This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Reference
See J. W. Atkinson, “The Importance of the History of Science to the American Society of Zoologists,” Amer. Zool., 19 (1979), 1243–46; M. Rudwick, “Senses of the Natural World and Senses of God: Another Look at the Historical Relation of Science and Religion,” in The Sciences and Theology in the Twentieth Century, ed. A. R. Peacocke (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), pp. 241–261.
An excellent example of this kind of analysis is J. Maienschein, “Experimental Biology in Transition: Harrison's Embryology, 1895–1910” in Studies in the History of Biology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), VI, 107–127.
E. M. Gerson, “Styles of Scientific Work and the Population Realignment in Biology, 1880–1930” (unpublished paper presented at Summer Conference on History and Philosophy of Biology, Denison University, July 18–22, 1983); J. Maienschein, personal communication.
With very rare exceptions over the last thirty years, scientists have tended to shun the writing of popular works for lay audiences; see P. A. Carter, “Science and the Common Man,” Amer. Schol., 45 (1976), 778–794. That this trend had begun as early as 1915 is suggested by Conklin's comment about scientists' “losing caste among extreme specialists” when they write for the general public; see E. G. Conklin, “The Cultural Value of Zoology,” Science, 41 (1915), 333–337. Recently, attitudes seem to be changing as scientists are recognizing a growing public discontent with science.
The present report is confined to published sources. A thorough analysis of Conklin's ideas awaits a careful scrutiny of his private papers — correspondence, manuscripts, and the like — housed at Princeton University. The value of a study such as this is directly related to the degree to which the ideas of one individual can be related to general questions about the nature of the scientific enterprise and its cultural role. The following discussion is undertaken despite the realization that many questions must be raised without conclusive answers; furthermore, even where answers are provided, examination of Conklin's private papers may require these conclusions to be modified or even abandoned.
A. Richards, “Edwin Grant Conklin,” Bios, 6 (1935), 187–211; A. C. Clement, “Edwin Grant Conklin,” Amer. Zool., 19 (1979), 1255–59; J. Maienschein, “Shifting Assumptions in American Biology: Embryology, 1890–1910,” J. Hist. Biol., 14 (1981), 89–113.
F. R. Lillie, The Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944).
A complete bibliography of Conklin's published work may be found in E. N. Harvey, “Edwin Grant Conklin,” Biog. Mem., Nat. Acad. Sci., (U.S.) 31 (1958), 54–91. The distinction between popular works and professional work is not always easily made. Some of Conklin's papers clearly belong in one category or the other based on the periodical in which they appeared (for example, Scribner's Magazine and the Journal of Experimental Zoology). Others, particularly those published in Science, can be classified only on the basis of content and style.
“Science,” Time, 34 (July 3, 1939), 39–42.
See Richards, “Edwin Grant Conklin”; E. G. Butler, “Memorial — Edwin Grant Conklin, 1863–1952,” Biol. Bull., 107 (1954), 12–14; A. C. Clement, “Edwin Grant Conklin,” Dict. Amer. Biog., Supp. 5 (1977), 127–128; idem, “Edwin Grant Conklin,” Amer. Zool.; Harvey, “Edwin Grant Conklin”; H. H. Plough, “Edwin Grant Conklin, 1863–1952,” Genetics, 39 (1954), 1–3; G. E. Allen, “Conklin, Edwin Grant,” Dict. Sci. Biog., 3 (1971), 389–391. Although teleology played a very important part in Conklin's ideas only Butler mentions it; and he does so in such a neutral way that it is impossible to tell whether Conklin favored it or opposed it.
Krutch's book The Modern Temper was first published in 1929 and was reissued by Doubleday in 1956.
W. B. Gatewood, Preachers, Pedagogues and Politicians (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966), p. 7.
W. B. Gatewood, Preachers, Pedagogues and Politicians (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966), p. 7. See also W. B. Gatewood, Controversy in the Twenties: Fundamentalism, Modernism and Evolution (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1969); F. L. Allen, Only Yesterday (New York: Harper, 1931).
R. L. Hartt, quoted in Gatewood, Controversy, p. 11.
W. E. Dodd, quoted in Gatewood, Controversy, p. 6.
J. R. Moore, The Post-Darwinian Controversies: A Study of the Protestant Struggle to Come to Terms with Darwin in Great Britain and America, 1870–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
W. E. Dodd, quoted in Gatewood, Controversy, p. 19.
N. F. Furniss, The Fundamentalist Controversy, 1918–1931 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954).
“Deny Science Wars Against Religion, Forty Scientists, Clergymen and Prominent Educators Attack ‘Two Erroneous Views,’” New York Times, May 27, 1923, Sec. 1, p. 1.
E. G. Conklin, “Edwin Grant Conklin,” in Thirteen Americans, Their Spiritual Autobiographies, ed. L. Finkelstein (New York: Harper, 1953), pp. 47–76.
E. G. Conklin, “Edwin Grant Conklin,” in Thirteen Americans, Their Spiritual Autobiographies, ed. L. Finkelstein (New York: Harper, 1953), pp. 56–57. Conklin recounts how, as an undergraduate, he heard a professor rail against Darwin. When asked if he had read the Origin of Species, the professor stated he had not and would not “touch it with a ten-foot pole.” In response, Conklin read the Origin and became an evolutionist.
A. C. Clement, personal communication; J. R. Shaver, personal communication. In his “spiritual autobiography” Conklin states that he was imbued with a love of teaching when he taught in a small country school during a year off from his own college education. See Conklin, “Edwin Grant Conklin.”
As an undergraduate, Conklin was noted for his ability in formal debates (Richards, “Edwin Grant Conklin”; Conklin, “Edwin Grant Conklin”), perhaps indicating an inclination toward involvement in public controversy. Such a disposition may have been reinforced by his association with W. K. Brooks, to whom has been attributed “a love for speculation and popularization.” M. D. McCullough, “W. K. Brooks' Role in the History of American Biology,” J. Hist. Biol., 2 (1969), 411–438, 435.
H. F. Osborn, Evolution and Religion in Education: Polemics of the Fundamentalist Controversy of 1922 to 1926 (New York: Scribner, 1926).
It was about William Jennings Bryan that Conklin remarked: “Apparently Mr. Bryan demands to see a monkey or an ass transformed into a man, though he must be familiar enough with the reverse process.” E. G. Conklin, “Bryan and Evolution,” New York Times, March 5, 1922, sec. 7, p. 14.
E. G. Conklin, The Direction of Human Evolution (New York: Scribners, 1921), pp. 6–7. “The Future of America, a Biological Forecast,” anonymous article published in Harper's Magazine April 1928, 529–539. This essay, attributed to Conklin by both Richards, “Edwin Grant Conklin,” and Harvey, “Edwin Grant Conklin,” strikes a more pessimistic tone regarding the future. Conklin's private papers may shed light on the possible difference between his personal views and his acknowledged public views.
E. G. Conklin, “The Cultural Value of Zoology,” Science, 41 (1915), 333–337, 337.
E. G. Conklin, The Direction of Human Evolution (New York: Scribners, 1921), p. 16.
E. G. Conklin, “Science and Ethics,” Science, 86 (1937), 595–603, 596.
E. G. Conklin, “Has Progressive Evolution Come to an End?” Natural History, 19 (1919), 35–39; idem, Direction of Human Evolution; idem, “Science and Progress,” Collecting Net, 8 (September 9, 1933), 353–356, 404; idem, Man, Real and Ideal: Observations and Reflections on Man's Nature, Development and Destiny (New York: Scribners, 1943).
Conklin, Man, Real and Ideal, p. 42.
Ibid., p. 205.
Ibid., p. 237.
Conklin, “Edwin Grant Conklin”.
Ibid., pp. 58–59.
E. G. Conklin, The Direction of Human Evolution (New York: Scribners). (1921), pp. 167–168.
Conklin, Man, Real and Ideal.
Conklin, “Science and Ethics.”
Conklin, Direction of Human Evolution.
Conklin, “Science and Ethics,” p. 602.
Ibid., p. 601.
Conklin, Man, Real and Ideal, p. 199.
Conklin, “A Biologist's Religion,” in Has Science Discovered God? ed. E. H. Cotten (Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1931), pp. 75–89, 86.
E. G. Conklin, The Direction of Human Evolution (New York: Scribners, 1921), pp. 212–213.
E. G. Conklin, The Direction of Human Evolution (New York: Scribners, 1921), p. 216.
Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974).
Conklin, Man, Real and Ideal, p. 110.
E. G. Conklin, “What Shapes Our Ends?” Amer. Schol., 6 (1937), 225–235, 235.
E. G. Conklin, “The Relation of the Psychic Life to the Nervous System,” Sci. Amer., supp. (Sept. 13 and 20, 1902).
E. G. Conklin, “The Religion of Nature,” Yale Rev., 10 (1921), 639–643. Conklin seems to have been particularly impressed with L. J. Henderson's Fitness of the Environment to which he referred his readers in this and many of his subsequent writings.
E. G. Conklin, “Ends as Well as Means in Life and Evolution,” Trans. N.Y. Acad. Sci., ser. 2, 6 (1944), 125–136, 136.
E. G. Conklin, “The Biological Future,” Sci. News Letter, 43 (1943), 149–150.
E. Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution and Inheritance (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, Harvard University Press, 1982).
G. E. Allen, “Naturalists and Experimentalists: The Genotype and the Phenotype,” in Studies in the History of Biology, ed. W. Coleman and C. Limoges (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), III, 179–209, 191.
E. G. Conklin, “Edwin Grant Conklin,” in Thirteen Americans, Their Spiritual Autobiographies, ed. L. Finkelstein (New York: Harper, 1953), p. 71.
E. G. Conklin, “The Mechanism of Evolution in the Light of Heredity and Development,” Sci. Monthly, December 1919, 481–505; January 1920, 52–62; February 1920, 170–181; March 1920, 269–291; April 1920, 388–403; May 1920, 496–515. These articles were the William Ellery Hale Lectures presented by Conklin to the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. (April 16 and 18, 1917).
E. G. Conklin, “The Mutation Theory from the Standpoint of Cytology,” Science, N.S., 21 (1905), 525–529. This article appears to be an expansion of a brief discussion of mutation included at the end of Conklin's monograph on ascidian development: “The Organization and Cell-Lineage of the Ascidian Egg,” J. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 2nd ser., 13 (1905) I, 1–119. It falls in a gray area between obviously popular works and professional reports of specialized research. See note 8.
Conklin, “Mutation Theory,” p. 529. Conklin makes the same statement in the ascidian monograph, using almost identical words. The reference to inverse symmetry pertains to Conklin's work on the reversal of cleavage direction, which is associated with the appearance of a strain of sinistral snails of the genus Limnea.
E. Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution and Inheritance, (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, Harvard University Press, 1982). pp. 546–550.
Conklin, “Mechanism of Evolution.”
Conklin, “Ends as Well as Means”, p. 136. Note also that Allen and mcCullough, in an article describing Conklin's private papers, claim that Conklin became “an outspoken advocate of natural selection coupled with small mutations as the all-sufficient mechanism for evolutionary change.” G. E. Allen and D. M. mcCullough, “Notes on Source Materials: The Edwin Grant Conklin Papers at Princeton University,” J. Hist. Biol., 1 (1968), 325–331. Their conclusion is not borne out by an investigation of Conklin's popular works.
E. G. Conklin, “The Factors of Organic Evolution from the Standpoint of Embryology,” in Foot-Notes to Evolution: A Series of Popular Addresses on the Evolution of Life, ed. D. S. Jordon (New York: Appleton, 1898).
Conklin, “Ends as Well as Means.”
E. G. Conklin, “The World's Debt to Darwin,” Proc. Am. Phil. Soc., 48 (1909), xxxviii-lvii.
V. Hamburger, “Embryology and the Modern Synthesis in Evolutionary Theory,” in The Evolutionary Synthesis, ed. E. Mayr and W. B. Provine (Cambridge: Mass., Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. 97–112, 98.
Mayr. Growth of Biological Thought. I find it difficult to classify Conklin's thought in Mayr's categories of essentialist vs. population thinking. Mayr suggests that population thinking was necessary for acceptance of the synthesis. Conklin's involvement with embryology did not draw him toward population concerns, yet his many discussions of human evolution and eugenics suggest an appreciation of variation within groups.
Gatewood, Preachers, Pedagogues and Politicians.
E. Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution and Inheritance (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, Harvard University Press, 1982). p. 48; J. Bowker, “Did God Create This Universe?” in The Sciences and Theology in the Twentieth Century, ed. A. R. Peacocke (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), pp. 98–126.
E. G. Conklin, “Edwin Grant Conklin,” in Thirteen Americans, Their Spiritual Autobiographies, ed. L. Finkelstein (New York: Harper, 1953), p. 60.
Conklin, Direction of Human Evolution. The attribution of progress and purpose to evolution because of the embryonic metaphor is not unique to Conklin; it also played a part in Von Baer's rejection of Darwinism. See G. S. Carter, A Hundred Years of Evolution (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1957).
G. E. Allen, “The Evolutionary Synthesis: Morgan and Natural Selection Revisited,” in The Evolutionary Synthesis, ed. E. Mayr and W. B. Provine (Cambridge: Mass., Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. 356–382. See also in the same volume A. Weinstein, “Morgan and the Theory of Natural Selection,” pp. 432–445. Note that Carter, A Hundred Years of Evolution, claims that Von Baer rejected Darwinism because he believed in teleology, whereas Allen suggests that Morgan rejected natural selection because he rejected teleology. This paradox suggests an interesting change in the meaning of “natural selection” from Von Baer in the nineteenth century to Morgan in the twentieth.
G. E. Allen, “The Evolutionary Synthesis: Morgan and Natural Selection Revisited,”, in The Evolutionary Synthesis, ed. E. Mayr and W. B. Provine (Cambridge: Mass., Harvard University Press, 1980) pp. 379–380. See also Th. Dobzhansky, “Morgan and his School in the 1930s,” in Mayr and Provine, The Evolutionary Synthesis, pp. 445–452.
Allen, “Evolutionary Synthesis.” See also G. E. Allen, “T. H. Morgan and the Influence of Mechanistic Materialism on the Development of the Gene Concept 1910–1940,” Amer. Zool., 23 (1983), 829–843.
E. G. Conklin, The Direction of Human Evolution (New York: Scribners, (1921), p. 195. Conklin's acceptance of the limitations of science and the existence of progress and purpose allowed him to avoid the positivist paradox that Greene has pointed out in the writngs of later evolution popularizers such as Julian Huxley and G. G. Simpson—a paradox in which science, having no value component yet being the sole source of truth, cannot justify its own worth. See J. C. Greene, Science, Ideology and World View (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981).
Conklin, “What Shapes Our Ends?”
For a discussion of both Morgan's and Smuts's ideas, see I. G. Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1966), pp. 396–397. For a discussion of Morgan's ideas, see J. Dillenberger, Protestant Thought and Natural Science (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1960).
In Man, Real and Ideal Conklin states, “I am in entire agreement with his [Smuts's] conclusion that ‘If life and mind have arisen in and from matter, then the universe ceases to be a purely physical mechanism, and the system which results must provide a real place for the factors of life and mind’” (p. 100).
E. A. White, Science and Religion in American Thought: The Impact of Naturalism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1952).
In a very brief consideration of Conklin's religious beliefs, E. L. Long classified Conklin as a “theistic humanist” who later moved toward agnosticism. He appears to have been unaware of Conklin's early rejection of supernaturalism. E. L. Long, Religious Beliefs of American Scientists (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1952).
See White, Science and Religion.
One finds very few published reviews of Conklin's work, particularly by antievolutionists. His private papers may reveal more in the way of fundamentalist response.
See Clement, “Edwin Grant Conklin,” Dict. Amer. Biog., p. 128; Plough, “Edwin Grant Conklin, 1863–1952,” p. 1.
See preface to 1956 reissue of J. W. Krutch, Modern Temper, p. xi.
Ibid., p. xviii.
R. N. Anshen, “Man the Microcosm”, in Science and Man, ed. R. N. Anshen (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1942), p. 472.
Conklin's public disavowal of the supernatural indicates that his conception of Christ was that of a great teacher rather than an incarnation of the Deity. Because of his upbringing and ethical position, Conklin probably considered himself to be a Christian. His private papers may reveal more on this point.
E. Benz, Evolution and Christian Hope, trans. H. G. Frank (New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1968). Conklin's writings lack the romantic hyperbole and are on firmer scientific ground than the publications of Teilhard de Chardin, yet the similarities are interesting and perhaps worth a more thorough comparative analysis than can be given in the present paper.
R. Sperry, Science and Moral Priority (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983).
E. G. Conklin, “Edwin Grant Conklin,” in Thirteen Americans, Their Spiritual Autobiographies, ed. L. Finkelstein (New York: Harper, 1953), p. 47.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Atkinson, J.W. E. G. Conklin on evolution: The popular writings of an embryologist. J Hist Biol 18, 31–50 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00127956
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00127956