps improve medical
diagnosis and treatment.
In 1806, morphine is used
as well as quinine
(in 1820) to fight illnesses.
1859: On the Origin of Species
Charles Darwin’s contr oversial book on the theory of
the evolution of species is published in 1859. Charles

Darwin is also of an ex ample of the transition between
the amateur to the professional.
1871:
Charles Darwin publishes
The Descent of Man in 1871,
where Darwin uses science
to argue that humans all
descended from a
common ancestor.
Wi lliam Paley’s publication in 1802,
Natural Theology , supports the idea
of a deity creating natur e. The Intelligent
Design debate lasts throughout the
era and continues today.
France is the
center of the
Enlightenment
and the French
Revolution
marks the end
of the era.
The period after the Enlightenment is Romanticism,
which is also known as the Age of Reflection. Germany
is the center of the Romantic period.
ystem in American Universities
Intellectual specialization is taken from the

German model and applied to American universities.
By 1853, Yale University divides chemistry and natural
philosophy. By 1865, natural history is divided into
geology and botany.
1874: Tyndall and Porter Debate
1860: Huxley-
Wilberforce Debate
The evolution and religion debate continues with a
physicist, John Tyndall, and a minister, J. L. Por ter. It
begins when Tyndall lectures at the British Association
for the Advancement of Science in August 1874.
One of the earliest debates
between evolution and
religion comes a year
after the On the
Origin of Species
is published. It
is between an
English biologist
Thomas Henry
Huxley and Bishop
Samuel Wilberforce.
1
7
8
0
1
9
3
0

1925: Scopes Monkey Trial
The Darwinian debates continue with
the Scopes Monkey Trial when a high
school biology teacher, John T.
Scopes, is placed on trial
for teaching evolution
in his classroom.
1789–1799:
The French
Revolution
Timeline 6.1: Romanticism, Charles Darwin, and the Darwinian
Debates
153
CHAPTER 6Concept Check
Concept Check
1. Which country in the 19th century led the
way toward and was most closely
associatedwith the development of professional
specialization?
A. Germany
B. France
C. England
D. United States

2. The scientific idea of a greatchain of being
placed what at the top of the ladder?
A. God
B. angels
C. humans
D. animals
3. According to Darwin, what is the mechanism
of evolution?
A. artificial selection
B. natural selection
C. inherited traits
D. acquired traits
4. Who is discussed in association with the
ideasknown as “social Darwinism”?
A. Darwin
B. Wallace
C. Edmonstone
D. Spencer
5. The Monkey Trial focused on which of the
following?
A. The attempt to pass a law allowing the
teaching of evolution
B. The right of parents to teach their
children controversial scientific theories
C. A high school science teacher presenting
evolution as fact
D. A minister teaching the congregation about
evolution
Answers
1. A. The answer can be found in Section
6.1, Nineteenth-Century Information Excess.

2. A. The answer can be found in Section
6.2, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck.
3. B. The answer can be found in Section
6.3, Natural Selection.
4. D. The answer can be found in Section
6.4, Social Darwinism.
5. C. The answer can be found in Section
6.5, The Monkey Trial.
154
CHAPTER 6Key Terms to Remember
Key Ideas to Remember
• Romanticism was broadly concerned with questions
related to self-understand-
ing, such as: What is beauty? What is God?
What are man and woman? What is
the natural world, and whose creation was it?
• The concerns about 19th-century information
excess in part led to the develop-
ment of scientific specialization.
• Key advances in medical science, such as the
germtheory of disease and the
apparatus used to treat and diagnose illness, brought
significant changes to the
discipline.

• Darwin was not the originator of the theory of
evolution; in fact, scientists had
debated evolution sincethe 18th century.
• Darwin gathered the research for his theory of
evolution by natural selection dur-
ing his oceanic voyages in the 1830s, but he
did not publish his theory until 1859
in his book On the Origin of Species.
• The debates over Darwin’s ideashave continued today
with Intelligent Design.
Even though thereis religious support for evolution
from Catholics, a minority of
scientists and religious fundamentalists reject
evolution.
Critical Thinking Questions
1. How does the reciprocity between the French
Revolution and science match that
of the modern state and its relationship with modern
scientific activity? Explain
your answer.
2. In what ways does the 19th-century era known as
Romanticism compare and
contrast with the period of the Enlightenment in
the 18th century?
3. How did the concerns about 19th-century
information excess shape the organiza-
tion, structure, and pursuit of science?
4. Explain someof the most significant advances in
medical science in the 19th

century.
5. Who were someof the scholars that considered
evolutionary ideasbefore Darwin?
How did their ideascontrast with his?
6. Why did Darwin wait so long to publish
On the Origin of Species?
7. What explains the persistent discussion and
debate of Darwin’s theory of evo-
lution even though it was first published over 150
years ago? Why hasn’t the
debate concluded?
8. Do you thinkthat Darwin could have developed
his theories of evolution without
having taken his five-year ocean voyage? Why or
why not?
Key Terms to Remember
agnostic One who believes that it is
impossible for a human to know if a
God does or does not exist.
artificial selection The process used by
animal and plantbreeders to perpetuate a
favorable trait in offspring.
atheist One who believes that thereis
no God.
great chain of being The idea of a
divinely inspired hierarchy of life from
simple to complex organisms.

155
CHAPTER 6Key Terms to Remember
inheritance of acquired characteristics
The evolutionary mechanism supported
by someof Darwin’s predecessors such
as Lamarck.
materialist Onewho believes that all mat-
ter, motion, thought, and life in the uni-
verse are based upon material, as opposed
to spiritual, actions.
natural selection Charles Darwin’s mech-
anism for evolution by which organisms
with favorable traitsare better able to sur-
vive. They will then pass thesefavorable
traitson to succeeding generations.
Romanticism A literary and artistic move-
ment that emerged in the late 18th century
as a reaction against the Enlightenment
and became stronger in the first part of the
19th century.
social Darwinism A term that describes
the transfer of Darwin’s ideasin the
biological realm to the social realm. Often
associatedwith the phrase coined by
Herbert Spencer, “survival of the fittest,”
it supports the tolerance for social pro-
grams that do not help those who cannot

support themselves.
Richards, Robert J.. Charles Darwin.
: Wiley-Blackwell, . p 33
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